Death - Crystal barrier

He knew he could open the portal. He had a strong mastery of such magics, and where his rituals proved lacking, the Grand Abominations themselves could guide him. The problem would be reaching the portal itself, for he knew that Death would never have left it accessible.
Indeed, what lay revealed amid the crumbling bone was some sort of shell. It glinted, reflecting peculiar colors at peculiar angles that seemed only tangentially related to the surrounding light. Combine sheets of flame with layers of shadow, compress them into solid crystal, and the result might be something resembling what the angel saw before him now.
“The direct approach,” he growled, either to himself or to the uncaring constructs around him, “would seem the best.” From only a few paces away, he aimed Black Mercy at the crystalline shell and fired.
This was not, perhaps, the use for which the horrid pistol had been intended. Nevertheless, a slender chip broke from the crystal; a spindly crack ran from the point of impact to the many-faceted edge.
Already, through that single tiny fault, he could feel the unearthly presence beyond—the vast emptiness and semi-reality of the Vault itself, and the roiling hatreds of the Grand Abominations. They’d teased and caressed his soul from the very beginning, but never, never had they felt so clear. He burned in a furnace of the spirit, and though he writhed internally, he knew it was only purging him of weakness and doubt.

***

Chapter 29