[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/PhMBt9h.png[/img][/center]

[center]╔═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╗[/center]

The Jungle around them seemed to lean in on them. The weight of the air alone was palpable. And the silence prevailed, save the whimpering of the cub and the anxious chuffing of the war horse, sensing something amiss. As Edwin held the small white-and-blue creature up to his face, it licked his nose with a helpless whimper.

As it did, coincidentally, the runes on the stones began to light up even brighter. Aedrianna cried out as she realized too late. Her hand outstretched toward him as his body was swallowed in brilliance, transported away.

In the next few seconds, the dark knight found himself somewhere else entirely.

The humid press of the jungle air was gone, replaced by the cool weight of stone and the scent of earth long undisturbed. He stood inside a ruined chamber, vaulted and broken, where thin veins of sunlight slipped through cracks in the ceiling. Moss clung to the walls, and faded glyphs etched into the stone gave off a faint, sickly glow.

Before him lay the same mana beast’s body that had sprawled across the altar in the jungle clearing—but here it rested upon a cracked dais of stone. The blood that stained its fur was long dried, caked into its mane and hide, the altar beneath it dark and brittle with age. The body should have been bereft of life.

[center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/8ycCpMq.png[/img][/center]

Yet it twitched.

The cub writhed in Edwin’s grasp, hissing and growling low in its throat, ears flattened and fur bristled. Its gaze never left the sight of its mother. Every sound it made directed at the corpse with instinctive revulsion.

From the far edge of the chamber, a figure shifted. They were too plain to name: neither boy nor girl, their skin, clothes, and hair washed into mediocrity so thoroughly they seemed designed to be overlooked. They leaned lazily in the shadows, watching.

Their voice carried through the ruin, toneless but cutting.
[color=green]“I can feel your greed… it emanates off you. Like some dragon sitting on its hoard.”[/color]

The beast’s carcass twitched again, harder this time, bones cracking audibly in the silence. The cub snarled in Edwin’s hand, twisting with furious disapproval, its tiny body trembling as it faced the grotesque stirring of its kin.

The figure did not move. They only watched, words delivered in a drawl of disinterest.
[COLOR=green]“Do you know what lies before you? A Mana Beast. Generations warped by Leylines, their very flesh adapting to mana’s chaos. Where others break, they learned to bend. To warp. To endure.”[/COLOR]

As they spoke, the runes in the stone flared brighter, and the carcass heaved. Its limbs jerked against the altar, dragging its broken body upright in unnatural convulsions. The dried blood cracked and flaked from its hide as though new life pushed against a brittle shell.

[COLOR=green]“It's almost sad, what magic has made it do.”[/COLOR]

The cub shrieked in his gauntlet, eyes wide, yowling its furious defiance as the beast began to rise.

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There's a very large Lion/Wolf like beast and it's undead. And it's about to attack Edwin. Edwin gets first strike. In order to do damage, the battle effectiveness must meet 10.  (I know what I'm talking about totally.)