Ian and the others continued forward without looking back, but the persistent low-frequency hum still followed in their footsteps, as if measuring the distance they traveled in its own way, using that distance to confirm whether its position remained traceable.
After crossing that empty gray-white expanse, the terrain ahead began to change. The ground was no longer smooth as a mirror. Slight rises and dips began to appear, as though some force had pushed it up from below before it sank again, forming uneven fractured zones. The edges of those fractures were covered in the same translucent film, their surfaces lacking any obvious reflection and making their outlines even blurrier.
Ian stopped at the edge of a fractured zone and looked at a section of wall that had lost its original shape. Its surface was covered in several layers of films of varying shades, as though the same area had been repeatedly covered at fixed intervals. He noticed a long, narrow crack along the side of the wall, its edges slightly curled. Rather than immediately approaching the crack, he first checked the surroundings for any other signs of movement.
He heard a sound coming from behind the wall. It differed from the low hums from before—it was closer to a rhythmic, heavy noise, as though some large object was moving across the ground at a steady pace, each step accompanied by a faint tremor.
Ian did not change direction. He continued along the crack for a while, then rounded the corner of the wall and saw the source of the sound.
A figure stood on the road ahead. It had once been Green Lantern Hal Jordan. Layer upon layer of gray-white markings covered his green uniform, and the original green had been veiled by corrosion, dim and blurred. The ring