Thunderfall

The first step into the Hollow Crown felt less like a stride and more like plunging into the heartbeat of something ancient—something alive and waiting.

Selena's foot crossed the invisible threshold, and the moment she did, the air seemed to seize. Reality recoiled at her presence like a wound flinching beneath a blade. Behind her, the world unraveled. Not with fire or thunder, but with a silence so complete it felt sacrilegious. A black flame, neither hot nor cold, soundless and alien, poured across the path they had climbed, cascading like ink unraveling backward through time. The stone steps—every one they had bled on, fought upon, wept against—were swallowed whole, consumed by a force that did not destroy but erased. Not a seal. Not a block. A devouring. The exit did not close—it ceased to have ever existed. Even memory recoiled, struggling to hold onto the path they had once taken.