Chapter 101 - Grinder

As Rivyn came forward-into the white space of the system for the first time-the world around him began to shift in the most radical of senses. Stretched out before him now, the arena extended along each and every direction to infinity, a limitless surface which was little more than flat and featureless save for the terra beneath his feet: a great expanse of perfect, even plane that seemed to reflect back upon itself with subtle shimmers as though it retained within it the memory of all the fights that had ever been fought upon it. It was a surface beneath his bare feet that offered neither a sense of warmth nor coolness but rather unfolded as neutral territory that seemed to bear within it an insistent tautness, alert, and deep. The silence wrapped itself around him whole, leaning against him in a way that felt dense and threatening, farther closing the lid upon the lingering atmosphere of unease.