"Should be all right now..."
A few minutes had passed. Hiding in the Portable Space, Lorne felt that things outside seemed to have gone quiet.
"Is it over?"
Lorne hesitated over whether he should go out and check.
After all, the moment he stepped outside, he might find himself face-to-face with Amon's smiling, monocle-wearing face.
Although their earlier conversation had been brief, Lorne had already gained a profound understanding of just how insidious and unpredictable Amon was.
He could turn hostile at the drop of a hat.
He certainly deserved the title of "dangerous enemy" that Antigonus had given him.
So, to be safe, Lorne patiently waited a few more minutes inside the space.
When everything outside remained calm, with no sign of anyone probing around, Lorne recalled how Amon had looked on the verge of collapse and finally decided to go out and take a look.
"If that miserable state was just an act to fool me, there was no need for him to put himself in danger through self-mutilation... He could easily subdue me through sheer strength and the suppression of his level alone."
"Besides, that outburst caused quite a commotion. The Church's Beyonder teams will probably follow the traces here any moment."
Lorne had no desire to have his playing card picked up by the Official Forces, only to emerge underground beneath a church the next time he came out.
After repeatedly confirming that his spiritual intuition-which he had already begun to doubt-really detected nothing unusual, Lorne took a deep breath and left the Portable Space.
The moment his feet touched the ground, he saw a nauseating mess.
The monocle-wearing postman was gone. The previously damp ground was now carpeted with densely packed, shriveled, blackened, translucent worms. Their bodies were stiff and twisted, inexplicably threatening his sanity.