When he emerged from the lightning gate, there was no sky — only reflections.
Everywhere he looked, the world gleamed: mountains made of mirrored stone, rivers of still crystal, forests frozen in mid-motion. Even the clouds overhead were solid, hanging like sculptures of smoke.
He breathed, and the air made no sound.
The fire in his chest flickered, uneasy. No wind carried it. No time moved to feed it.
This place does not live, whispered the Origin.It remembers living.
Cintiyue took one step forward. The world did not echo.
The Frozen City
He found the city at dusk — though dusk never truly came. The sun hung fixed above the horizon, caught forever between day and night.
Tall towers of glass stretched toward the unmoving sky, their surfaces flawless. Inside them, people stood frozen mid-stride, faces serene.
They had not died.
Their hearts still glowed faintly beneath transparent skin, beating once every hundred years.
