The wind screamed.
It wasn't the gentle kind that whispered through valleys or tugged playfully at cloaks. This wind howled, raw and violent, tearing across the peak of the highest mountain on the continent like it wanted to peel the world open and see what bled.
I stood at the summit anyway.
Far from the Human Empire.
Far from kingdoms and borders and treaties that pretended order still existed.
At the edge of the continent.
At the edge of sense.
Calibirus.
The Death Zone.
Even among death zones, this place was infamous. Not because of monsters alone, but because reality itself was unstable here. Energy anomalies erupted daily, sometimes hourly, tearing holes in the laws that governed mana, dualflow, and vespera alike.
Vespera storms rolled across this land like living gods.
Not the pale, diluted mana tempests seen near imperial borders. Not the kind academies used as training grounds.
These storms were thousands of times stronger.
