The outer streets of Black Tortoise were shrouded in moonlight, pale and cold as bone. The air was still, but beneath the quiet, something hunted.
"Who the hell is attacking me?"
The woman's voice broke through the silence, hoarse and ragged with pain. Her masked face turned left, then right, searching the alleys. Her breath steamed faintly in the cold, trembling hands pressed against her abdomen.
She'd only come here out of curiosity—to see the glowing tree that lit the heart of Black Tortoise. A simple infiltration, she'd told herself. Slip in, take a look, maybe steal a branch or two if luck allowed.
The plan had seemed flawless.
She'd scaled the back of a slumbering beast to vault the outer wall, silent as a cat. The city lay before her—strange, beautiful, and deathly still.
But the moment her boots touched the cobbled street, disaster struck.
No warning. No presence. Just pain—pure and blinding.
Boom.
