"We must begin."
David whispered.
There was a barely detectable tremor in his voice.
Yet it was as resolute as iron.
Reina took a deep breath.
She nodded gently.
Releasing a stream of fine, gradually expanding ice-blue energy from her palm.
It traced an elegant arc through the air.
This energy quickly coalesced into a transparent yet immensely solid miniature field.
Encasing both of them within.
As though they were in the midst of a pure frozen land at the heart of a polar winter.
The temporal fluctuations around them grew increasingly intense.
Surging endlessly like tides.
The surface of the rocks began to show unusual changes.
In some places, they inexplicably started swelling and softening.
Those once steel-hard marbles seemed to lose their essence.
Seeping gaseous microparticles through their fragility.
