Endless darkness, a bone-deep chill that seemed capable of freezing even the soul. His body kept falling through the void, his senses stripped away, time and space rendered meaningless.
He did not know how long it had been. Perhaps an instant, perhaps an eternity. Amid boundless nothingness and the sensation of falling, Mo Lin's consciousness finally gathered itself again, struggled, and awakened.
Bang!
With a dull crash and the blunt agony of bones striking hard ground, Mo Lin slammed heavily into the earth, sending dust flying. He let out a muffled groan. It felt as though every bone in his body had come apart; every inch of muscle and every nerve burned with searing pain, along with a weakness that seeped into his marrow, unlike anything he had ever known.
With great difficulty, he slowly forced open his heavy eyelids.
Before him lay an unfamiliar sight that made his heart tremble.
The sky was a dark, oppressive lead gray, as though it would never clear. There were no clouds, no stars, only a... massive "sun" hanging in the murky heavens, radiating a sickly, ghastly white, deathly glow.
Its light was cold and completely devoid of warmth. It even carried an unsettling, bizarre quality, as though it could scorch the soul, staining the earth a pale gray-white.
The ground was an endless black wasteland. The grains of sand were coarse and sharply edged, an unnatural, deathly black as though they had been burned, cursed, and forgotten for countless ages.
There was no wind and no sound. The air was thick as coagulated blood, carrying a pungent, nauseating stench of sulfur, rust, decay, and something indescribable—as though it had risen from the abyss—mixed with a scorched smell.
As far as the eye could see, black dunes stretched layer upon layer toward the