Four figures descended into the Iron-Sky Canyon, their chakra threads attached to reinforced gliders provided by the Bloom's tech division. Below them, the Land of Collapse shimmered like a fractured dream.
Floating monoliths rotated in slow, ominous orbits. Spires twisted upward in defiance of gravity. Some dripped with waterfalls that flowed skyward. Magnetic storms cracked the skies with indigo lightning, and every gust of wind had a weight to it—like falling through honey.
Shisui felt the Aetherion Eye twitch in his skull.
"This land…" he murmured, "it's warped by the fall of a star."
"Yeah," Yua said, adjusting her goggles. "And it's beautiful."
Makoto squinted at a cluster of floating islands surrounded by shimmering light. "That's the Gravity Sea. We're almost there."
As they reached the village's perimeter, a deep hum vibrated through the air. Rings of gravitational pulses emerged from hidden towers, forming a barrier lattice around Jūryokugakure.
A voice rang out through their comm-crystals.
"Identify yourselves. You are nearing the Zero Zone."
Kaien stepped forward, voice firm. "Team Kaien, of the Hidden Bloom. Authorized diplomatic and observational mission under Hanakage clearance."
There was silence.
Then, a voice responded—monotone and echoing with layered tones.
"Proceed. Anchor Step guidance will be deployed."
A series of glowing stones surged from below, floating up to meet their feet and gently locking them to the magnetic flow. One by one, the team landed—not on the ground, but on a floating bridge of rotating stone disks that snaked toward the village gates.
Guards in black armor and obsidian helmets stood silently with palms embedded with gravity nodes.
Shisui whispered, "They don't blink."
Kaien gave him a side glance. "They don't have to. Jūton allows them to feel mass fluctuations in a hundred-meter radius."
As they passed beneath the gravity gates, the towering form of Oshitari Zanka, the Sōkage, awaited them.
Clad in slate-gray robes with spinning rings of levitating stones around his shoulders, he regarded the team with eyes like compressed black holes—endless and cold.
"You've come to witness our weight," Zanka said, voice as still as frozen time.
"Only if you let us stand under it," Shisui replied calmly.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, Zanka nodded.
"Let's see if your balance can endure the truth of gravity."
Behind them, the gates of Jūryokugakure closed with a thunderous pulse.
The weight of destiny had begun.