The sun rose over the Iron-Wood City, casting long golden shadows across a civilization that had transformed overnight.
Where there had once been only wild forest and fear, there were now stone houses with chimneys puffing out white smoke.
There were paved roads. There were irrigation channels diverting water from the river to feed rows of crops, strange, green vegetables that Roxy had insisted were edible, and which had miraculously kept the population fed through the dry season.
But the biggest change wasn't the architecture; it was the people.
Females walked the streets without cowering. They carried baskets of woven reed, chatting with one another, their bellies swollen with life.
For the first time in centuries, the Beast World wasn't just surviving; it was birthing. The infant mortality rate had plummeted, not because of magic, but because of the simple, radical changes Roxy had implemented before she vanished.
