It took him an hour or two.
Azel couldn't tell anymore.
His sense of time had unraveled somewhere in the long climb, burned away by the constant need for silence, balance, and precision.
The only thing he did know was that every second felt stolen, every movement was a gamble.
He had been so focused, so tense, that his heartbeat seemed to echo louder than the buzzing above him.
Now he was here pressed flat against the colossal tree, right beneath the hive itself.
The noise was unbearable.
It wasn't simply heard; it could be felt.
The vibration of wings hummed in his bones, crawled through his teeth, and bored into his skull until he thought his eardrums would burst.
Standing this close to the Dreadhorn hive, he wondered if his hearing would ever return to normal after this trial.
The hive was monstrous.
Clinging to the ancient trunk like a parasite, The smell was acrid, thick with venom, rot, and some alien musk that made his stomach churn.
