The morning sun broke through the heavy yellow clouds of the Great Mire Basin, casting long rays of golden light across the black water of the marshland.
The subterranean ziggurat slowly began to settle back into the mud, its ancient wards closing as the central core returned to slumber.
Ye Chen and Lin Xi emerged from the dark stone archway, stepping onto the causeway above the draining sulfur pools.
Their physical presence had transformed completely.
The toxic sulfur fog that drifted through the weeping willow trees no longer stung their eyes or burned their throats.
As they walked side by side down the stone steps, an invisible, unified perimeter of frost and kinetic heat repelled the poisonous vapors, clearing a thirty foot circle of clean, crisp air around their boots.
"Your lef
