Stepping through the portal was not a sensation of movement, but of total immersion. It was like being plunged into an ice-cold, bottomless ocean. The air, if it could be called that, was thick and heavy, pressing in on Hua Qian from all sides. It carried no scent of life or nature, only the sterile, metallic tang of old blood and the dry, acrid smell of dust from forgotten tombs. This was the breath of the Underworld.
The transition was instantaneous and disorienting. One moment she was in the familiar, living world; the next, she was standing on a plain of polished black stone that stretched into an eternity of gloom. Above, there was no sky, only a vast, starless void, a ceiling of perfect, absolute blackness that radiated a profound, soul-deep chill. The only light came from a colossal, sickly crescent moon that hung impossibly low in the "sky," its luminescence the color of a fresh bruise. It cast long, distorted shadows that writhed and twisted like living things.
