The Beast King stood at the edge of the clearing, its massive form blocking out what little sickly green light filtered through the canopy. Its armored scales glowed with a deep, inner luminescence, and its golden eyes burned with a primal hunger and territorial rage. The creature was enormous, easily ten times the size of any predator they had faced before, a living mountain of muscle and armored plating. Its very presence seemed to press down on them like a physical weight, a suffocating aura of dominance.
Naviga stood her ground, the Eclipse Blade held firmly in her hand. Before facing this new threat, she needed to be at her best. She reached into her storage ring, her movements economical and swift. She pulled out a small, plain bottle containing a low-grade healing potion and drank it in a single motion. She had six; now she had five. A warm, soothing energy spread through her, mending the minor cuts and bruises from her flight through the swamp.
