The Island Of Peony

30 days passed since Narisva, Farrynelle and Xander came to the Epoch Cycle, two days while discovering about the Island of Peony, the second island that was ruled by the Blizzard's Wrath.

For Narisva, she spent 27 days looking for a way out of the Fallen Bridge but to no avail. Faced with thousands of Krepsunas of the Sunderer level took a heavy toll on her. Even though she didn't show it, being stuck in an ice tunnel with wooden planks as the floor was traumatic for anyone, even for a number one Seventh Enlightenment Student.

For Farrynelle and Xander, they might the ones who had it easy. Unlike Elyonari and Adelasta who had to survive in a desert and kill Krepsunas day and night and escape a cosmic horror of a sandstorm, they were just teleported into the only standing human kingdom in the Erna Frozen Isles and used to kill the Runic Tribes.

As for the others, no one knew where they were.

But for the six thousand in the Epoch Cycle, they would never be the same.

In just thirty days, the first Epoch Cycle had unraveled the participants' understanding of themselves, the world, and their place within it. The trials they endured were not just physical but existential, forcing them to confront truths and fears that no amount of preparation could shield them from.

By the end of that one month, their mental states reflected the sheer enormity of what they had faced.

For someone as brilliant and self-assured as Narisva, the experience was a relentless assault on her confidence. Every turn in the ice tunnels reminded her of her insignificance in the grander scheme. The thousands of Krepsunas, the infinite labyrinthine passages, and the oppressive presence of the sentient bridge eroded her sense of purpose.

She came to question the meaning of her strength. What was the point of being the strongest if it only delayed an inevitable demise?

The endless repetition of battles became a metaphor for the cyclical, often futile nature of existence. Narisva's stoicism masked the deep cracks forming into growing fear that no matter how much she achieved or how far she pushed herself, it would never be enough to escape the larger forces at play.

For Farrynelle and Xander, the façade of righteousness they carried into the Epoch Cycle had been irreparably shattered. Their roles as warriors, defenders and saviors became twisted as they realized the moral ambiguity of their actions. The simplicity of "good versus evil" dissolved in the face of their orders to kill the Runic Tribes—orders that forced them to confront what it truly meant to be "heroes."

For Elyonari, who revered life and nature, the constant annihilation of both in the desert was a bitter irony. She began to see herself as a speck in a cosmic game she couldn't understand, let alone control.

Adelasta found her cold demeanor cracking. The relentless trials forced her to confront the idea that no amount of strength or apathy could shield her from the inevitability of being swallowed by forces greater than herself.

For the rest of the six thousand plus academy students, the Epoch Cycle obliterated any semblance of the normal life they had once known. In just a month, they had witnessed and experienced horrors beyond comprehension, horrors that made their former struggles and ambitions seem laughably trivial.

Therapists could never help them because the trauma they bore was existential. They had looked into the face of a universe that did not care, where gods, Krepsunas, and cosmic forces played games with their lives.

The notion of fairness, justice, and even reality itself became questionable. How could they trust anything when the very fabric of their existence had been torn apart and reassembled by the Epoch Cycle?

And the Island of Peony was the final straw for Narisva, Farrynelle and Xander.

On the very first day they got to the peony island, all the sixteen hundred human soldiers that Farrynelle and Xander commanded died.

All of them were consumed by... red peony flowers.

The Island of Peony was a place of deceptive beauty. From afar, its surface shimmered with vibrant, crimson peony flowers that blanketed the snowy landscape, a sight of serene elegance amidst the frozen chaos of the Erna Isles.

But that beauty held a sinister hunger, one that would consume everything in its path. Narisva, Farrynelle, and Xander, hardened by their trials, had faced countless horrors in the Epoch Cycle, but what they witnessed here was unlike anything they had ever encountered.

It began quietly, almost innocuously, as the soldiers of their regiment advanced onto the island. The soldiers, sixteen hundred strong, four hundred died in the Fallen Bridge Trials, marched with confidence. The crimson flowers swayed gently in the frigid breeze, their petals releasing faint bursts of glittering spores. At first, it seemed harmless, a most beautiful. But then, one soldier stumbled.

He screamed.

The peony vines beneath him erupted, long tendrils wrapping around his legs and pulling him into the ground. His armor crumpled like paper, the sound of shattering bone audible even over his cries. The others rushed to help him but it was too late. His body convulsed violently, veins blackening as the crimson flowers sprouted from his mouth, eyes, and ears. Within seconds, he was a mound of pulsating red blooms that continued to grow, hungrily reaching out toward the next soldier.

Panic erupted among the ranks.

Xander bellowed orders, his voice commanding yet tinged with the edge of fear.

"Back! Fall back! And don't touch the flowers!"

His orders were drowned out by the chaos as more soldiers succumbed. The peony blooms moved faster than they could retreat, spreading like wildfire across the frozen earth. The soldiers' screams filled the air as they were dragged down one by one, their flesh torn apart by the razor-sharp vines.

Some tried to burn the flowers with torches but the flames only seemed to agitate them. The flowers responded with explosive bursts of spore-laden air, choking those nearby. The spores clung to their skin and armor, eating through it like acid. Where the spores touched bare skin, grotesque lesions appeared, blooming into crimson petals that tore their way out of the flesh.

Farrynelle fought like a whirlwind, her chakrams cutting down tendrils and vines with precision, but for every vine she severed, ten more emerged. A vine lashed out, wrapping around her ankle and dragging her to the ground. She severed it just in time. The red sap hissed and steamed, releasing more spores that burned her skin where it touched.

It was the most painful feeling she ever experienced in her life.

"Xander, cover me!"

She shouted, her voice strained as she struggled to stand.

Xander unleashed a storm of essence slashes from his sword, the white light carving swaths through the flowers, but it was like cutting waves in an endless ocean. His attacks barely slowed the advance of the crimson tide.

Narisva, standing at the vanguard, fought with desperation. Her Spatial Manipulation manifested, forming protective spatial barriers around the few surviving soldiers. She was methodical, directing them to retreat toward the frozen shoreline. But even her precision wasn't enough.

Not even increasing the gravity of the position close to the flowers and vines was slowing them down.

The flowers moved with an unnatural intelligence, targeting the weakest links in their formation, herding the soldiers into corners where they could be consumed en masse.

The carnage was unspeakable.

One soldier, trapped against a cliff face, screamed as vines punctured his chest, lifting him into the air. His limbs flailed as the flowers burst from his body, crimson petals replacing flesh in a grotesque display. Another tried to cut off his own arm after the spores took hold, but the flowers grew faster than he could sever the limb. He collapsed as the blossoms erupted from his torso, his screams fading into a wet, gurgling silence.

The smell was a sickly-sweet aroma of flowers mixed with the stench of burning flesh and blood.

By the time the three Seventh Enlightenment Students reached the shoreline, the sixteen hundred soldiers they had led were gone. Not a single body remained, only fields of vibrant red peonies swaying gently in the wind.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Just like that, only three people remained in the Island of Peony.

Well... if not counting the thousands of intelligent flora and a few survivors...