Location: Dark Forest - Outer Ring Cave | Doha (Lower Realm)
Time: Day 430, Dawn
Dawn light crept through the cave entrance like molten copper, painting familiar stone walls in shades of amber and shadow. Jayde moved through her morning stretches with practiced efficiency, muscles responding without hesitation beneath combat leathers that'd become like a second skin.
Lunge. Hold. Switch.
(We've been here so long. Almost feels like home.)
Thirty days in outer ring territory, since that educational fight with that Ironback with the Mid Ring. Forty-seven successful eliminations. Zero serious injuries. Mission parameters exceeded.
She dropped into a plank position, holding it while her Ember Qi flowed through meridians in steady pulses. Two thousand two hundred twenty-five units of raw power, humming just beneath her skin, waiting to be shaped into fire and force and fury.
Late Flamewrought tier. Ninety-nine point nine percent progression to Inferno-tempered.
