At the other end of the Muster Ground, outside Suncrest City, Thoren stood before a small cave tunnel and stared into the wilderness stretching far into the distance.
The scene before him was nothing like the massive military base behind him.
Instead, the wilderness spread endlessly beneath the open sky, almost peaceful from a distance, yet the longer Thoren looked into it, the more dangerous it revealed itself to be.
Tall trees covered the land like an enormous green ocean, their trunks rising several dozen meters skyward while thick branches intertwined overhead.
Thick shrubs grew between the trunks, some reaching chest height on a grown man and others taller still.
Their dense leaves hiding whatever might be lurking beneath. Vines wrapped around trunks and stretched from branch to branch, while wild grass covered the uneven ground below.
It looked lush.
It looked alive.
But it was anything but peaceful.
A deep howl rolled out from somewhere in the distance.
