…

‘How is it?’

‘Not as expected, but progress nevertheless.’

‘How so?’

‘Didn’t break the seal; but made a crack on it. Should be easier to break now.’

‘Good, good.’

‘The day will come when the Monster Queen reigns.’

‘That will be so. No. We will make it so.’

In the darkness was a pillar of crystal containing a female-looking humanoid entity, not alive nor dead. That crack, if progressed, would grow into an abyssal rift that could swallow the world whole.