The cold hit them first.
It wasn't the clean, sharp frost of a mountain winter, nor was it the endothermic bite of Falcon's green poison fire. It was a heavy, greasy cold—the kind that carried the damp weight of low-hanging storm clouds and the bitter taste of volcanic ash.
When Kyle, Seraphina, Falcon, and Yua stepped through the crystal archway, the tranquil silence of the Middle Pavilion vanished completely. They emerged onto a narrow, wind-swept shelf of jagged, dark slate that jutted out over a vast, endless sea of rolling grey fog. Above them, towering basalt cliffs stretched upward into a bruised, violet sky, their jagged ridges blanketed in drifts of pale-grey ash that swirled like light snow under the howling gale.
Every few seconds, a muffled, deep rumble echoed through the stone beneath their boots—not from thunder in the sky, but from deep within the mountain itself, as if the very bones of Tier Three were shifting under immense pressure.
