The crackling campfire cast flickering shadows across the damp forest floor.
Ahcehera and Rohzivaan sat with their backs to a moss-covered boulder, their bodies aching from the battle with the Zergousin.
The air was thick with the pungent scent of scorched earth and lingering dark matter. Despite the exhaustion weighing on their limbs, neither dared to sleep.
Agartha was no longer the thriving, green planet it had once been.
Decay clung to everything, and the shadows felt heavier than usual, as though something unseen watched their every move.
Ahcehera poked the fire with a broken branch. "The soil is dead," she muttered. "Dark matter has seeped into every inch of this planet."
Rohzivaan nodded, his gaze fixed on the treetops. "We delayed the Zergousin's spread, but this place…" His voice trailed off. He didn't need to finish.
The signs were everywhere, brittle tree trunks, leaves reduced to gray ash, and an eerie silence that hung over the land like a suffocating blanket.
