The forest stretched endlessly in every direction, its molten-barked trees glowing faintly like dying embers. Each step I took over the jagged, obsidian ground felt like a deliberate challenge, the heat rising in waves to claw at my skin, reminding me of the crucible I was trapped in. But now, I wasn't stumbling blindly through it anymore. I was carving my place here, one searing step at a time.
Every morning—or what I assumed was morning, given the subtle dimming of the lake's glow—I started my routine. There was no room for laziness. No time for self-pity. This place demanded everything, and if I held back, even for a moment, it would swallow me whole.
The molten trees became my first test. Their bark, hard as tempered steel and radiating heat like the surface of a furnace, refused to yield no matter how hard I struck them. At first, every punch sent shocks of pain up my arms, the impact biting into my knuckles despite the thin layer of flame I coated them with.
