For a moment, silence enveloped them—a heavy silence that pressed against their ears and made even the sound of breathing feel intrusive.
Gradually, one by one, Sage and the others began to shake off the dizziness as the darkness behind their eyes lifted like a curtain being drawn back.
The first sensation Sage registered was the cold, solid ground beneath his feet, a stark contrast to the shifting terrain they had just navigated. When his vision finally cleared, he was met not by the strange blue forest or ocean-like sky they had encountered before, nor by the terrifying presence of that monstrous entity that had nearly obliterated them. Instead, he found himself in a vast, desolate city in ruins stretching endlessly before him.
Towering stone structures loomed broken and cracked; some leaned at precarious angles as if frozen mid-collapse, while others lay in heaps of rubble scattered across the ground like remnants of a forgotten war.
