The forest around Nero was a nightmare given form. The trees rose like twisted fingers, their branches gnarled and black, their leaves a sickly shade of grey. The air was thick, heavy with ambient prana, so dense that it felt almost suffocating—a normal person would have choked on it, their lungs unable to process the raw energy that saturated every breath. But Nero was no normal person. He was the heir to prana, the one who could feel its flow, its rhythm, its pulse. To him, the thick energy was a comfort, a reminder of his connection to the world.
He had chosen a different path than the others. Instead of hunting in bulk, killing everything in sight, he had opted for quality. He spread his senses, letting his awareness flow outward like ripples on a pond. He could feel the monsters, their prana signatures burning like beacons in the darkness. The weak ones were easy to ignore. The strong ones, the ones that radiated power like a furnace, were his targets.
