The portal spat them out above hell.
Kova's small hands tightened in Ulfric's fur as they materialized over Yellowstone's heart, where the earth bled magma and the air itself burned. The heat hit like a physical wall—temperatures that should have killed instantly, pressure that compressed sound into needle-sharp whispers. Below them, the caldera stretched like an infected wound, kilometers of tortured stone and superheated gas painting the sky in shades of sulfur and despair.
The very air tasted of endings. Hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide mixed with trace metals vaporized from stone, creating an atmosphere that belonged on alien worlds. Geysers erupted without pattern, sending pillars of steam and scalding water hundreds of feet into the blood-red sky. The ground cracked in spiraling
