The wind howled like a thousand dying voices, a cacophony of anguish that tore at the edges of sanity. The floating platform, a fragile bastion of light in the void, carried Valerian and his party toward a rift in the sky—a swirling, malevolent whirlpool of memories and time, its edges crackling with distorted echoes of the past. No stars shone in this desolate expanse, only the endless chasm of what had been forgotten… or buried. The air was thick with the weight of unspoken regrets, and the group—Valerian, Selene, Lira, and Seraphine—stood tense, their breaths shallow, their hands gripping weapons or clenching into fists, as if preparing for a battle they could not yet see.
The System's voice broke the silence, no longer the cold, mechanical monotone they'd grown accustomed to. Now, it dripped with a dark, almost gleeful malice that sent a shiver through even Lira's battle-hardened soul.
> "Stage Four: The Trial of Memory."
