The darkness within the Deep Root Cellar was not a mere absence of light; it was a predatory entity. It did not simply swallow sight; it chewed through the marrow of hope until nothing remained but the bitter dregs of despair. Dayat leaned against the damp, weeping wall of his cell, feeling every throb of his heart like the heavy, sluggish beat of a funeral drum.
Across his body, the Iron-Root Constrictor nets were coiled with a suffocating precision. Every time Dayat attempted to draw a shallow breath, the microscopic thorns of the roots pierced his pores, sending a searing heat through his nervous system that siphoned his remaining Mana and vitality. It was a parasitic architecture, designed by the Elves to turn the World Tree's gift into a weapon of slow, agonizing attrition.
