The labyrinthine corridors of Aethoria's grand Colosseum stretched out like the twisted synapses of some vast, cosmic brain.
Here, in the heart of the floating city, reality itself seemed to bend and warp, the very air thick with the residual energy of battles that had shaken the foundations of Macedonis.
Deep within this maze of stone and starlight, in a chamber known to few and understood by fewer still, the Ringmaster stood alone.
The room was a perfect sphere, its walls alive with swirling constellations and pulsing nebulae.
At its center hovered a single point of absolute darkness, a void that seemed to hunger for the light around it.
The Ringmaster's customary grin was nowhere to be seen.
His suit, usually a riot of cosmic patterns and impossible geometries, had faded to a muted gray.
With slow, deliberate movements, he reached up and grasped the edges of his mask.
