Chapter 25: I am Pixia
The single word ’Yes’ glowed on Ragnar’s phone screen. He pressed it.
For a moment, nothing happened. The Throne Room remained silent, the only sound the nervous breathing of Gob-bo, the little goblin emissary who had just delivered his master’s soul into Ragnar’s hands.
Then, the world broke.
BOOM!
It was not a sound, but a feeling. A deep, foundational tremor ripped through the very fabric of the dungeon. The stone floor beneath Ragnar’s feet didn’t just shake; it buckled and warped as if it were liquid. The air itself screamed, a high-pitched shriek of reality being torn apart and stitched back together. A violent shockwave of pure, untamed energy blasted outwards from the center of the room, a swirling vortex of his dungeon’s gloomy purple and the newcomer’s soft green. His obsidian throne groaned under the strain, and the dust of ages was blasted from the high, cavernous ceiling.
Ragnar watched, his new vampire senses overwhelmed, as the impossible happened.
The far wall of his Throne Room dissolved into a mist of flowing data, and through it, he saw another place. Rows upon rows of towering wooden bookshelves, filled with ancient, leather-bound tomes, flickered in and out of existence.
The scent of old paper and dust mingled with the smell of damp stone and ozone. His grim, functional fortress was merging with a cozy, academic library. It was the most jarring architectural fusion he had ever witnessed.
"This is going to be a nightmare for interior design," he muttered, his voice barely audible over the roaring chaos.