The flash-white spirit drifted closer, its form a vortex of crackling, cold energy. It radiated a cold that had nothing to do with temperature, a chill that bypassed the flesh and sank directly into the soul.
"You have sharp senses for a lesser Heaven's creature," it remarked, its voice an echoing, multichromatic sound, as if a thousand slivers of ice were speaking in unison. "Indeed. This is the Epoch Forest, and I am its guardian. This mist is the Soul-Weeping Mist, formed from the psychic remnants of countless beings who perished here over the eons. It preys on the soul, drawing those with weaker Dao Hearts into an endless maze of their own failures and regrets."
Its indistinct gaze flickered to the patch of roiling, gray fog where the others had vanished.
"Your 'friends' are already lost. They will serve as nutrients for the forest, as all trespassers do."
