Peace!

The air in Black Sun Castle didn't smell of old stone or dampness; it smelled of ozone and something burnt, as if reality itself were fraying at the edges.

Pace clenched his fists, feeling cold sweat slip across his palms. There was no trace of the mythical speed spoken of in the legends of other worlds; here, he was just a hedgehog with trembling legs and a heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.

He had spent months studying maps with Brain, listening to Rosy's warnings and Brawn's stories of strength, but nothing had prepared him for the scale of this place.

"—Where are they...?" he whispered to himself, his voice barely a thread. "Just one emerald... I only need one to stop this."

Suddenly, a dry, metallic sound echoed through the hallway. Pace dove behind an obsidian column, holding his breath until his lungs ached.

The Encounter in the Shadows
A silhouette began to materialize in the center of the hall.

It didn't walk; it floated like a blot of ink in water. Black Sun—or Shadow, as the whispers of the elders called him—was not a creature of flesh and bone, but a mass of vibrating darkness desperately seeking something tangible to possess.

"I can smell your fear, little hedgehog,"

hissed a voice that seemed to come from all directions at once. "It is a scent so... human. So fragile."

Pace curled up further, hiding his quills behind the stone. His eyes locked onto a pedestal a few meters away: there, glowing with a violent and unnatural light, rested the Chaos Emerald.
It was so close, but the space between him and the jewel was under the watch of that living shadow.

The atmosphere becomes tense

Black Sun stops right in front of the column where Pace is hiding. The hedgehog can see the shadow projecting onto the floor, stretching toward him like claws.