Inside another dungeon.
The portal spat out Jered and Sasha into a mountainous woodland—the kind from childhood fairy tales where the trees were too tall, the shadows too deep, and everything around them seems alive with malicious intent.
Jered cracked his neck. His emerald-and-gold flames flickered around his body like a halo. "Okay. I'll go and draw aggro. You do the weird druid-lady thing."
Sasha Taras smiled sweetly. Her pastel green eyes glimmered with excitement. "You mean summon a monster stampede and farm like a goddess?"
Jered smiled back. "Exactly."
This was no ordinary forest.
The trees were giant mushrooms. The sky was a bio-luminescent canopy. Monster packs moved like militarized nature spirits—fungal warriors, venom-root hydras, and skybound wasps the size of chariots.
But Jered wasn't impressed.
"Alright, who wants a beating?" he bellowed, igniting his Dauntless Flame, now evolved over the years of relentless training.
