The road bent northward and then straightened, stretching ahead like a deliberate line carved into the land.
Julius slowed their pace without quite meaning to.
Serena noticed immediately.
"We're close, aren't we?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied. "Very close."
The land ahead rose gently, not into hills, but into something far more imposing—an unnatural rise that cut across the horizon with geometric certainty.
At first, it looked like a pale cliff face, its surface too smooth, too uniform to be natural stone.
Then the morning haze thinned.
And Serena saw it.
Her breath caught audibly.
"Oh."
That single word was all she managed at first.
The Wall dominated the landscape.
It was not merely large—it was absolute.
A continuous band of white stone stretched from east to west as far as the eye could see, following the contours of the land with impossible precision.
