Story:

Then, with a powerful wave of dark aura that rolled over the twins' bare skin like a departing army's breath, the pillar shattered.

Stone screamed and exploded outward, fragments spinning into the walls, the sacred prohibition of centuries breaking into rubble and dust in a single thunderous instant.

And where the pillar had stood—

—a shadow rift.

A wound in the air itself, vertical and black, its edges ragged with curling darkness, breathing out cold and wrongness into the blue-lit chamber.

Behind its threshold, the countless red eyes blinked and rearranged, and something vast and patient shifted in the depth beyond, drawn up to the rim of the newly opened door by the scent of spent lust and shattered seals.

Ai's hand found Mai's in the puddle. Squeezed.

Her sister's eyes—still half-drowned—fluttered, and Ai whispered, hoarse and trembling:

"Mai. Mai. Get up. We have to run. Now."

The rift exhaled.