The aether-current skybridges have been retired. In their place: the open sky itself, traversable in any direction — once you own a Sky Drone. Seek Dorin Gearwright, the tinker of Windward Landing, bring him five Sky Corsair regulator coils, and the whole sky is yours: no corridors, no fixed routes, every island approachable from every side. Without one, the islands hold you — and Skyfare still runs between the Anchors.
North of the Empyrean, past the edge of every chart, the delvers found three Reaches no map has ever held — 24 islands reachable only by Sky Drone, each hub a Sky Anchor the Skyfare network already knows:
Fifteen new creatures haunt the deep band — the Bestiary opens a Voidheart family for them, and two of them are large enough to join the World Boss rotation: The Grey Tide (Lv 12,000) and The Second Heartbeat (Lv 18,000).
Dungeon delves ladder the whole band — The First Silence, Gallery of Unmade Stars, The Pale Meridian, Cathedral of the End, Antechamber of Forever and the Crucible of Never (Lv 10,500–19,000) — every one with an Ultimate difficulty carrying its own five-relic signature set.
Three raids close the arc: The Heartsea Crossing (8 floors, the Nullpilgrim set), The Chambers of the Heart (10 floors, the Heartsworn set) — and the capstone, The Heart of the Void: twelve floors to level 20,000 and The Heart That Beats Nothing, with the Eternity set waiting past it. This is the ceiling of the world.
Gear: the Uncommon/Rare/Epic catalogue climbs sixteen new rungs (Heartbound → Everlasting) to level 20,000 — dropped, and forged at every bench. Titles: eleven new ranks from Voidfarer to The Eternal at 20,000. Class Mastery: ten new tiers (11,000–20,000; primary bonus to +25%, signatures to rank 18). Class traits: the ladder marches on every 500 levels with a Heartwoven epithet. And at level 14,000 every class learns a second generated ultimate — Eternity, +75% primary to the whole party.
A new gathered material grows on the deep isles: Voidglass — the void, cooled. Three new crafting tiers (Lv 10,000+, 13,000+, 16,500+) gate the new benches’ work on it, and the deep-Reach nodes salt in Sun-Metal and Star Shard so the older sky materials stay relevant.
Continuum’s combat rail, the EXP curve, Momentum and the equipment curve are all linear — they scale to 20,000 with zero balance changes. What worked at 10,000 works at 20,000; there is simply twice as far to climb.