Time became meaningless. Could have been minutes or centuries—the mist made everything feel like that moment between sleep and waking where nothing quite made sense. But eventually, the purple began to thin, fading to sickly lavender.
Then he crested a ridge and his brain blue-screened harder than Windows Vista.
The landscape before him had been designed by someone who'd heard descriptions of reality third-hand and decided to freestyle. Two suns hung in a sky that shifted colors like an indecisive rainbow—purple to orange to something his eyes insisted didn't exist but saw anyway. Mountains floated inverted in the distance, waterfalls flowing up into nothing. Crystal formations erupted from the ground at angles that made geometry cry.
And the creatures...
Oh good. Flying lizards that phase through solid matter. Because regular physics wasn't dying fast enough.
They moved wrong, sliding through air like the concept of flight was more suggestion than law. Seven eyes arranged in spirals that tracked his movement from inside his own skull.
"Nope," Ren said firmly. "Absolutely not. I did not sign up for Lovecraft's Isekai Adventure. I want a refund."
The closest flying thing regarded him with what might have been curiosity or hunger. Hard to tell when the facial features kept rearranging themselves.
Don't run. Running activates the chase instinct. Just back away slowly and—
Something howled in the distance. Not the sound an animal makes—the sound reality makes when you punch a hole in it.
"Or," Ren amended, "we could run. Running's good. Cardio's important."
He ran.