The evening air grew colder as Satou and Sylvara moved deeper into human territory.
Three hours had passed since they'd left the settlement behind. Three hours of careful navigation through increasingly unfamiliar terrain, following paths that Sylvara knew from previous missions but that Satou was seeing for the first time.
The forest here felt different from the woods near his settlement. The trees grew differently—taller, more ancient, their branches forming a canopy so thick that even the fading sunlight struggled to penetrate. The underbrush was denser, filled with thorny plants and tangled roots that seemed designed to catch unwary travelers.
