Lukas dusted himself off and slowly straightened, taking in his surroundings for the first time since crashing into the ground.
The place made his skin crawl.....
It reminded him of the vitality-draining cave where he had inherited the Death God's legacy.
The resemblance wasn't visual. The trees were different. The terrain was different. Yet the feeling was unmistakable.
The same oppressive stillness hung over everything like a suffocating veil. The same unnatural pressure lingered in the air, subtle enough to escape notice at first glance but impossible to ignore once felt. Even breathing seemed wrong here. Every inhale carried a faint resistance, as though the atmosphere itself objected to the presence of living things.
Lukas quietly filed the observation away.
Then he noticed something else.
A sensation was spreading through his body so subtly that he almost overlooked it. Warm. Gentle. Comforting.
Like sunlight filtering through layers of cloth.
Almost pleasant.
