Inside the warm obsidian grotto, Kaelen Vance took another slow sip of roasted barley tea.
Through the eastern basalt wall, the rhythmic scratching continued.
Scratch. Whirr. Grind.
The sound was growing clearer by the minute.
Kaelen set his mug onto the wooden table, listening with detached curiosity.
He could have reached out with his divine sense.
With his four tracks sitting at twenty-four thousand times potential, a single pulse of his Saint Vessel aura would turn the eastern bedrock into molten glass. He could incinerate whatever was boring through the rock in less than half a heartbeat.
He did not do that.
