portal across continents

I stepped through the portal, returning to the place where it all began.

The land of Grimm. The continent north of Vytal that Mankind had long since abandoned—or rather, been driven from. Absently, I realized I was probably one of the few people with some idea or when or why; I’d read my fair share of history books and then some, but I’d never heard any concrete details on how it happened, presumably because it had occurred too long ago for anyone to remember. Most of what we knew of the place came from the infrequent expeditions that rarely ended well.

But, hard as it was to believe given what I knew, this place had once been home to the greatest civilization that had ever existed on this planet.

And it had been my home.

“Jian, are you sure about this?” Raven murmured as she followed me through, keeping her voice quite as if afraid the sound would draw down an endless horde of monsters—which was a fair possibility, granted. I had already locked down the area around use with Levant, covered us with an illusion, and was generally doing my best to hide our presence, and I still wasn’t sure it would be enough.