Ruined Courtyard
The air smelled like burnt ozone and blood.
Nullbreed sat atop a fractured statue, one leg dangling over the edge, his fingers tracing invisible patterns in the air. The city stretched below him—broken, flickering with distant fires, alive with the hum of fear. He liked it this way. Chaos was honest.
Then—
A sound.
Not wind. Not rubble settling.
A tear.
The space three feet in front of him *ripped*, not like a portal, not like a crack—like reality itself had been unzipped.
Nullbreed didn't move. His lips curled.
"Finally."
From the tear, a figure stepped out.
The ground beneath him warped. Not bending, not breaking—just *changing*, as if the laws holding it together had been rewritten mid-step. The air thickened, heavy with something old, something that didn't belong here.
Nullbreed tilted his head. "You're not from around here."
The figure—Veylor—smiled.
And the world flinched.
Nullbreed walked. Veylor followed.
