The mountain loomed like a petrified god, its flanks carved into streets, its veins hollowed into tunnels where torches flickered like fireflies trapped in stone.
Ancient magic—woven into the very marrow of the mountain—had been bartered from a demon empress herself, drawn from the layers below.
A veil of power wrapped the city, shimmering faintly in the air like heat rising from stone. Titans passing through its threshold bent and folded, their colossus forms collapsing into human scale the instant they crossed the field, as though the mountain itself refused to house anything greater.
Atlas's eyes widened, a sharp breath catching in his chest. The artistry stunned him. Every ridge, every carved slope, every archway and tower had been hewn with an intelligence he recognized all too well. It wasn't brute force that shaped this.
