The corridor deposited Elias into chaos.
One moment he was walking through impossible geometry, alone and analytical. The next, reality twisted, and he found himself standing in a vast chamber alongside what felt like several hundred other Sovereigns who'd managed to force their way inside.
The palace had gathered them.
Not physically—Elias could sense the spatial distortions at work. Each cultivator existed in a slightly different dimensional layer, occupying the same space but separated by infinitesimal shifts in reality. Like sheets of paper in a stack, each one distinct but pressed against its neighbors.
Smart design. Let everyone in without the inevitable bloodbath that would result from cramming two thousand territorial Sovereigns into a confined space.
Before anyone could orient themselves, the chamber changed.
