Blood pooled around Reed's fingers as he pressed his palm against the ancient stone. The artifacts embedded beneath his skin had cut through his flesh in their eagerness to connect with the primordial energy contained within the megalith. Pain meant nothing to him now—just another sensation to be cataloged and dismissed as his transformed consciousness processed information at speeds no human mind was meant to endure.
"This one is older than the others," he said, voice echoing strangely in the subterranean chamber. "Pre-dating even the Progenitors' earliest records."
Shia moved beside him, her transformed body gliding across the rough-hewn floor with preternatural grace. Where Reed's connection to the artifacts manifested as harsh, angular protrusions beneath his skin, Shia's had become like liquid metal flowing through her veins—visible beneath her ashen skin as quicksilver tributaries mapping unknown constellations.
