The silence fractured—not with noise, but with pressure, a sudden shift that dragged the world into motion. Heat pressed in first, dry and absolute, wrapping around Riven like a second skin. His eyes snapped open and he could see fire stretched endlessly in every direction, devouring the sky, the ground, the air itself.
The sky above was a dome of ash-stained flame—blood-red clouds swirling in violent spirals, lit from within by lightning that never struck. The ground beneath him was obsidian glass, cracked and seared, as though the land itself had once burned for centuries and never cooled. Towers of flame flickered on distant ridges, bending but never breaking, their roots anchored in nothing but scorched air.
There was no sun.
No wind.
Only fire—and something deeper, watching from within it.
Riven took a step forward, boots crunching on glass that had once been stone. The air rippled, heavy with mana.
