The trio ended up on a hill with the golden saplings on it, and Nightnare happened to take a glimpse at the trees.
/More trees? I thought the last one was cut down! I experienced it myself, how come there are more here!?!?\
While Nightmare was having an internal conflict, Urraina took advantage of his hesitance to shove her hand-claws into his chest to grab at his soul. The goop on his body kept trying to push her out, to prevent her from taking the soul.
{"Too bad reptiles are slippery, so this goo would have worked!"}
Urraina grabbed the most solid item in there, Nightmare's soul. Cross was staring at the trees, all in different types. They were all Peach, Cherry, Starfruit, and Mango species, but each were pure gold. Suddenly, the Mango-looking one shot irritant leaves at his direction, covering Cross's face while the other tree trees were trying to use their scent to lull him to sleep.
Itchy and sleepy, Cross tried to use his knife to cut the trees but missed completely since he thought that the trees were close enough to hit if he didn't aim.
The trees, now angry, used lots of their spindly little roots to tie Cross up, while also putting a healthy dose of anesthesia-like gas into his system.
And that was how Cross was to become the caretakers of the golden saplings.
Meanwhile, Nightmare looked in terror as he felt his soul being ripped away from his body, and the pain as when his tentacles of magic were torn off by Urraina for food, and went into a short coma.
...
Soon enough, Nightmare felt himself be grasped with smooth, hard, and... leafy hands? Nightmare tried to open his eye, just to realize he didn't have one. He did hear something though, something about Ygg-
{And here you are, all woken up! I thought it was gonna take a few hours for you to awaken, seem like Guardians are no joke!}
Frightened, nightmare asked mentally,
;Who are you?;
{oh you tiny mana-based menace, you were thinking about me a few moments ago! The name Yggardael is enough to summon me, the god-eldritch-tree in question!}
Feeling a bit shocked by it all, he was suddenly able to see a giant, platinum Acorn tree looming above him.
{Now, where do I put you? In my chorus, or in my Guardian collection?}
"Wha-"
{Tut tut, I think I'll put you in the guardian section after I purify you.}
"Wait, what purifying?"
The small soul shivered as one of the roots that seemed to be very sharp dribbled something that smelled like melted ice cream and warm things into Nightmare's soul.
The soul felt itself get cleansed, it felt like being scrubbed by a gentle towel.
All the negativity magic dropped off in chunks and dropped into the roots below, being rapidly absorbed.
{So, that was the right mixture huh? Seems like all my testing has paid off!}
"Were there more versions of 'me' before that came here!?!? What happened to them!?!?"
{Oh little plum boy, I used the wrong mixtures on them and they became amalgamated puppets! You wouldn't want to see them.}
The soul was then placed in a very luxurious cage, where tormented Dreams in their true forms were slowly going insane from all the other souls going insane from torture.
Nightmare looked at them in glee, as this was what he wanted to do to his own traitor of a brother. Now remembering, he wonders what happened with his own brother.
{No need to worry, I took all his magic and made him into a tiny ball of tasty energy for eternity. Also, like the view? I love it, traitors of their families suffering for their sins. Screaming in denial. Seeing their allies get absorbed and tortured and killed right in front of them. Isn't that great?}
Nightmare, now realizing how depraved a mind the Tree had decided to not contact it anymore. Surprisingly, it worked. It only worked since the tree lost interest in him, nothing more.