The entity goes very still, as though your request has struck a seam in the air and found something brittle beneath it. Then the blackness around its outline thins and hardens, gathering into a body with shoulders, hands, and a face that can be looked at without pain. It studies you in silence, perhaps amused, perhaps offended, while your buried arsenal answers with a low mechanical whisper under your skin. In the temple’s hush, the demand hangs between you like a challenge carved into stone.

At last, it speaks aloud, its voice rough and dry, and says that if it is to wear a mortal shape, then it will also inherit mortal risk. The faceless statues remain fixed in their judgment, but the bell beneath the floor gives a clear, bright note, as if some threshold has just been crossed. The corridor behind the entity seems to lengthen into darkness, while the space before it feels suddenly intimate, almost ceremonial. Your words have given form to the unknown, and now the unknown looks back at you with teeth you can count.