The chaotic matter seemed to churn inside their minds, its incantation-like whispers pursuing their footsteps and thoughts.
Their strength rapidly dwindled amid the irregular exertion. Aches and the side effects of strenuous activity began to surface. Many had already tasted a faint, metallic sweetness on their breath, along with things that shouldn't have been there.
A sour, slightly spicy, bizarre taste—as if a wound were being cauterized as it healed. It seared their tongues, as though trying to sever the frenulum and free the organ to twist without restraint, expressing what it had tasted.
That thing made their eyes imagine staring straight into the midday sun, their skin remember splinters on wooden objects, and their throats recall accidentally swallowing boiling water.
Pain poured from the thing pursuing them, seeping through every barrier into every conscious mind.
There was no longer any way to trace when it had begun. Perhaps it had never stopped since the Chaos Entity arrived. It had grown more obvious as the distance closed and time passed, resonating with the pain in their bodies and minds.
A ship sailing through a storm couldn't tell when it had started taking on water. Nor could humanity's unsteady consciousness notice when it had begun to understand the thing pursuing it.
No one was still wondering where Kraft had gotten his directions. The reappearance of a path to safety sent them into a frenzy of joy. They raced in the direction indicated by the pattern without even wondering what awaited them at the end.
But to Kraft's senses, it was the suffocating agony of falling from an immense height, shattering into pieces, each conscious fragment sealed inside a box too cramped to move, then ground further into dust by endless time.
Through Spiritual Senses, that resonance was even clearer. With every