The air remained oppressively heavy, steeped in that nauseating, almost imperceptible sweetness of decay. Thalia's violent reaction—her body wracked with shudders—doused any hope they had felt when they thought they'd shaken off their pursuers.
"Outpost…" Raine whispered dryly, throat parched. He stared into the murk ahead, the darkness thick and viscous like congealed blood. "What must the true Corrupted Forest be like?"
Karrion said nothing. The dwarf checked the grip on his hammer, tightened a leather strap on his shield, his weathered face lined like warnings etched in ancient stone.
Thalia gradually straightened, leaning against a gnarled trunk. Her complexion was paper-white, but the terror and revulsion in her eyes had given way to a cold, numbed vigilance. "Worse than any hell you can imagine," she murmured, voice trembling. "Let's go. We're too close."
They pressed on along the Bone-Shatter Trail, but the atmosphere had irrevocably shifted. Exhaustion and tension were replaced by something far more primal: fear itself. Each step felt as precarious as walking on thin ice; the sound of rolling stones in the deathly silence rang painfully in their ears.
The landscape grew stranger still. The warped trees no longer stood alone—they formed a twisted woodland. Branches clawed at the sky like convulsing fingers, bark split open, oozing foul black sap. Beneath their feet, true earth had vanished, replaced by a gray-black moss that felt unsettlingly springy, like charred sponge.
The stench of rot intensified, now mingled with the acrid tang of rust and the nauseating ammonia reek of moldering flesh, cut through by an ozone-like sharpness. Each breath scraped his throat and lungs as though he inhaled fine shards of glass. Raine felt that infection seep into his bones; even his star-blood stirred in alarm, not in resonance but in instinctive rejection.
Karrion fared only marginally better. The dwarf's hardy physique and mastery of harsh terrain allowed him to endure longer, but his ragged breathing and furrowed brow betrayed mounting strain. "Bah! This air could poison a cliff-dweller!" he snarled, scanning the shifting shadows.
Thalia walked in the center, supported by Raine. Though still ice-cold to his touch, he sensed a faint force resisting the vile atmosphere at her chest. A delicate tremor—like a sliver of ice fighting the surrounding heat—pulsed beneath her robes. She did not cough as before, but her color drained further and her breaths came in shallow gasps.
"We're nearly there," Thalia whispered, voice barely audible.
"Nearly… where?" Raine asked, voice tight.
"The border."
After another quarter-hour, the slope leveled out—but the scene grew far more horrifying. They arrived at what had once been a sheer cliff-edge, now split by a grotesque divide.
On one side lay the warped forest they'd just traversed: twisted trees, scorched moss, polluted air—yet still recognizable. On the other side opened a realm of pure, indescribable chaos.
It was as if reality itself had been torn apart and haphazardly reassembled from rotting scraps. No clear tree‐shapes remained—only writhing masses of black, gray, and dark-purple forms. They resembled melted wax or solidified nightmares, sprouting in an unnatural tangle. Some "branches" glowed a ghastly white, draped with ragged strips that dripped a tar-like ichor. The ground was no longer earth or moss but a shifting black carpet of oily fungal growth, exuding an even more suffocating stench.
Silence reigned. Absolute, maddening silence.
Behind them, wind still moaned through the gnarled trunks, and they could hear their own boots and ragged breaths. Beyond the threshold, all sound had been devoured as if swallowed by the void itself. No rustle of leaves, no insect buzz—only the hush of annihilation.
Raine's heart seized. He could not draw breath—not from the stench, but from the deadening quiet, reaching deep into his marrow. This was not mere danger—it was the denial of life, a mockery of all order and existence.
"This is… the Corrupted Forest," he rasped.
Karrion stood grim beside him, his squat form as rigid as a boulder. Though he had seen his homeland ravaged by corruption, face-to-face with this forbidden boundary, even the dwarf trembled. "Worse than legend…" he murmured.
Thalia watched the lifeless chaos, eyes reflecting fear, hatred, and a burden of destiny. "This line is clear," she said. "It's more than a boundary. It's… a wound."
Raine followed her gaze. Indeed, the edge was as sharp as a blade: on one side the jagged outposts of corruption, on the other a fallen realm. At the boundary lay another horror—bones.
Deer and wolf skeletons, and those of unknown beasts lay scattered across the soil's torn surface. Yet these weren't mere remains: their bones were pitted and eroded, honeycombed by some corrosive acid. Some even bore traces of a tar-like residue. Nearby, plants long since withered now resembled uprooted tentacles, their hollow stems clinging to the ground. No living creature remained—no moss, no lichen—only distortion and death.
In that silence, the message was clear: any life that crossed into this domain would evaporate into these bleached, corroded relics, leaving no whisper of its existence.
Suddenly, a wind gusted from the chaos, chilling them to the bone. It carried a fierce, corrosive odor—no natural breeze but the breath of something vast and ancient.
"Careful!" Thalia warned.
The gale passed over them. Raine reeled with nausea as though some cold, slimy hand had seized his stomach. Pain like lightning struck his head; fractured images flickered in his mind—twisted faces, jet-black fluids, silent screams. He staggered backward, vision blurring, as the meteorite at his belt grew icy with an anguished, voiceless cry, struggling to shield him.
"Ugh…" Karrion groaned, doubled over and retching. The dwarf's hearty frame convulsed, his cheeks turning crimson, eyes reddening. He clutched at his face, but that poisonous breath infiltrated him nonetheless. "Damn… void-spawned scum…"
Yet Thalia's response was wholly different. When the wind touched her, she trembled…but did not back away or gag. Instead, she fixed her gaze upon the silent abyss, her color paling further, lips bloodless. Yet in her eyes glimmered a fierce, unwavering light: pain and loathing fused with resolute defiance. Raine saw her knuckles whiten as she pressed a hand to her chest, as though her very heartstone—a shattered star-core—strained to hold back the invasion. The effort taxed her terribly; droplets of cold sweat beaded on her brow.
The wind passed, but the stench lingered, thick and suffocating. Raine gulped air, steadying his trembling body and mind from the cacophony of dread still echoing in his skull. Across, Karrion leaned against a rock, hacking and wheezing, his face drained of color. Thalia, rigid as a statue, seemed caught in silent combat with that unseen menace.
Silence fell again, a press of dread so complete it crushed them. They stood on the threshold of the Corrupted Forest, having made their first dreadful contact. That brief encounter revealed the forest's true horror.
Raine drew a shuddering breath—stale though it was—and exchanged looks with Karrion and Thalia. None spoke. Fear, resolution, uncertainty, and a fragile trust flickered in their eyes. There was no turning back. Whether ahead lay a trap or salvation, they would have to step forward.
Karrion straightened, spat on the ground, and brushed grass-dampened dirt from his beard. He checked his hammer and gripped a rune-etched stone at his belt, its feeble glow seeming to pierce a bit of the chill. "Ready?" he growled, voice cracking.
Thalia did not answer. She inhaled deeply—an exhalation steadying an inner storm—then nodded once. Raine, fingers tight around the meteorite's smooth surface, felt it respond with a fleeting warmth as if it, too, braced for what lay beyond.
He took the first step past the invisible divide—and into a world undone.
Immediately, the air thickened like molasses, a bone-freezing chill and the intolerable stench bearing down from every side. The black fungal mat beneath their feet squirmed as though alive.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears: THUMP—THUMP
In the oppressive silence, it was the only sound.
Karrion followed, every muscle coiled for danger. Thalia was last, swaying briefly but regaining her poise, eyes steeled against the formless terror.
Ahead lay no path—only a labyrinth of grotesque, impossible vegetation. Shadows writhed, shapes shifting in the gloom like countless hidden eyes. Even the faintest light vanished here, supplanted by an all-encompassing void.
They had crossed into the Corrupted Forest. Behind them, that razor-sharp boundary sealed itself. Before them, only twisting horrors and silent darkness, as the forest itself seemed poised to devour them whole.