After she whispered those cryptic words directly into his mind, he was stunned, barely able to process the situation. Eternity…

  “Another one?” The same voice echoed in his mind again. “How can this little pnt wake me up?”

  “I have many tricks, little one,” the pnt replied, a bit taken back, yet still curious. “But how are you able to use telepathy? Humans your age can’t even speak.”

  “Ah, I see you’re sentient. How interesting…” The voice rang with a mocking tone. “As for why that happened? I also have many tricks.”

  “I realised that,” the pnt replied.

  “So, you’re more than a seed shard.”

  “A seed shard? That isn’t something I’m familiar with.”

  "It’s something the girl found in a cave," the voice expined nonchantly. "It healed her and granted her immortality when she was on the brink of death. Nothing big really."

  "Interesting... And what about you? Are you her split personality or something?"

  “Nah, I’m something more. Want to see?” The voice giggled childishly.

  Before the pnt could respond, she perched herself on a boulder, crossing her legs zily. "Open white room," she commanded in a low, menacing voice. A sadistic smile stretched on her face.

  The pnt’s consciousness got yanked into an unknown pne of existence–a glowing, empty white room. The boulder she sat on takes the form of a golden throne with white patterns etched on both sides. The girl looked different now—more sinister. A ring glowed above her head, but its aura was far from angelic. This wasn’t the innocent child the pnt had saved.

  “Impressive. Isn’t it?” she giggled. “So… Your true form is a tree? I assumed you were a mere clever pnt.”

  “This is the first time I’ve seen such power. It is truly stunning.” The pnt, or rather the tree, took some seconds to marvel at the space. He attempted to scan it using its green aura, but it didn’t work. “How did you do it?” He asked.

  "It’s a power I earned through hard work long ago," she replied with pride. "I’m showing it to you because I believe you have the power to free us from this cave."

  "And what is this cave, exactly?" the tree asked.

  Her smile faded slightly. “It’s my prison. And through time I lost a sembnce of myself here. So, you’d be smart to come with me.” She sighed. “You have the blessings, Ao Naeam, only a few selected by the gods possess such a power.”

  “True, I have unique abilities, but don’t mistake them for blessings. I wasn’t gifted with these powers—I was born with them. As for your gods, I know nothing of them.”

  "Hm? So you can control life forms innately? Impressive.” She smiled once again. “That’s better because I would’ve killed you if you were one of their emissaries.

  “You hate gods that much?”

  She scoffed at the mention of the gods, and the ring above her head began to quiver. "These 'gods' are beyond forgiveness. They’re the reason I’m trapped in this 'cave.'"

  "Is there a reason? You seem more like them than you care to admit."

  "Don’t insult me by comparing me to those fools," she spat, her lips curling with disdain. "They lost their divine status when they abandoned the ws of the One God. Now, they only serve themselves."

  She waved her hand. “Forget about those false gods. If you want to be useful, pnt some of your small roots inside the ground, and find a way out.”

  “I did that before. I didn’t find anything.”

  “There must be something. I know it. The key to our freedom is here.”

  “What makes you so sure of it?”

  She got up from the throne and approached the trunk of the tree. She touched the bark with her hand, looking at it with her green eyes. “Believe me. There definitely is a way out”

  “I am not of this existence as you are now,” the voice resonated, heavy with an otherworldly presence.

  “I came from the dimension of light to save humanity from extinction. But in this world, I am powerless—stripped of my spiritual energy, unable to return to my true form. The only way to persist was to inhabit a vessel, a being, a material form… like this human."

  A pause. The air thickened.

  "And now, I see the truth. We are mistakes—errors this world is desperate to erase. The tools of this world hunt me, as they have hunted all who came before. But you… you are the mistake they did not account for.”

  His words carried the weight of something ancient, something that had witnessed ages pass. I wanted to respond, but something held me still—his presence, his voice, or perhaps the way he watched me, unblinking.

  Then, suddenly—movement.

  They were here. The air around us shifted, growing dense with something unseen. And when I turned, I saw them.

  Faceless. Silent. Their hollow existence clung to me like mist, seeping into the spaces between reality and nightmare. They did not attack. They did not speak. Yet, in that moment, I felt something I had never felt before. Fear. A being moved between them—a shadow wrapped in flesh. It did not walk. It did not make a sound. It simply was. A whisper ran through my mind.

  This should not be possible. I waited. I did not breathe.

  But then—it turned, not to me, but to the girl. In the blink of an eye, its arm shifted—twisting, unraveling—morphing into a scythe. Bdes curved in every direction, dripping with a bck substance that hissed as it touched the ground. The earth beneath it burned, corroded, disappeared.

  Its target was clear.

  My breath caught. "He's going to kill her." But he didn’t move. He hesitated.

  -Why? I didn't think. I reacted. Roots burst from my being, twisting and surging toward the creature’s arm, wrapping around it before it could strike. Agony shot through me as the poison burned through my roots, yet still, I held on. A voice, sharp and commanding, cut through the chaos.

  "Pull this bastard!" The girl screamed loudly.

  -I didn’t question it. I obeyed. With all the strength I had left, I pulled. The creature’s form crashed against the wall, bones cracking beneath the force. My roots drove into the stone, pinning it there. A scream tore from its throat—a sound that did not belong in this world. And then, a revetion:

  "Its essence—it’s in the left shoulder! Take it before it escapes!"

  I did not hesitate. With one final surge of energy, my roots struck deep, detonating within the creature’s body. As its limbs filed, as it cwed and tore at me in vain, I ripped its very essence from its flesh.

  The moment I did, its form twisted—shifting into something more grotesque, more desperate. It screamed one st time, a sound of rage, of fear… of release. And then, it was over. Its body colpsed into a bckened mass—liquid, shifting, a ke of sin uncontained by this world.

  And within the darkness, the jewel pulsed, bck and writhing. Burning. In my hands, it burned.

  Soft footsteps approached. The girl knelt before me, her voice steady despite the weight of the moment.

  "That was Guardian of the forgotten gods , now give me the jewel. Let me purify it. Let me turn it into the key to leave this cursed pce. For this child who held me prisoner for decades… and for the suffering I have witnessed."

  She looked at me then—not with fear, nor with demand, but with something else. Something… higher than existence itself.

  "No matter what they were—human, mutant, or something beyond—let them be purified."

  I hesitated. And then, without a word, I let go.

  The moment she touched the jewel, a blinding light pulsed through her hands, engulfing it in waves of shimmering energy. The bckened mass writhed, resisting, screaming—not with a voice, but with something deeper, something woven into the very essence of the world.

  It did not want to be purified. The girl clenched her jaw, her small hands trembling as the corruption fought back. I could see it twisting against her skin, trying to pull her into its abyss, trying to consume her.

  For a moment, I feared she would fail. But then, her voice—clear, unwavering.

  "Enough."

  The jewel cracked. A deep, resonant sound echoed through the space, like the final breath of something ancient and forsaken. The bck mass shrieked one st time before it was consumed by the light, scattering into nothingness. The girl let out a slow breath, the energy fading from her hands as she knelt in the remnants of the being’s cursed existence.

  Silence. For the first time since this battle began, there was only silence. I watched her, this child who had endured far more than she should have. She did not speak. She did not cry. She simply closed her eyes and let the weight of the moment settle around her. Then, barely above a whisper, she said,

  "It’s over."

  But I knew better. Nothing was ever truly over. The air still carried the remnants of something unseen, something waiting. The ground beneath us still pulsed with the echoes of those who had suffered before us. And I—though victorious—could feel the scars of the battle etching themselves into my very being.

  And then, the voice returned. Low, weary, yet holding a strange sense of peace.

  "So even pnts can cry?"

  The ughter that followed was hollow, yet not without warmth. I turned.

  The fallen one—Ishard—y against the far wall, his once-magnificent form now fading. His body, though broken, still held the remnants of something divine, something beyond the reach of mortals. His silver eyes, dim with exhaustion, met mine.

  "My name is Ishard. I am one of the angels who fell from heaven, cast down for seeing too much, for knowing too much. And now, my existence ends—not in reincarnation, but in true death. I have no regrets."

  His voice wavered. "Just live your life as it should be lived. Give it meaning."

  His gaze shifted to the girl, his expression unreadable.

  "As for her… do with her as you will. She is beyond my reach now."

  Something inside me twisted at his words. There was sorrow there, buried beneath his acceptance. A story untold, a bond severed by fate itself. Ishard exhaled, a deep and final breath. His light—what little remained of it—flickered, then faded. As he disappeared, a whisper drifted through the void, a thought left unspoken yet somehow reaching me in the final moments of his existence.

  "I have never fought beside anyone but my brothers. And now, I die beside the st of them. Ironic, isn't it?"

  Then, he was gone. Only the empty space remained, carrying the weight of what had transpired. I stood there, unmoving, feeling the echo of his final blessing settle within me. It was not a command, nor a prophecy. It was simply… a gift.

  A gift for a journey not yet complete. A gift for the battles yet to come.

  * The st echoes of Ishard’s presence faded into silence, leaving only the cold weight of the cave pressing against us. But ahead, something called—a presence vast, alive, and waiting.

  The air shifted. The damp, suffocating darkness began to loosen its grip as we moved forward, the scent of earth repcing the staleness of stone. Then, a faint glow—small at first, then expanding, pulling us toward it like a whisper from another world.

  We stepped through. And suddenly, the world opened. The sky stretched wide above us, framed by towering trees whose emerald canopies swayed with unseen murmurs. The forest was alive, breathing, untouched by time. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I inhaled without the weight of the cave crushing my lungs.

  Yet... the moment should have felt freeing. It did not. This pce had been a prison once—a tomb for the forgotten, the forsaken, the gods who no longer had a name. And though the chains had rusted, their remnants still lingered. Something had crept free, slipping through the cracks with us.

  "They’re watching," the girl murmured.

  I turned sharply. The trees swayed, the wind whispering between them.

  Nothing.

  And yet, deep in my core, I knew—we had not left the cave behind. It had simply followed us into the light...