The portal opened without resistance.
No distortion. No violent pull.
Just a quiet tear in space that connected two places that should not have been connected so easily.
Shunya stepped through.
The air changed immediately.
The island's stillness disappeared, replaced by something far more familiar — movement, sound, presence. The faint noise of a city carried in the wind, distant voices, footsteps, the rhythm of life continuing as if nothing had happened.
New Fornia.
The city gate stood just ahead.
Unchanged.
And yet — everything felt different.
Shunya stopped just a few steps outside the gate. For a moment, he didn't move forward.
He simply looked.
This place… he had lived here. Walked these streets. Spent time here. Fought, trained, struggled, laughed—
He knew that.
But the feeling of it was faint.
Like Xia remembering something through someone else's story.
Feng Xia stepped out beside him, her presence quiet this time, restrained.
