Neo moved through the jungle with the distant tower fixed in his mind like a point he could not afford to lose.
This place felt different from the ruins before. The heat pressed against him without mercy, thick and damp, clinging to his clothes and skin until every step carried a thin layer of discomfort with it. Green swallowed almost everything. Trees rose high enough to choke the sky, vines hung between trunks like old ropes, and the ground shifted under roots, wet soil, and stretches of broken stone half-eaten by moss. Here and there, he caught sight of man-made structures in the distance, but there were very few of them, and each one stood far from the next. What filled this place was not ruin. It was jungle. Endless jungle.
He did not have his sword invoked.
