The gate swung open with a heavy, grinding sound, and what they saw beyond it made all of them freeze.
The air that rushed out was cold and dry, carrying a faint metallic scent that clung to their skin. A strange stillness settled over them, as if the realm itself was watching, waiting.
The sky was red. Not the warm red of sunset or the deep red of dawn. It was a dark, oppressive crimson, like dried blood stretched across the heavens.
Thick, heavy clouds hung low, their undersides stained with the same deep red, as if they were about to descend and swallow everything beneath them.
There was no sun, no moon, no stars... It's just an endless, suffocating red that seemed to press down on them from all sides.
The ground was red. Fine, grainy red sand stretched in every direction, shifting and unstable, like the ashes of something that had burned for far too long.
