Location: Dark Forest - Mid Ring | Doha (Lower Realm)
Time: Day 432, Late Afternoon
The mist clung to everything like wet silk, turning the world soft and grey. Perfect.
Jayde crouched beside a massive ashwood trunk, her enhanced blade humming faintly as Ember Qi flowed through the runic channels etched along its fuller. The blade's edge gleamed despite the dim light filtering through the canopy—self-sharpening runes doing their work, molecular edges singing with barely contained power.
The forest smelled like rot and rain. Old leaves decomposing into black mush, mushrooms blooming in the shadows, something dead and sweet somewhere upwind. She'd learned to love that smell. Meant the predators were eating well. Meant they weren't hungry enough to hunt her.
Target acquired. Duskroot boar, approximately four hundred meters northeast. Flamewrought-tier threat confirmed.
(It's huge. Really, really huge.)
