The tree line was silent—no rustle of forest critters, no flapping wings, not even the wind. Only the distant howls of horror echoing from beyond the shattered city gates broke the stillness.
The gates had once stood proud, towering more than sixty meters high and just as wide. Silver, etched with countless ancient runes, they had been marvels of craftsmanship. Now, they lay in ruin, shattered into fragmented greatness—as if kicked down by a mighty titan. Their remnants littered the ground like fallen relics of a forgotten age.
The sky overhead was bright, but bleak… a pallid gray that seemed almost too vivid compared to the eternal gloom of the Whispering Forest. Here, ruins of broken man-made constructs sprawled in every direction, silent reminders of a civilization long lost. Despite the epochs and the brutal passage of time, shrines still stood nestled along the inner wall—moss-covered and cracked, but enduring.
