For the first time in what felt like forever, the sky above Skell changed color.The endless black cracks faded into soft streaks of blue. Wisps of cloud, thin, fragile, almost transparent, floated across the air. The molten rivers cooled into slow streams of dull red. Even the broken towers in the distance glowed faintly gold, reflecting something like morning light.It looked almost peaceful. Caster stood on a ridge overlooking the vast plain, his cloak torn and scorched. His staff was cracked but still alive with faint golden runes. His breath came slow, careful. He didn’t dare disturb the silence. “It’s quiet,” he murmured. “Too quiet.”Eidric stood beside him, his skeletal frame steady despite the shifting ground. “This is the calm of a wound that has stopped bleeding,” he said softly. “But not the calm of healing.”Caster watched the horizon. The light shimmered faintly, as if the world was holding its breath. “How long will it last?”Eidric tilted his head. “Until you stop br

The fall felt endless. Caster tumbled through light and shadow, the air around him vibrating with blue energy. His staff slipped from his hand, spinning away into the void. He reached for something, anything, but there was nothing to hold on to.Eidric’s voice echoed faintly, far above him. “Spellbound!”Then the light swallowed everything. When Caster hit the ground, the impact stole his breath. He rolled onto his back, coughing, eyes blurred with afterimages.The world around him was still glowing blue. The stone beneath him was smooth and circular, etched with foreign runes that hummed like a living pulse. The air smelled of burnt ozone and cold metal. He pushed himself up slowly, blinking. The chamber he’d fallen into wasn’t part of Skell’s natural structure. It was clean, polished, built.Blue light pulsed through lines in the walls, forming geometric patterns. The design was too exact, too symmetrical. “Modern architecture,” he whispered. “Human-made.”A voice drifted from the

The fall ended with silence. Caster hit the ground hard, his body rolling across smooth stone. He lay still for a moment, gasping, eyes blinking against the afterimage of blue light. When he finally pushed himself up, the world around him was different.There was no ceiling above him, only a black sky filled with faint glimmers, like shards of glass floating in the air. The floor stretched endlessly, a mirror of silver stone that reflected his image in every direction. He stood, unsteady. His reflection stared back at him, then it blinked.Caster froze. The reflection smiled faintly, but not the same way he did. Its smile was cruel, sharp, knowing. “Hello,” it said, voice identical to his.Caster stepped back. “What are you?”The reflection tilted its head. “What you could become.”Before Caster could speak again, more shapes began to rise from the mirrored floor, each one a version of himself, stepping out of their reflections as though the surface were water.A dozen Casters surro

The air trembled with pressure. Caster crouched low behind a broken ridge of glassy stone, his eyes locked on the flickering blue lights across the valley. The intruders were close now, three of them, moving with purpose and precision. Their forms glowed faintly under the fractured sky, outlines wrapped in mana-shields that rippled like heat haze. Silver suits reinforced their limbs; crystalline rods pulsed at their belts, each one humming with pure, controlled energy. Caster’s heart beat faster. “So it’s true, they really came through.”The wind blew across the plain, carrying faint mechanical sounds, a rhythm too exact to belong to this world. The scent of ozone filled the air, mingling with Skell’s decaying breath. He whispered, “They’re building an extractor.”Across the valley, the three mages stood in a triangular formation. Energy pylons rose between them, connecting by threads of glowing blue mana. The lattice expanded with each pulse, spreading a dome-shaped field that sh

Silence. No thunder. No breath. Only a slow, fragile hum beneath the surface, like a dying heartbeat that refused to stop.Caster opened his eyes. The world had changed again. He lay on his back in the middle of what used to be the battlefield, though now it looked almost peaceful. The cracked land had turned to glass, reflecting the faint glow of the stabilizer in the distance. The once-torn sky was a deep violet now, split by rivers of gold light that pulsed in slow waves, like veins of a sleeping creature.He sat up slowly, his body aching in every place he could still feel. His limbs felt heavier than before. The air around him shimmered faintly, reacting to the mana that clung to his skin like smoke. His voice came out rough and quiet. “Still alive.”He tried to stand but stumbled, catching himself on his staff. Its crystal tip flickered weakly, like a candle struggling to stay lit.The stabilizer was still there, still humming, though faintly, its golden core dimmed to a soft