The world folded.
Sound vanished.
Color bled into shadow.
For a heartbeat, there was only weightlessness — as though existence itself had forgotten them.
Then—
Their feet touched ground.
The air rushed back.
Warm.
Heavy.
Perfumed.
Soaked with an invisible pressure that made the skin prickle and the blood stir.
They stood upon black-red stone, veins of glowing runes crawling beneath the surface like living arteries.
Ahead of them stretched an endless land of crimson plains, towering obsidian ridges, and rivers that shimmered faintly with spiritual essence.
In the far distance…
A castle rose.
Spires of dark crystal entwined with living flesh-like stone, crowned by floating sigils and drifting chains of runes. The very sky above it rotated slowly, tinted with a seductive violet hue.
The atmosphere itself… breathed.
Many things had been upgraded since the land absorbed the divine essence from the Heaven's tribulation.
Gadan froze.
Arianna's breath caught.
