Chapter 64: Insight of Millennia

Toren Daen

Lady Dawn tilted her head at me. Though no wind sifted through this zone, her hair rustled as if kissed by an invisible breeze.

"It has taken some time for you to question me of this aspect of our power, Contractor," the phoenix said.

I spared another glance at the forest around me as I walked. In the time I had taken to look at Lady Dawn, the trees had once again reoriented their spearlike branches toward me. "I wanted to practice it in the Relictombs since you mentioned that it was difficult to restrain our asuran signature when I engage the Will. And there's no guarantee I'll ever have a more peaceful moment to practice my Will than now."

The phoenix nodded slowly. "And that was wise. Until your control of my Will reaches precise levels of power, you will be unable to restrain the outpour of power."

I nodded. My control of mana and inner power had risen greatly as I assimilated the Phoenix Will, as I had to maintain tight control of the mana in my body. I was still undergoing the assimilation process regularly with Lady Dawn's assistance. From what I could feel, I thought I was likely nearing the ending stages of assimilation. Where it had taken Arthur several years to assimilate Sylvia's Will, I had some very distinct advantages in that regard. For one, Arthur had Virion to assist in his assimilation.

I had Lady Dawn.

"How exactly can I expect the Will to function?" I asked, remembering how close Lady Dawn's mind had come to my own when I slipped into the Acquire phase of her Will. "I feel like even my first phase was far more powerful than it should've been."

It was true that the first phase of Sylvia's Will allowed Arthur to separate himself from the flow of time, but my Acquire phase allowed me to shoot lasers from my hands. They acted fundamentally differently.

The phoenix furrowed her brows, no doubt sensing the implications of my words. "Do you know what a Beast Will is, Contractor?" the phoenix asked at last.

I furrowed my brows, walking around a bend in the unchanging dirt road. "Mana beasts of certain power level, usually A-class and above distinction in Dicathen, are able to pass down their unique insight and Will, usually to their young. But mages can sometimes extract the Will from a beast core, if they're lucky."

Lady Dawn stared into my eyes and held my gaze. I slowly stopped walking, the asura contemplating how to break some bit of information to me.

"You are correct, Contractor, but you do not grasp the implications of your words. You know that a mana beast can pass on its insight as Will. But what happens when this beast passes on their Will to their offspring? And their offspring's offspring?"

I furrowed my brows, trying to piece together what Lady Dawn was trying to tell me. She did this often, laying a path for my mind to trod and allowing me to reach the conclusion she desired on my own.

Then it clicked. Though the sky above was cloudy, I felt a ray of sunlight might just have pierced its way through. "It compounds," I said. "All that insight adds up into a single Will. It grows in power as the generations go by."

"And how long do asura live, Contractor?"

As I peered into Lady Dawn's eyes, I was reminded of how ancient this being was. Here was a woman who had seen the rise and fall of empires. Here was a woman who had witnessed the flow of time in a way I could not comprehend. Here was a woman who was older than Rome; older than Jerusalem; older than Babylon.

She was older than anything I knew, and at that moment, I felt the full weight of that age on my bones.

I swallowed. "How many generations has this Will grown?" I asked, a bit of a waver in my voice. The Will had always been a bit of a distant thing for me. I had it, true, but I rarely drew on its power or contemplated its meaning.

"It is not known how far back the Asclepius Clan's knowledge has been passed from leader to scion," Lady Dawn replied. The age in her eyes would grind any mortal man to dust. "It is a nigh-infinite library of condensed understanding, waiting at your fingertips. But to allow you to slowly assimilate that insight, you must activate the Will in stages depending on your mastery. And my own insight guides you through the process. My mind, still holding lingering attachment to my Will, pushes you along safer paths. You do not break under the strain because I carry you through the shallow currents, as a mother shows her chicks the safest routes to fly. Thus, you access more raw understanding than otherwise would be possible."

I looked at my hands, clenching and unclenching my fists. That level of power… It was hard to fathom. How many millennia of understanding were condensed into the Will nestled in my core?

"I think I understand," I said slowly.

"No, you do not. You can not, not without experiencing it further," the phoenix cut across my words sharply. "But you will understand in time."

I chewed on that thought, sparing another glance at the trees around me. They unnerved me to no end. "So, do I simply… embrace the Will?" I asked. "Draw it to the surface?"

"It will come to you naturally," the asura said, standing in front of me. "The Will desires to be used. Always remember that, Contractor. It is not some mindless force, like a storm or an earthquake. The Will of countless Asclepius asura desires to be learned. It wants to fulfill its purpose."

"You speak as if the Will has consciousness," I said hesitantly. "As if it can make its own decisions."

"The Will is a force, Contractor. But it is also a beast. Through assimilation, you tame that beast. You show it your worth. But it is still a beast."

I closed my eyes with a shuddering breath, my mind brushing against the Will in my core. It was an alien thing, but I could almost… feel it agreeing with my Bond. About its desires. About its force.

About its beastly nature.

"But do not let yourself sink too deep, Contractor," Lady Dawn said, drawing me back to the present. "For you may not be able to pull yourself from that ocean. Your mind is but one of the many the Will has been a companion to. It does not know restraint. Only you do."

I let myself drift back toward my core, my mind feathering against the Will's. It eagerly rescinded my contact, like a curious child touching something new and interesting.

It has probably never interacted with a human mind before, I thought with wonder as the Will slowly drew itself up to me. And then we intersected.

I felt the power, the knowledge, suffusing me in an instant like a shot of caffeine. It was as if all the cells in my body had been laid in a warm bath, the heat suffusing them and speeding up their function. My muscles felt loose and mobile, unseen tensions releasing as my mind brushed against both Lady Dawn's and Will's. As the connection solidified, Lady Dawn and the Will seemed to become one and the same, the experienced phoenix taking the reigns.

But there was something else in there, too. Where Lady Dawn was a brilliant light banishing my ignorance and lack of insight, this thing was dark and beastly. It was… dormant. Sleeping. But the light of the Will irritated it, crashing against its eyes and burning its pitch-black scales.

My basilisk blood. It loathes the light. It hates the way Lady Dawn scours away the shadow.

They could not exist together. Not for long.

I opened my eyes, about to ask a question. But what I saw shocked me to the core.

For miles upon miles around me, small red fires burned in the heart of every white tree. Those fires should consume the wood, some part of me thought. But another part, the one that almost understood, knew that was not how the fire of life worked.

But now, with my senses enhanced many-fold by the first phase of my Phoenix Will, I could truly feel the attention on me. It was like spiders crawling on my skin, the legs poking and prodding at every bit of skin with malicious intent. I felt the branches of each and every demonic tree brushing against my face, my arms, my torso, my eyes, my ears–

The Will retreated into my core in a rush, leaving me gasping. In the few seconds I'd used it, it had siphoned a significant portion of my mana just to stay active. But the level of understanding had nearly overwhelmed me.

"These trees," I said with a gulp, staring out at them with fearful eyes, "What are they?"

"They have souls," Lady Dawn said from beside me, a bit of disgust leaking into her voice. "I do not know of their origin. Your senses have not delved deep enough to peer at their secrets. But the fact that they have heartfire… It is wrong."

I stared with wide eyes at the trees around me. Their gnarled and twisted branches seemed to have straightened into spear shafts, ready to impale me for witnessing their secrets.

"Heartfire?" I asked a bit emptily, trying to get my mind to think again.

"Lifeforce. The flame of vitality. Soultether. Heartfire. All words for the same thing: the aether that ties the soul to the body," the phoenix said. Her words trailed off as she stared at the trees. "What did they do to these trees? Who did they do it to before?"

This… this had rattled Lady Dawn deeply. Something about that deep red fire, flaring in the center of every tree.

I swallowed. I had a feeling I wasn't going to test the Will again any time soon.

—

The first sign of trouble came as dusk settled. I continued moving on the endless dirt path for many miles, keeping fearful eyes trained on the trees. I never saw them move. Never saw them shift, or heard the creaking of their boughs. And yet their branches stayed trained on me like arrowheads, always ready to strike.

The gray clouds in the sky began to shift, moving in unnatural patterns. They darkened ominously as they swirled, casting the land in shadow. I frowned upward, sensing the unnatural movement of the mist above. It was clearly a portent of something to come.

Lightning flashed across the sky, heralding rain. A few seconds later, thunder rumbled ominously.

And then the rain began to fall. As far as I could tell, there was nothing abnormal about the rain. No special mana properties. No strange coloration.

But its effects upon hitting the ground were the furthest thing from normal. The entire zone rumbled as trees began to quiver and shake, their roots writhing under the surface as they greedily drank the water the sky gave them. It looked as if massive worms were writhing under the surface of earthen skin, the ripples cascading outward like thunder.

And some of the trees began to change. Crimson leaves sprouted from their branches, quickly morphing and growing. But leaves were not the only thing the trees grew: large, bulbous fruits the color of blood coalesced like tumors on the branches of the trees, before growing too heavy and dropping to the floor.

My breathing picked up as I drew Oath and Promise, mana coursing through my veins. The ambient mana around me thrummed with power as I settled into my stance, looking around frantically. Heavy rain soaked through my clothes, adding another chill to my bones beyond the eerie sound of fruits dropping to the floor. Water dripped down my forehead and along the edges of my blades, and the ground beneath my feet began to grow muddy as the moisture seeped in.

The first thing I heard besides the rain was a sound like wood being shoved through a chipper. I oriented on the sound, watching in awed horror as one of the fruits morphed, swelling and changing as it sat on the ground.

Long, wiry white arms thrust from the fruit like a sprouting sapling, white wood twisting in on itself to form a slowly growing figure. The figure that grew from the fruit looked like it was made of the same white wood as the trees, but that was where the resemblance ended. Short rear legs scratched at the ground, and an angular maw of razor-sharp teeth snarled. A trim, lithe body rippled as wood shifted like veins under paperlike skin.

The water running over its skin reflected its beady red eyes, which quickly glared at me.

The creature rushed me, hauling itself forward with ape-like arms as long as its entire body. It screeched, a gnarling sound that grated against my eardrums.

And soon, a dozen more screeches joined it. Fruits burst open like cysts all around, sprouting these monstrous creatures in their place.

I sidestepped as the monster leapt at me on the path, bringing Oath down in a scything arc as it passed. My blade flashed as it severed the monster's head from its body, the white maw chittering as it tumbled away. The body collapsed to the ground in front of me, roots squirming at the base of the skull where I'd separated the head.

I swiveled in the rain, kicking up water as I brought my sword in a cut toward another creature. My blade cut deep into the wooden body, but not enough. I had to backpedal to avoid a swipe of their claws, but it wasn't enough.

The razor-sharp claws grew a few inches as I tried to dodge backward, scraping against my telekinetic barrier with a screech like the sheering of metal. Crystalline fractures opened along the barrier where the hit landed, signaling that these swipes were far more dangerous than they appeared.

I snarled, pushing the aether beast away with a burst of telekinesis and following up with a fireball. The rain dampened the effect of my spell, but I was skilled enough that it still seared a hole through the wooden body.

But there were dozens of screeching beasts barreling through the forest toward my exposed position. I was out in the open, and if I wasn't careful, I would be surrounded and cut down. I needed to find a better position than the muddy path.

I burst forward with telekinesis, my first instinct to get up into the trees. It was something that had been ground into my subconscious by my training in the Clarwood Forest. If you were overwhelmed on the ground, immediately seek the high ground.

I dashed toward one of the trees, leaping over one of the clawing aether beasts. The tree demon tried to swipe at me, its claws extending momentarily to give it extra reach, but I used a few pushes against its body to launch me further.

The branches of the tree caught me like a net. Where before I had never seen the white boughs shift and move, now they tightened around me and tried to suffocate the breath from my lungs. They tightened with malicious intent, having finally caught their prey.

Damn it! I thought as my telekinetic shroud creaked, the force from the constricting branches pressing down on it like a snake.

I pushed outward with an unfocused nimbus of fire and telekinetic force, scorching the wood and splintering any branches too rigid to bend. In that brief reprieve, I darted back to the clear, mud path, recognizing that trying to survive in the trees was tantamount to suicide. They wanted to strangle me just as much as these beasts.

There were dozens–no, hundreds–of the aether beasts sprinting through the forest now. I blanched, the water seeping into my clothes making me feel twice as heavy. They all came up to my waist when they ran, looking like a tide of death. My footing was unstable as I began to run, sprinting with both telekinetic pushes and bursts of fire from my feet. I held Oath and Promise in my hands, the twin blades my only comfort.

I vaulted over a few tree demons as they reached the path in front of me, severing their hands with my weapons as they tried to claw at me. The stumps of their hands twisted with roots as they screeched in fury, but while these beasts had me outnumbered, I was faster.

I landed on the head of one of the beasts. It showed no shock or startlement from getting a boot to the face, but after I used a flare of telekinesis and fire from my feet to propel myself further along the path, I doubted it would ever show emotion again.

A score of the small monsters were waiting for me in the place I was about to land. My mind, already frantic from being surrounded by hundreds of hostile monsters, worked quickly to try and come up with a solution.

I summoned a fireball at my feet, compressing the fire mana into a tight sphere. When I reached the ground, a dozen swiping hands carved gouges into my telekinetic barrier, crystalline fractures rippling out. Before they could attack again, however, my boots hit the ground. My feet drove the fireball into the muddy earth, causing it to detonate in an indiscriminate wave.

Fire washed over the beasts around me, the heavy downpour quickly snuffing out any lingering flames, but it cleared a small patch around the monsters.

Their beady red eyes held no emotion but fury and hatred. They continued to charge me in an unending wave, not caring for their wellbeing as I tore those who got close to me apart. Oath and Promise reflected the lightning flashing overhead as the water tore into my confidence.

I wasted no time, knowing that my mobility was all that kept me alive under the endless tide. I tried to stay above them as I ran, using their heads and bodies as platforms.

But they were adapting to my attempt at escape. As I soared through the rain, a dozen tree demons meshed together, using their own bodies as stepping stones to try and intercept me in midair. They screeched as I approached, screaming what I assumed was bloody murder.

I grit my teeth, seeing the wall of wooden flesh waiting for me. I focused on my telekinesis emblem, focusing a burst of power in front of me. I pulled my arms close and tucked my knees, then let loose with my spell.

The concentrated force blew a hole through the barrier, and I slipped right through the grasping limbs. I trailed water as my feet impacted the soggy ground. When I landed, however, I finally saw a change in the unending landscape. A tall spire of rock jutted into the air like a lighthouse, the slick stone piercing through the trees. The top was a sharp point, but it was a far better location than my open location here.

If I wanted to survive this storm, I would need to reach that spire.