The air buzzed with static, the kind that lived in your bones and whispered of old tech still humming after aeons.
Conduits ran the walls like veins, their pulse casting a dim flicker of light on the masked faces. No one spoke. Tension hung like smoke as they checked their weapons.
She drew a breath through the filter, the taste of metal sharp on her tongue. City life. She hated it.
It reeked of machinery and corruption, a far cry from the wilds that still called to her. The treetop villages felt like another lifetime. A world that might as well have never been.
This city had rotted from the inside out. The working class choked in the lower stacks while gangs bled them dry. Above them, lords in pristine towers held sway, ruling with iron hands and poisoned promises.153Please respect copyright.PENANAJFkqelpgVz
Succeed, and the world is yours. Fail, and you’re nothing.153Please respect copyright.PENANAXpvbOwbhqg
That kind of voice always came wrapped in silk, stained with blood.
Still, a small ember of hope burned low. This ragtag crew she’d fallen in with, scarred and broken in ways she understood too well, they might be worth something. She could trust them, enough to keep moving forward.
The doors groaned open, revealing the jungle beyond, a nightmare of twisted roots and towering trees clawing at the poison sky. Everything here shifted. Watchful.
Without looking back she stepped into the wild, her mind already scanning for threats. Ahead, the Nether waited, alive with its own terrible pulse.
She grinned behind the mask. This was her element.
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