The path behind them dimmed as they stepped into the Collector's Ring. What had been a bright, muted valley before now turned pitch black, as though they'd walked straight into night. Faint white lights flickered high above, mimicking a false moon, casting thin silver streaks over the land.
Ahead loomed a massive, red and white circus, its canopy torn in places, with faint sounds drifting from within. From the shadows above, pairs of glowing white eyes floated in silence, four along the tent's upper rim, others scattered deeper in the dark, watching.
Renny stopped a few paces from the entrance, gaze narrowing. "A circus," he muttered. "So… the beast lives here?" It wouldn't have been the strangest thing. Every beast he'd faced so far had shaped its own domain — timber forest, Kitchen, mountain. This one, apparently, chose spectacle.
Beside him, Myla shivered. "It's… unsettling," she said softly.
