Chapter 58: The Beloved Child (6)

Something black. At first glance, it looked like ink dispersing through clear water. I gently prodded it with the tip of my runic dagger and watched as the black patch distorted across the surface, rippling with the movement. Its texture was clearly more viscous than ink, though not quite as dense as oil—somewhere in between, both formless and yet cohesive. It gave off an eerie impression of scattering and gathering all at once. No, hold on… This wasn’t a liquid, was it? But it wasn’t…