The Fourth Layer was not a world—it was a wound that never healed.
They stepped into it like travelers stepping into a god's dying memory. The ground shimmered underfoot, shifting between glass and blood, reflecting constellations that didn't belong to this reality.
The air was heavy—too heavy—each breath thick with mana so dense it vibrated in the bones. Even light bent differently here, folding around them in ripples, as though unsure of its own existence.
The stories had not lied.
Here, time did not move forward. It coiled.
Here, echoes of the divine and damned lingered like ghosts that refused to fade.
Here, gods came to die, and monsters came to ascend.
Atlas walked in silence. His axe rested across his back, the ancient steel humming like it remembered every battle that had ever been fought. It pulsed faintly with his heartbeat, attuned to him in ways no mortal weapon should be.
Each vibration felt heavier than the last. The weapon knew where they were.
