The portal teleported them at the edge of the forest, miles from Luminara. The sun was high, the sky clear. The air smelled of pine and earth—clean after the dungeon's rot. Alex and Saeko walked in silence, their steps light, their bodies still humming with the residue of battle.
They had gone perhaps a mile when the forest changed.
The trees grew twisted. Their bark was cracked, weeping a black sap that smelled of sulfur. The grass beneath their feet turned brown, then gray, then crumbled to ash. The birds had stopped singing. The insects had stopped buzzing.
Something was wrong.
Alex raised his hand. Saeko stopped beside him. Her katana was half-drawn, the blade catching the sunlight.
"Do you feel it?" she asked.
"Yes."
It was like a pressure in the air. A weight. A wrongness that pressed against their skin, their lungs, their minds. Alex had felt this before. In the war. In the final battle against the Chaos Prince.
"Chaos," he said. "Contaminated."
