"Huh....."
Kaelen's eyes fluttered open, though for a moment he couldn't be sure if he was truly awake. The oppressive weight of the Ruptured Sky was gone—no thunderous rifts tearing the world apart, no crushing pressure threatening to splinter his soul. Instead, he lay in a field of soft, silver grass that swayed gently as if touched by a breeze he couldn't feel. A pale, endless horizon stretched outward, its sky painted with the calm glow of a perpetual dawn.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Kaelen slowly sat up, his body still aching from the unrelenting trial he had endured moments ago. He scanned the space around him—nothing but the rolling silver plains, no sign of that monstrous multi-eyed silhouette that had haunted the edges of his vision in the Ruptured Sky.
For the first time since stepping into the Crucible, he could breathe without feeling like the world wanted to crush him.
'Where… is this?'
