Rebellion Against Heaven - Part 15

Chapter 15: Sylvan, The Guardian of the Green Abyss

Deep in Finland's boreal forests, where humans rarely venture, there is a forbidden zone, known to locals as "Korven Kirous," the Curse of the Forest. Those who crossed its boundaries rarely returned, and those who did, emerged empty-eyed and broken-minded, their bodies covered in lacerations of thorns and roots that seemed to have grown into their flesh.

The origin of this nightmare dates back decades, when a group of Finnish soldiers, seeking to create a biological weapon for war, carried out a monstrous experiment. They wanted to force nature to be their ally, to turn life into a tool of death. To do this, they captured prisoners of war and subjected them to injections with a serum created from the DNA of the oldest trees in the forest.

One of these test subjects was a disgraced soldier, a man whose identity had been erased from official records, marked only with the code name: "Sylvan." No one remembers his true face before the experiment, because the serum completely transformed him. Her flesh hardened, fusing with the bark of trees, her veins became vines, and her hair became a nest of living roots. His bones were no longer human, but black, impenetrable wood, as if the forest had claimed him as its own.

The process was an indescribable torment. Her screams echoed through the labs, as her skin cracked and split open to make way for sharp branches sprouting from her back and arms. When the scientists saw the result, they tried to lock it up, keep it under control. They did not understand that it was no longer his, that nature itself had awakened in him with a furious hatred against his creators.

Sylvan broke free one night in a silent massacre. There were no gunshots or explosions, just the crunch of bones crushed by unrelenting roots, the sound of throats torn by thorns. He left no survivors. The walls of the base were consumed by monstrous vines, which climbed up the walls like fingers of an ancient god claiming their territory.

From then on, Sylvan became the shadow of the forest, a ruthless guardian who protected the land that once destroyed him. It does not distinguish between invaders and explorers; anyone who steps on his domain is an enemy. The hunters disappear without a trace, their remains absorbed by the earth. Soldiers sent to investigate are found weeks later, their bodies fused with trees, their faces frozen in expressions of eternal agony.

But not everything in Sylvan is fury. Deep within his being, a human voice still whispers. Sometimes he stops under the full moon and wonders if he was ever a man, if he ever had a home, a family. But these memories are like leaves in the wind, always out of reach.

Now, something has changed. A dark presence moves in the world, gathering the damned, the monsters with broken hearts. A call that even Sylvan hears. And for the first time in decades, the Guardian of the Green Abyss leaves his forest, following the echo of a new war that awaits him.