Finally.
The clearing was perfectly circular, exactly one hundred meters in diameter. And within it: stability. The contradictions stopped at the clearing's edge, as if held back by invisible barrier.
Inside the clearing, things made sense.
The sky was just sky—purple, three moons, but consistently so. The ground was solid. Gravity pointed down. Time flowed forward at normal pace.
"This is the center," Yoo said, relief flooding through him. The pressure behind his eyes immediately decreased—blessed relief—now that he wasn't processing constant impossibility.
"Thank god," Han muttered, wiping blood from her face. "I thought my brain was going to liquefy."
At the clearing's exact center stood a pedestal. Simple, crystalline, about waist-height. And resting on it:
An egg.
Not metaphorical. An actual egg. Roughly the size of Yoo's head, surface covered in patterns that shifted between geometric and organic.
