The creature's charge was faster than Nero anticipated.
It covered the distance in two bounding leaps from its crouch, its massive frame moving with surprising grace. Nero had already begun his Shadow Shift, but the moment he tried to activate it, something went wrong.
The darkness didn't wrap around him like a cloak. Instead, it felt like he was falling into a pit.
His body jolted sideways— not through conscious effort, but as though the shadows themselves were pulling him. For a disorienting moment, he lost all sense of direction. Up became down. The ravine wall seemed to phase right through him.
Then the sensation ended abruptly, and Nero found himself ten feet to his left, gasping for air.
The Abomination's claws raked through the space where he'd been, scraping stone with a terrible shriek.
'What the hell was that?'
