White sand stretched endlessly beneath an artificial sky—too blue, too perfect, like a lie polished until it reflected nothing real. It did not shift with wind. It did not bear footprints for long. The Lower Heaven was a place designed to forget those who walked upon it.
Tier upon tier of marble terraces rose in concentric rings, veined with gold and inscribed with runes older than language. Thousands filled them: demigods with diluted sparks of divinity, lesser gods clinging to relevance, ascended champions swollen with borrowed power. Their presences pressed outward in layers—heat, gravity, intent—divine pressure rolling across the plain in slow, suffocating waves.
It felt like standing at the bottom of a sea made of judgment.
And yet—
At the center of it all stood a pocket of silence.
