Alberto found himself standing in a vast, unknown landscape—an expanse without horizon, where the sky folded in on itself like glass melting in reverse. There was no sun, yet everything shimmered in a twilight hue.
And before him, the Guardian.
Its form was impossible to measure by the logic of physics or perception. One moment, it towered like a titan, a colossus wreathed in celestial fire, its edges bleeding into solar flares and constellations. The next, it was an abstraction—a drifting nebula pulsing with forgotten truths. Its presence pressed on Alberto like gravity made thought.
The Guardian spoke, but not in sound. Its voice was a pressure in his marrow, an idea forced into the vessel of his being.
"Welcome to my domain again, Mortal."
Alberto clenched his fists. When he first stood here, he was a desperate soldier, accepting power without understanding the cost. Now, he was an emperor. And emperors did not beg.
"I want to know everything," Alberto said.
A pause.
