There was nothing but darkness at first.
Deep. Endless. Consuming.
Zhao Yan floated weightlessly, suspended in an abyss where neither time nor space seemed to exist.
His body felt light—too light. It was as if he no longer had any weight, no longer belonged to the world he knew.
Then, faintly—like a whisper carried by the wind—he heard a voice.
Zhao Yan…
It was distant, strained, almost painful. A voice thick with desperation, yet muffled, as though coming from behind an invisible wall.
His heart clenched.
He didn't recognize the voice, yet something about it stirred something deep inside him.
A feeling.
An emotion he couldn't place.
He turned toward the sound, trying to grasp onto it, but the moment he moved, the weightless sensation faded.
Suddenly—
A rush.
His entire body was pulled forward, dragged through the darkness at an impossible speed. The air around him warped, shifting and twisting, as colors—black, white, and streaks of silver—flashed past him.
