Steel blotted out the sunlight completely, plunging the blood and wreckage still churning from the explosion into a cold, gray gloom.
Thud.
The gangplank struck the ground with a dull, heavy sound.
A squad of fully armed Red Tide Knights quickly fanned out.
Louis led the way with steady strides, looking less like he was landing in enemy territory than inspecting his own backyard.
The air on this island was unbearable.
The stink of blood, burning, and overripe sweetness mingled together, as though someone had sealed fruit and corpses in a jar and left them to ferment for a month.
Pink mist drifted sluggishly between broken walls and towers, a mental contamination visible to the naked eye.
An ordinary soldier standing here would have had his brain cooked to mush within three breaths.
The knights' breathing grew noticeably heavier.
Cold sweat trickled down from beneath their helmets, and double images occasionally flickered across their vision, but no one stopped.
Louis showed little reaction.
The Primordial Heart within him turned at an unhurried pace, sending platinum starlight through his veins and throughout his body.
The illusions trying to burrow into his mind vanished with a hiss the instant they touched that light, like snowflakes falling onto a furnace.
He needed no map. That nauseating malice guided him like a lighthouse.
He passed through the corridor and climbed the stone steps before pushing open the monstrously heavy oak doors.
The door hinges screamed with the sound of years of neglect.
The sight inside the hall instantly tensed the muscles of the knights following him.
A throne stood in the center.
It was neither wood nor stone, but human skulls.
They had been polished smooth but assembled crookedly, and hundreds of empty eye sockets stared eerily at the entrance.
Two "people" stood beside