Percival still held the Beast Source when he arrived in the next Encounter Zone.
This time, the transition wasn't as sudden. He could feel all of it. He felt the temperature change from the humid, vertical suffocations of the Mangroves to heat.
Pure, agonizing heat.
And this wasn't the heat of the Unwelcoming Hills, this was the sudden, total absence of moisture.
One breath, Percival was inhaling swamp rot; the next, he was breathing in pulverized obsidian and liquid sulfur.
This was the Volcanic Stone Land.
The landscape was a nightmare of jagged, black volcanic glass, fractured into massive plates that groaned and shifted over a sea of subterranean fire.
Between the cracks, the ground bled. The blood were rivers, an endless number of them connected in fractures.
They were slow-moving, and bubbling, letting out steam that could scorch one's skin in instant contact.
