Cain did not rush.
He did not raise his hand or shout or make a grand display of power the way the Emperor had done moments ago. He simply stood there, his presence quiet and steady, his eyes fixed on the man floating above as if he were looking at nothing more than a stubborn insect that had yet to understand it was already caught.
Then—
The ground answered him again.
But this time, it was different.
The tendrils that rose were no longer testing.
They were no longer probing.
They came with intent.
With hunger.
With a kind of violence that did not bother to hide itself anymore.
The earth split open beneath the Emperor in a wide circle, the cracks spreading outward like veins as something far larger forced its way through. What emerged next dwarfed everything that had come before, a thick mass of dark flesh that burst upward with such force that the air itself seemed to ripple around it.
From that mass, the tentacles surged.
Not a dozen.
Not even a hundred.
