"Ugh…"
Lein slowly opened his eyes. A faint violet light flickered at the edge of his vision. His head felt heavy, as if it had just been yanked through a dimensional vortex. Groaning, he clutched his temple, trying to steady his breath and calm the pounding ache in his skull.
The ground beneath him was cold, hard, and dusty—not quite stone, but not earth either. As he pushed himself up and took in his surroundings, the reality of his situation quickly crept into his mind.
He stood on a floating landmass—perhaps ten thousand square kilometers wide—but there was no sky above, only a dense, dark gray void laced with streaks of violet and green that flared like lightning behind the mist. In the distance, dozens of other landmasses drifted like shattered cosmic stones, moving slowly and aimlessly as if guided by some invisible current.
