There were realms shaped by blood, and realms shaped by stone.
But this one—this one was shaped by breath.
By wind cradled into architecture, cloud woven into stairways, silence braided into the very laws of motion. Lionel had stood before the gates of tyrants, walked through ash-choked cities, seen courts born of cruelty and built empires out of scar—but nothing in the mortal world prepared him for the reverent stillness of Chien'u.
It wasn't peaceful.
Peace was too soft a word.
It was ancient.
The kind of quiet that remembered what sound used to mean, and chose not to imitate it.
The moment Lionel and his legion stepped beyond the final ridge of fractured sky-stone, the weather changed—not violently, not abruptly, but with intent. The air folded inward as if making room. Light grew denser, not brighter, thick like honey caught between histories. Even the dust beneath their boots obeyed the rhythm, never kicking up, never resisting.
