The moment they crossed the fractured archway, reality broke its own rules.
There was no sensation of movement. No falling, no pulling, no wrenching displacement like a teleport gone wrong. One instant they were inside the warped forest, trees leaning at impossible angles, shadows folding over themselves, and the next, they were somewhere else entirely.
The transition was silent.
Albedo staggered half a step as the mana drain spiked violently, not gradually, not experimentally, but all at once, like a fist closing around his core. The air thickened, pressing against his skin, his lungs, his thoughts. Even at Mid Amethyst, it hurt.
Around him, several students gasped audibly.
The space they stood in was vast and empty, yet somehow claustrophobic. A circular expanse of smooth obsidian-black ground stretched outward in all directions, fractured by glowing sigils embedded beneath the surface like veins of molten glass.
