Secret buried in Past

The city inside the mountain.

The space between the two slices of the mountain was about 100-150 meters. In this space, many houses of colourful material were etched out of the mountain.

But in the innermost part of the gap, there were two gigantic houses right next to each other. One was the Lord of the City, and the other was the Lord of the Oracle. Two of the strongest people in the city.

But at the moment, none of them was happy. The woman was no more than 30 years old, while the man was over 50 years old.

"Uncle, why do you call me so early in the morning?" Even if her voice was a little impatient, she was full of respect.

"Your uncle is always right." That's the last word of the first lord of the city and her father. All these years, she obeyed the words of her father, but every time the old man called for her, she couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.

"I've had a revelation." And her uncle's face was anything but reassuring. "They're coming soon."

"They? Do you mean…"

The old man nodded, "we don't even have twenty days. Perhaps less than that."

"Can't we stop it?" The woman had been reluctant to abandon the city and had spent year after year to protect it. "We have defeated them once."

"They are stronger than last time."

"We are stronger too."

Looking at this stubborn girl, he smiled. This situation reminded him of the situation of 15 years ago. It wasn't a pleasant memory, though.

"Your father said the same thing," the old man sighed, adding, "and he proved me wrong, but what was the cost?"

The lord of the city could understand the meaning of his words. Even if she wanted to answer the question, she chose not to do it.

"He did not live to enjoy the fruit of his labour. Are you willing to pay the same price?"

'The same price as my father? Do you mean that I'm going to die, too?' The woman did not dare to believe his words. 'I'm a lot stronger than my dad. Even my dad wouldn't be able to beat me.'

The old man, in front of her, smiled as if he had understood her thoughts, and said, "Now they're much stronger. They're not the one you can beat with your current strength, and they're not alone."

"Is there really no way?" The woman was reluctant to give up.

But the old man's face was grim. "I don't know, the vision wasn't very clear. But there was not just one enemy. Other than the one your father had fought before there is one more…" the old man looked at the woman before he said, "one you don't want to fight."

"Two of them?" the lord of the city could not believe what she had heard. 'Father had fought with only one, but how could there be two of them?

"I don't know." The old man could only sigh in his heart, "Lord, we must save as much as possible."

The man in front of her was a friend of her father's, almost twice her age. Yet when he called her 'Lord,' even a stubborn girl like her could understand the seriousness of the matter.

But she couldn't give up, "Uncle, please, let me know if there's a way to save the city. If we give up on the city, where are we going to go?"

That's the point that worried the old man the most. They've got nowhere to run, even if they wanted to. The only place they could go was back to the mountains. But there was nothing but death waiting for them.

Even if they could fight off the hordes of the beast of Mana, there is no way they could feed tens of thousands of people. And many of the old, young and old women might not survive the harsh weather of the mountains.

The old man wasn't sure about this method, but he couldn't think of any other. He said, "Don't spread the panic but we have to prepare."

He was about to say something, but he stopped before he turned to her. "First and foremost, I need a promise from you." Looking at the old man's face, she could understand what the old man could say.

"Don't say that, uncle." Her unwillingness put a smile on his face. He took out a scroll of leather parchment.

A musky stench hit her nose as he rolled it out. But more than the smell, it was the scroll itself that most shocked her.

"Are you not trying to use an oath scroll?"

The old man didn't answer, he just nodded. "This scroll is from the far north. Their magic is very different from us, but it's strong."

As the old man spoke, he cut off the tip of his finger and put a drop of blood inside the circle. "Follow my action."

"No, I won't do it."

"If you don't do it, I won't help you at all." The face of the old man is sterner than before.

"No, I'm not going to do that. I know what you're trying to do, but I'm never going to leave the city that my father had fought to protect."

"It's not the time for a petty argument." Looking at the stubborn woman in front of him, he was reminded of his stubborn old friend. And those memories made him more determined.

"It's not your time yet." The old man looked out of the window, looking at the green valley, and the giant tree stump in the middle of it, a drop of tear escaped his heart.

"You? Have you seen that?"

The old man smiled but chose not to answer that question, "What will your father say if I take you with me? You're far too young."

Tears trickled down her eyes, not knowing what to say. Even though she had many words in her heart, she couldn't say anything aloud.

"What do you think your father wanted to protect? The land, the mountains?" the old man shook his head before continuing, "He wanted to protect you, he wanted to protect me," his voice shook a little while, "he wanted to protect the people who live in this land."

She stared at the rolled out scroll that shone in a faint golden colour.

"Your father will be happy as long as his people survive, as long as you survive. And, I will be happy too."

"Jaya, don't be stubborn. You're the only one who can save them, and if you die, no one will survive."

She looked at the roof, worried that all the tears would spill out if she looked down. But it wasn't enough.

"You're our only hope. You've got to survive." His words broke her resistance. The atmosphere was damp. But the old man waited for her emotions to be sorted out. The wait, however, was not small.

"As long as there is a small chance of success, I'm not going to give up." Her puffy eyes were full of resolution.

She put a drop of blood in the scroll with the old man's nod. The glow soon grew stronger. Two drops of blood were burned and two pieces of silk were produced. They moved as if they had a life of their own.

The silk produced by the old man's blood wrapped around her wrist and the other string of silk wrapped itself around the old man's wrist. And soon, the leather scroll lost all its colour.

They continued to talk about the precautions they were supposed to take. Even if evacuation of the city is the best option, the evacuation of hundreds of thousands will do more harm than any good. So they kept talking to find the best way to survive.

After an hour of talking, they finally came up with a workable plan. The woman was just about to leave. When he said, "Look for a man with a scar on his heart."

The woman turned to look in confusion at the old man. She didn't understand what it meant, the old man didn't explain, "Just do it."

"Why is that?"

The old man shook his head before he said, "I don't know for sure, but he had some kind of connection to all the events."

****************

*17 days till the end of the task period.*

The car that Aiden had taken was the third from the front. Aiden had chosen to sit in the front, and Kaiser had taken the wheel. The automated driving program had already lost its efficiency, and so did most of the automated systems.

Aiden was quite confused when he tried to crank the level to pull the window down. The journey was not smooth, the road was bumpy, and the car was shaking too much.

But as soon as the car came out of the forest, the view in front of him changed. The car was still shaking, but Aiden wasn't feeling it anymore.

'This is the earth, for which I have come.' Aiden spoke in his heart. The green meadow has spread across the land like waves on the restless sea.

The wind was a bit chilly, but it felt refreshing. He had imagined that the earth would be a place like this. Open, green and free.

"This is the first time you've seen a place like this, isn't it?" Looking at Aiden's satisfied face, Kaiser couldn't help but ask.

Aiden nodded, even though he was unable to remove his eyes from the scenery. Aiden was never able to think of anything that could cut a mountain like this. But the city that sprang from it seemed mesmerizing.

"But it wasn't always like that." Kaiser 's words broke his dream. Aiden looked at him as if he wanted to know everything about it. So Kaiser explained.

"The mountain range along the horizon was once called the Great Sedna Mountain, and the dark forest from which you came was known as the Great Nozama Forest."

"But once the toxic mana began to spread, things began to change. With mana, the first thing that evolved was neither man nor beast, it was the trees. Three giant trees sprouted all over the continent. We used to call them 'The World Tree'."

Thinking about the days' Kaiser couldn't help but sigh in his heart. He went on to say, "But it should have been called 'the world's devourer tree'. We first thought it was protecting us from the rapidly mutating mana beast, but it turns out that it used humans as food sources."

"Trees that eat human?" Aiden had a hard time believing. He felt it wasn't possible. For starters, the trees don't have a mouth.

Understanding his dilemma, Kaiser added, "they devoured humans, they did not eat them. They would absorb all the mana of humans, leaving behind nothing but skeletons."

Looking at the giant tree stump Aiden felt that it was the remnant of one of the world's devouring tree, but he felt that there was something wrong with the story. "Isn't that just a tree? You could just run away."

Kaiser could have understood where those words came from. "We thought the same thing, but it was too late."

"They didn't just absorb human beings, but they also created soldiers made of vines and human skeletons. They weren't just using human skeletons, they also used the remains of the beast."

"If it wasn't enough, those trees were also capable of producing tree people. All our weapons were useless against those monsters who couldn't die, who didn't feel pain."

Those words are like a bucket of cold water. Even if the view was not changed, Aiden now had a very different meaning. 'That place, too, had one. Much bigger than this one. That place and Adi?'