Location: Obsidian Academy Secret Realm
Date/Time: 26-29 Ashwhisper, 9938 AZI
Realm: Lower Realm (Secret Realm sub-dimension)
The portal was older than the Academy.
Jayde had known that intellectually — Headmaster Qin had said it predated the Sundering, and Qin didn't strike her as someone who exaggerated. But standing in front of it in the grey light of an Ashwhisper morning, feeling the weight of the thing push against her skin like standing too close to a furnace, she understood the difference between knowing something was ancient and feeling it in her bones.
Massive stone archway. Rough-hewn. Undecorated. The kind of construction that didn't bother with aesthetics because the people who'd built it had been occupied with things that mattered more. No carvings. No inscriptions. Just stone — and the essence woven through it, dense and layered, humming with a power that made the Academy's refined ward matrices feel like children's drawings next to an architect's blueprint.
