The moment Lucius gripped the Pillar of Time, reality folded.
The glowing crystal pulsed in his hand, a heartbeat that echoed not just in his chest but across countless worlds. The hourglass above him cracked. Time flowed backward, forward, inward. He was everywhere and nowhere.
And then—silence.
The world shattered like glass.
He was falling again.
But this fall felt different. Not through memories or visions, but into something raw. Something untamed. Something hungry.
He landed with a thunderous crash on a warped plain of jagged obsidian and blood-red rivers. Lightning arced in every color across a fractured sky. Trees floated upside down. Mountains levitated. Stars blinked in and out like fireflies.
Lucius had entered Chaos.
