The wasteland unfolded like a wound beneath the gray sky.
For three days, Argolaith walked with relentless focus, each step carving a deeper line through the dust. His breath had become smoke. His body moved with a quiet rhythm, hardened by cold and solitude. The vision of the Tree of the Unseen pulled at him still, invisible but ever-present—a gravity at the edge of his soul.
But the land did not yield easily.
On the fourth morning, the air changed.
The wind went still.
The mist clung tighter to the earth.
And the silence sharpened, no longer lifeless—watchful.
Argolaith stopped at the crest of a broken ridge.
Below him, the wasteland curved into a blackened basin, wide and deep. Its floor was cracked and riddled with charred roots—scars from something long buried and recently awakened.
And in the center of it stood a beast.
Massive.
Still.
Breathing.
