Chapter 1 — the submerged temple

The air was heavy, damp, almost suffocating.
Deep beneath the ocean’s surface, hidden from the world for centuries, the ruins of the Temple of Veilora loomed in silence. Faint beams from portable lamps sliced through the dense mist, their flickers reflecting in stagnant puddles scattered around shattered columns.
“...We shouldn’t be here,” murmured Elira, adjusting her sleek but tattered gear, her voice swallowed by the vast emptiness.
Kael stood ahead of her, still, yet tense. His hand rested instinctively on the hilt of his multi-tool blade, his sharp eyes fixated on the massive archway at the end of the chamber. The structure pulsed faintly — a dull black-and-blue glow, as if it were… breathing.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” Kael said calmly, though his clenched jaw betrayed his unease. “This place… it’s awake.”
Behind them, the rest of the expedition team was huddled near makeshift consoles, their modern, stylized uniforms in tatters from whatever had happened earlier. Blood trickled down the forehead of one of the younger operatives.
“Chief… we should’ve never pushed beyond Sector 4,” the operative whispered, trembling.
Kael didn’t answer. His attention remained locked on the portal-shaped archway. Every instinct screamed at him to leave. But deeper, beyond fear, something called him.
Elira’s tablet suddenly flickered violently in her hand. The glyphs on the screen scrambled, replaced by symbols neither of them recognized.
“Kael… I think we triggered something.”
The air shifted.
Whispers, soft and alien, slithered through the fog. Shadows began to move — not figures, but distortions in the air itself, as if reality was cracking.
Kael raised his hand to give an order— Too late.
With a soundless roar, the archway burst into light. A swirling vortex of shimmering energy spiraled out, devouring air, debris, and them.
“Elira—!” Kael barely had time to reach for her hand as the force yanked them forward. The team’s voices blurred into echoes, and then— nothing.


Kael awoke to the feeling of grass.
Real grass.
His body was sprawled on a soft, uneven terrain. A breeze kissed his face, bringing with it a scent of wildflowers and earth. He opened his eyes slowly, expecting to see the cold steel of the temple ceiling — but above him stretched a vast sky, painted in hues of blue… but not any blue he knew. The clouds shimmered with tinges of lavender and gold, their forms drifting unnaturally.
“Elira…” he croaked.
She was lying a few meters away, mud-caked and still unconscious. He crawled to her side, gently shaking her.
“Elira, wake up.”
She stirred, groaning, her eyes fluttering open. Confusion clouded her gaze as she looked around.
“Where… are we?”
Kael didn’t answer immediately. He was too busy observing the impossible horizon — jagged cliffs floating mid-air, waterfalls pouring upward, forests humming softly in the distance.
“Not home,” Kael muttered, pulling her up. “But we’re alive.”


Days turned to weeks.
With no trace of the portal, no signal, no path back, Kael and Elira were forced to adapt. They ventured through bioluminescent woods, across canyons carved with glowing ancient symbols. It was a world where the laws of nature seemed to bend, yet life persisted in serene defiance.
Eventually, they found a hill, far from the strange anomalies, surrounded by rivers and plains. It became their sanctuary.


Years passed.
The hill became their home.
They built a small wooden house, a garden, and a life. They had three children — Aen, Lira, and Kian. Their days were filled with simple joys: teaching their children to fish in singing rivers, mapping the bizarre constellations at night, listening to the faint hums of the earth itself.
But Kael never let go of the feeling that something was watching.


One morning, as Kael sat on the terrace, lazily flipping through a water-damaged field journal, the ground shuddered.
A deep, guttural explosion echoed through the valley. A column of black smoke spiraled into the sky from the forest’s edge.
“Elira!” Kael shouted, standing abruptly.
No response.
As he stepped off the porch, a shadow emerged behind him.
He turned, but it was too late.
A heavy blow struck the back of his head. His vision blurred, collapsing into darkness.


Kael, the man who once led elite teams into the unknown, was now a captive once more. But this time, the game had changed. The sky itself had become his prison.
And the true story was only just beginning.