The forest pulsed. Not with life, not really—but with an unrelenting, alien rhythm.
Ash covered everything, swirling in the faintest breeze that didn't touch my skin. The trees stretched upward endlessly, their bark scorched and crumbling, yet whole again the second a piece fell. They burned in silence, a looping agony that seemed to defy the laws of nature. The ground beneath me crunched with every step, brittle wood and glowing embers shattering underfoot.
It was a maze, a nightmare of flickering paths that twisted in on themselves. No landmarks, no stars, nothing but fire to guide me.
I kept moving.
Every instinct told me to stop, to rest, but I knew better. Stopping in this place felt like surrender.
The System buzzed faintly in my mind, its text jagged and erratic:
"Trial of the Burning Forest: Navigate the maze. Survive the silhouettes. Claim the First Key beneath the Ashen Grove."
