Her golden eyes fixed on Noah, a cold, analytical light within them.
"He killed many. His pride fed on every victory, growing more absolute with every Shore he consumed. Until he was no longer a being, but a monument to his own, insatiable ego."
"And then," she continued, her voice a low, dramatic murmur, "THE Creature descended. Not with the thunder of war, but with the quiet disappointment of a gardener who has found a beautiful, prized flower has become a venomous, strangling weed. It came to discipline. It raised its Goad, intending not to destroy, but to teach. To correct the imbalance. To impart the simple, necessary lesson of humility."
The illusion of THE Creature behind her raised its own Goad, the movement a slow, terrible echo of the story.
