Riley slowly blinked.
The weightlessness faded.
The warmth of the void vanished.
And when his eyes adjusted—
He found himself standing exactly where he had been before.
Back in the center of the trial space.
The dark tornado was gone.
The swirling chaos that had engulfed him just moments ago was nowhere to be found.
The shadows had already begun to dissipate, thinning into faint strands of darkness that scattered across the wind like ashes.
Only silence remained.
No storms. No pressure. No tremors.
Just the quiet aftermath of something that had felt… divine.
Riley looked around slowly, his gaze sweeping the now-still platform.
Then, he tilted his head upward, eyes narrowing.
"…So I was floating with them before," he muttered.
His voice sounded distant. Even to him.
Like he was still caught between two worlds.
He lowered his gaze again, brows slowly knitting together.
His mind wandered back—to the images he'd seen.
