Kyle ran.
The corrupted hallways stretched before him, twisting and choking on themselves, as if the building itself had been swallowed by something alive.
Black vines curled up the walls and across the ceiling, pulsing faintly like veins filled with tar.
Fleshy growths clung to the floor, sticky and wet beneath his steps.
He leapt over them, each movement sharp and precise. His soles made no sound, he had coated his shoes with mana to silence them.
To anyone else, the suffocating stillness of this place would have been unbearable. To him, it was simply another battlefield.
What is this place? The question burned in his mind, but his face remained calm, almost expressionless.
Once, not long ago, he might have gagged at the stench of blood. He might have broken at the sight of bodies torn apart.
But that was before the war at the Black Gate, before he had stood among the dying and the dead, fighting to survive when the world itself seemed ready to collapse.
