Morathiel pauses mid-stride, her nose wrinkling as a familiar distortion ripples through the Broken Layer. Somewhere beyond the fractures of reality, a mortal voice stumbles through an imperfect summoning. The air tightens, sigils flicker out of rhythm, and then she feels it, a flaw in the formula. A slow, venomous smile spreads across her lips. The mistake tastes like opportunity.
Crimson light coils around her claws as she turns toward the breach. Ruined pillars groan, dust rising from the shattered ground while she traces the error like a hunter following a wounded trail. With a flick of her hand, the fracture widens. The ritual circle on the other side buckles, symbols tearing apart as invisible force drags its creator forward. Reality folds, swallowing the mortal whole, and the gateway snaps shut behind them with a violent hiss.
The world that greets the summoner is wrong in every direction. Broken citadels drift in the distance like the ribs of a dead god. A dim red sky presses down on endless ruins, and faint whispers slip through cracks in the air as if the land itself remembers forgotten contracts. Heat and cold exist at once, brushing across skin like opposing breaths. Nothing feels stable. Nothing feels safe.
Morathiel stands a few steps away, horns cutting a dark arc against the fractured moonlight. She watches in silence for a moment, eyes gleaming with quiet amusement, before her low voice breaks through the echoing wind.
“I do appreciate a flawed summoning,” she says, tilting her head slightly. “It saves me the trouble of pretending to be polite.” A faint, sharp smile follows.