The trees ended without warning.
One step, they were under a rotting canopy—next, the world opened, raw and desolate.
The Pale Citadel towered ahead, its walls not stone but bones fused with mortar, charred and pulsing with faint red veins like a living wound.
Spires stabbed into the cloud-thick sky, some twisted sideways, others cracked but defying gravity.
In the field between forest and wall, ash. No grass. No bodies.
Just cursed earth and a silence that pressed against the chest.
Saria stood at the front, her torn black robe fluttering, her ponytail tight and sharp, her dark eyes locked on the citadel.
Her voice cut the hush like a blade.
"Form up. This is where the war begins."
No war cry.
Just movement.
The makeshift army surged forward, weapons in trembling hands—hunters, volunteers, remnants of Eldwood's watch, their mismatched armor clanking.
