A Few Hours Earlier...
The jungle was burning.
Roran stood at the edge of the village with his sword in his hand and his eyes fixed on the creature that had been tearing through Wayford like a scythe through wheat.
The Hollow King. A Grade 7 monster.
It was not stable. It did not understand its own power. Its movements were jerky and uncoordinated, and it kept looking at its own hands like it did not recognize them.
But it was still strong enough to kill him.
Roran had been fighting for hours.
His arms were heavy, weighted down by exhaustion and the sheer number of swings he had thrown. His chest ached with every breath, and he could feel blood trickling down his side from a wound he did not remember receiving.
His mana was low, the pool in his core feeling shallower than it had in years.
