The trek back down through the hollowed-out floors of the fallen skyscraper was silent, illuminated entirely by the rhythmic, sickly-sweet glow of bioluminescent flora that had overgrown the ancient corporate architecture.
It wasn't until they slipped through the narrow gap in the stone—navigating the staggered, overlapping rock-fold Allison had shaped from solid bedrock—that the debate started.
"I'm just saying," Don said, wiping scalding coffee off his chin as they stepped onto the carpet of [Warlord's Star-Moss] that bathed Deep Karakorum in a soft, ethereal violet and blue light. "A flying manta ray makes zero evolutionary sense. It doesn't have lungs. How the hell was it swimming in the air?"
"It wasn't swimming in the air," Elias sighed, rubbing his temples like Don was giving him a migraine. "It's a localized gravity fracture. The creature is displacing ambient mana the same way a fish displaces water."
"It's a flying pancake, Thorne. Just admit it's weird."
