Mark entered through the portal and immediately felt a sense of stifling pressure. It was as if a mountain had been suddenly placed over his head, as if a giant was squeezing his neck.
He knew immediately that he had guessed right. His luck wasn't the only bad thing; the World wasn't on his side. He didn't enter the calmer parts of the Demon World—the Demon Cities—through the portal.
In but a second, he was standing under numerous stone walls that towered massively to the heavens. Vicious clouds roiled in the gray skies. And as Mark stared up, he felt the color drain from his face.
"What is that?" he asked.
Before him stretched an endless expanse of stone chains winding through rusty red plains, a network of iron links that twisted and wound through the landscape like a metallic serpent.
