Kyle was the last one to emerge from the gate, so he was caught off guard when a sudden, powerful impact crashed straight into him, driving the air from his lungs. He groaned and pushed the figure off him—only to find it was Ares, bleeding heavily.
This time, the gate behind him remained open, unlike all the previous ones that had locked once they had left through them.
Kyle squinted at his surroundings, only to see a familiar, radiant clearing bathed in a golden glow and encircled by thick mist.
"This place—!"
He eyed the numerous eerily familiar tall doors, each bearing a glowing symbol of a natural law and flanked by colossal statues scattered across the clearing, and cursed.
It was the very place he had discovered after Ares, Cassian, and the others were dragged into the ground—the exact spot where he had been beaten by statues!
The same place he had already stripped bare of its herbs and crystals… in a fit of anger before escaping to find the others.
