The morning air was crisp, tinged with the scent of damp earth and lingering embers from the cookfires. The sky stretched clear and pale, streaked with gold as the first light of dawn cast long shadows over the encampment.
Riven stood at the edge of the Abyssal-forged farmlands, his hands resting loosely at his sides. The land before him—once barren, cracked, and starved of life—now pulsed with something otherworldly.
Rows of medicinal plants thrived in the abyss-touched soil, their dark leaves glistening faintly under the rising sun. Some of the crops bore subtle mutations, the results of the unnatural energy coursing through them—Void Thistle shimmered with an eerie glow, Bloodroot's veins pulsed darker than normal, and Etherbloom swayed gently even without a breeze. The Ashen Sage, however, was the most striking—a single stalk stood among the rest, its silver petals edged in black, as if kissed by the Abyss itself.
It had worked. They had grown.
