The Ashen River dungeon was a nightmare of black stone and humming magic.
Mikhailis had seen ruins, tombs, corrupted groves, and experimental labs gone wrong.
Nothing felt like this.
The landscape around the Ashen River felt dead and awake at the same time. The river itself flowed thin and dark, like a wound cutting through the land. Jagged black stones jutted from the banks, slick with some kind of faint, colorless sheen that didn't look like water.
Mist clung low to the ground, thick and pale, moving like it was breathing. Every now and then, it shimmered faintly when mana currents shifted.
The dungeon entrance wasn't a nice circular door or grand archway.
It was a broken scar in the cliffside—a shattered arch of old stone, half-melted, half-cracked. Strange sigils crawled across its surface like old scars that hadn't healed properly. Some glowed faintly. Others were dark, but he could feel their presence like old anger.
Mikhailis walked alone toward that shattered arch.
