I stepped closer to the trembling phantom and rested my hand against its chest. The deathmist under its skin recoiled as if it already understood what was coming.
"Submit," I said quietly.
The Null Heart reacted instantly. A deep pull surged through my core, and the world around me thinned, like a layer of reality being peeled away. Sound faded first, then light, and finally the sensation of space itself collapsed.
When I blinked, I was no longer on the asteroid.
I stood in the familiar void the Null Heart always dragged me into, a place without sky or horizon, only a cracked stone ground stretching beneath my feet and an endless darkness pressing in from every side.
Ahead, the ancient door formed slowly out of the shadows. Its surface was covered in old runes that barely glowed, as though remembering a light they once knew. Dust slid down its frame as it settled into place.
