Foster stopped moving.
The world had gone deaf. The howling of the obscurus, the crackling of the flames, the mocking laughter of the general... all seemed far away. All that remained was the sound of blood dripping slowly onto the charred ground.
Dripping.
Lïanna's lifeless body lay before him, her blood mingling with the ashes and remains of the devastated city.
Drop.
An abyss opened up inside him. An absolute void. A black hole devouring everything. Pain, rage, sadness... nothing existed any more. All that remained was this feeling of bitter failure, this curse that seemed to follow him through time and space.
He had failed again. Once again, he had failed.
His fingers tightened on the handle of his katana. He could feel his own body trembling, not from rage, but from a deep, insidious fatigue. He was weary. He wanted to disappear into this inner nothingness, to abandon himself to it and erase himself from this world that was tearing away everything he touched.
But his body moved.
Her legs wobbled for a moment, then firmed. His right arm rose. He raised his katana. He went back on guard.
No words. No war cries. Just a look. A dead, empty gaze with a single gleam: that of a man with nothing left to lose.
The General of Hell squinted as Foster rose to his feet.
- Still up, bug? he sneered.
Foster didn't reply. He attacked.
A flash of green and blue. His katana split the air, crashing with unprecedented violence against his enemy's obscure energy barrier. The impact sent out a shockwave, shattering the ruins still standing. Foster followed up, each movement precise and relentless, giving the general no respite. Yet his body was at the end of its tether. Each blow tore a part of him away, each dodge cost him another second of his life expectancy.
The fight dragged on and on. Foster could feel the abyss inside him growing, threatening to engulf him. He struck relentlessly with the sole aim of hurting the general in front of him.
And as he fought, a faint emerald light illuminated his grimoire.
A new spell had just been inscribed, in pulsating, living ink.
[Renewal of Life]
The process of inscribing the spell was not instantaneous. An excruciating pain shot through his skull, as if something ancient and powerful was trying to force its way into his mind. His veins glowed green and blue, pulsing to the rhythm of his pounding heart. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath, as intricate runes were inscribed on the pages of the grimoire with surgical precision.
Memories flooded into his mind. Snippets of ancient knowledge, forgotten for millennia. Images of majestic trees towering over the sky, forests as old as the world itself, whispers of entities whispering incomprehensible words to him, but much more audible than when he first absorbed the seed.
The grimoire trembled in his hands, its pages turning frantically until they stopped. The emerald ink flowed slowly, tracing sacred patterns, inscribing the incantation of a power that had not been mastered for a long time.
Foster gasped for breath, blood pouring from his nose and ears, his body struggling to cope with the surge of energy. Then, at last, everything stopped.
He understood.
His gaze fell on Lïanna's lifeless body.
And there, before his very eyes, the magic came to life.
Bright green roots began to emerge from her flesh, wrapping her body in a soft, solemn embrace. His blood soaked into the ground, nourishing an invisible seed that suddenly sprouted.
A shiver ran through the air.
A trunk sprang up, rising with frightening speed. In a matter of seconds, a miniature World Tree stood where Lïanna had breathed her last. It had only a fraction of the power of the original, but it exuded an ancestral, indomitable strength.
Foster placed his hand on the living bark. He felt the sap flowing under his skin, merging with his Ki, with his magic. This tree was not just an extension of the World Tree, it was a part of Lïanna herself, as if she were still alive through this tree.
A sudden voice echoed in her mind. The voice of the entity in her temporary visions.
'Take back what was taken from you', it said and disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
Foster closed his eyes. He no longer felt the emptiness. There was no more abyss. Only absolute will.
He stretched out his hand, and the tree responded.
Immense roots sprang up from the ground, black as onyx and veined with green and blue energy. They twisted like snakes, splitting the air at a speed greater than the speed of sound. They struck the Hell general with cataclysmic violence, shattering his defences.
- He screamed as he struggled, unable to break their hold.
The miniature World Tree vibrated, and a new power manifested itself. The luminescent leaves opened, releasing a golden mist that permeated the air, purifying all traces of demonic energy within a radius of several kilometres.
The general screamed in pain. His body began to crack, his demonic Ki burning away under the sacred light. He tried to resist, but Foster wouldn't let him.
He leapt forward, katana raised. His pupils gleamed with an unearthly glow.
- Perish.
His sword came down.
A flash of green and blue energy lit up the ravaged forest.
The General of Hell did not scream. His body disintegrated in absolute silence, disintegrated, eradicated, erased from existence by the power of the miniature World Tree.
[Ding... Achieved feat and first step towards revenge]
[+2 levels and 1 chance to draw the legendary lottery]
Foster staggered.
Victory didn't belong to him. It was hollow, tasteless, a poison seeping through his veins. The general of Hell was dead, annihilated by the power of the little World Tree. But what did it matter? Lïanna was no more. An invisible, indelible crack had opened in him. He leaned back against the bark of the sapling, his breath coming in short gasps, his body shaking involuntarily. His strength was failing him. His soul was leaving him.
The trunk was warm, vibrating under his fingers. He felt an ancient energy, a silent whisper that seemed to want to tell him something. But he was too far away, too lost to listen.
Hurried footsteps, heavily mingled with exhausted breathing, were heard. Giovanni emerged from the shadows, covered in blood and soot, his clothes in tatters. When he spotted Foster, his back pressed against the tree, he sped up, before collapsing to his knees beside him.
- Bloody hell... Foster...
His voice was hoarse, shattered by the horror of what he'd just been through. His gaze went from the field of corpses to the ashes, to the ruins of Vollua, then finally to the tree. The tree where Lianna lay.
- No... no... fuck...
Her trembling hands rested on the bark, searching for something, anything, proof that she was still there, that she could still answer them. But there was nothing. Just the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind.
Giovanni swallowed hard. He looked away, fists clenched, searching for someone to blame, before his gaze returned to Foster. He wanted to shout at her, to ask her why he was still alive when she wasn't. But he saw her expression. But he saw her expression.
Empty.
Foster was dead inside. Only a carcass remained.
So Giovanni said nothing more. He dropped down beside him, head bowed, and simply stood there with him. In the silence of the ashes.
Later, as night enveloped the forest in a veil of darkness, Foster finally moved his numb arm. He felt something.
A residue of energy.
His gaze fell on the wreckage of the battle. Amidst the charred remains and shattered limbs of the obscure, a strange glimmer caught his eye. A stone.
No... a black stone.
Far more imposing than the one he'd found on the obscurus pack. Its aura was overwhelming, vibrating with raw power. It was the remnant of the General of Hell. His essence, his strength.
Foster picked it up carefully. The stone was warm, pulsing against his palm like a sick heart. He could feel the immensity of its power, pure corruption, a fragment of an ancient evil.
But as he watched her, an idea began to form inside him. A crazy, almost heretical idea.
He thought back to the seed of the World Tree inside him. How it had grown, how it fed on pure energy.
- What if... what if this stone could nourish something else? he murmured in a voice so low that even Giovanni next to him couldn't hear him.
Then he looked up at Lïanna's tree.
His hand slowly closed over the stone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Current Host Status]
[Race] : Elf of the World Tree
[Knight of rank 4]
[Adept Rank 3]
[Talents : Intermediate in fencing, Legendary in magic]
[Innate Talent] : Child of the World Tree
[Level 10 : 2/10000]
[Strength] : 72
[Stamina] : 70
[Constitution] : 70
[Perception]: 76
[Magic]: 68
[Free stat points : 50
[Skill : Fulgurance Tempestive, Multiple shot, Fireball]
[Equipment] : Grimoire, Devourer's Katana