Liu Xian blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The world had flipped without warning.
A heartbeat ago he'd been on the ground, screaming, torn apart by things with teeth like glass. His arm had been gone, blood had slicked everything, and the timer had dragged like eternity. Now…. this.
A place where sound didn't echo. Where the dark wasn't just absence of light but a thick, swallowing thing that pressed in like tar.
He looked down at himself, at hands that were both hands again. No missing limb, no gaping wound. His shirt wasn't soaked, there was no suffocating metal collar choking his throat. He wasn't even wearing the uniform anymore—just simple clothes he didn't recognize.
His pulse hammered anyway. His first instinct was to reach for the sword. But his fingers found nothing at his hip. Just the emptiness of fabric.
Every nerve in his body screamed wrong.
Then… there was movement.
