POV: Aphrodite
Power comes in many forms.
We're three days beyond the rogue encounter when the forest turns truly wrong. The trees here don't just grow at odd angles—they twist, bark spiraling like tortured flesh. The ground beneath our feet pulses faintly, as if something massive breathes beneath the earth.
Kai has been warning us about this territory since yesterday. "Divine testing grounds," he called them. "Where gods experimented on living things. The experiments don't die. They just get worse."
I should have listened more carefully.
The attack comes without warning. One moment we're navigating through undergrowth, the next something erupts from the earth itself.
Not wolf. Not any natural creature.
Corrupted. Twisted by old magic into something that shouldn't exist. It has too many limbs, joints bending wrong, skin mottled with unnatural growths. Eyes—too many eyes—track us with mindless hunger.
