The cavern was silent save for the faint, ethereal hum of the young World Tree.
Rokar knelt, his expression was stern. In his large, scaled hand, he held Zura's hand, pressing her fingers against a single, glowing leaf of the sapling.
The light from the leaf intensified, pulsing in time with a heartbeat only it could feel. It grew from a soft glow to an intense, while others cover their eyes, blinding brilliance casting long, dancing shadows across the chamber.
Rokar stared forward, his reptilian eyes vacant as the energy flowed through him, a conduit between the tree and his fallen kin.
The light continued to build, a silent crescendo of power that held the other lizardmen captive in a state of hopeful awe.
Then, just as the light reached its peak, it vanished.
It didn't fade. It was extinguished in an instant, plunging the cavern back into a dim twilight.
With a low groan, Rokar's eyes rolled back in his head. His body went limp, and he collapsed to the side, a dead weight on the cavern floor.
Aurelion remained where he was, a distant, silent observer to the unfolding chaos.
"Rokar!" Corliss cried out, rushing forward with Krum at his side. "Rokar! Are you alright?"
Krum nudged their leader's shoulder. "Get up, Rokar!"
While the two larger lizardmen checked on their fallen leader, Rez spun around, his panicked gaze locking onto Aurelion.
"The tree is angry," he hissed. "It punished Rokar!"
Corliss's head snapped up, his own eyes burning with a mixture of fear and fury as he glared at Aurelion. "You shouldn't have killed that goblin! It's your fault! Primordia is punishing us because of you!"
A flicker of disgust crossed Aurelion's features, his lip curling slightly.
A wracking cough cut through the tension. Rokar stirred, pushing himself up on one elbow, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Rokar, are you alright? What happened?" Krum asked.
Rokar slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. "I... My consciousness..." he began while his voice hoarse. "It connected with Primordia."
"Is Primordia angry with us? Did it say anything?" Corliss demanded immediately.
"No," Rokar managed, shaking his head to clear it. "It was just... a torrent of energy. I felt it surge into me, and in the end... I couldn't handle it."
"A torrent of energy?" Krum grunted, confused. "Why would Primordia do such a thing?"
"To punish us!" Corliss insisted.
"What do we do now?" Rez asked while his gaze darting between his leader and the silent, glowing tree.
Aurelion watched them, his mind calmly processing the event.
"Punishment? Hardly. If Primordia wanted to punish him, he'd be a smear on the cave floor, not just unconscious. So, was it a blessing? An attempt to evolve him, like the goblins? No, that doesn't fit. Rokar is far stronger than any goblin. He should have been able to withstand it. Was it trying to heal Zura, using Rokar as a conduit? A channel? But why would the energy overwhelm the channel instead of reaching the target?"
He realized the three lizardmen were now staring at him, their expressions demanding an answer he didn't have.
"What are you looking at me for?" Aurelion said. "Your leader isn't dead. If Primordia wanted to punish him, it would have been much worse." He gestured with his head towards the tree. "Try again."
Krum let out a low grunt, his gaze shifting from Aurelion to the sapling and back. To Corliss's surprise, the hulking lizardman nodded.
"He's right," Krum rumbled. He squared his broad shoulders. "If Rokar could endure it, then so can I."
He moved to Zura's side, gently taking her hand from Rokar's grasp. With a deep breath, he pressed her fingers against the glowing leaf once more.
A few seconds passed, and the light began to pulse again, growing brighter with Krum as its unwilling channel.
"Come on, Krum! You can do it!" Rez shouted from the side.
But Krum, like Rokar before him, simply stared blankly forward, his powerful body beginning to tremble under the strain as the light's intensity grew. The muscles in his thick arms and shoulders knotted, shaking violently.
Aurelion turned his head slightly to look at Rez and Corliss. "You two should start deciding which one of you is next," he said.
"It's still too early for that," Corliss snapped, but his words were cut short as the light from the tree suddenly retracted.
Krum's body went limp and he collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.
Aurelion's slight, knowing smirk remained as he continued to watch Corliss.
The gray scaled lizardman's patience finally broke. "Don't you want to heal Zura?" he demanded.
"I'm not her friend," Aurelion stated flatly, gesturing with his head back towards the silent tree.
A new, sharp suspicion entered Corliss's eyes. He took a half step towards Aurelion, his posture was tense.
He was already aware of how dangerous the elf child was. "Then why," he asked, his voice was a low hiss, "did you come with us?"
Aurelion met his gaze without flinching. "I couldn't stand your incompetence," he said simply.
A low growl rumbled in Corliss's chest.
"Okay, calm down!" Rez interjected, stepping between them. "Let's check on Krum first." Then he knelt beside the massive lizardman.
They slapped Krum's face a few times, and after a moment, he groaned, his eyes fluttering open. He blinked, looking around in a daze.
"The pressure..." he rasped, staring at his own trembling hand. "...was immense. I felt my body being crushed."
Rokar, now more recovered, nodded grimly. "Yes. This is not something that can be endured."
Tsk.
The sharp click of Aurelion's tongue cut through the air. He pushed himself forward, his expression one of pure annoyance.
"You-?" Corliss began, his eyes widening as Aurelion walked past him.
Before any of them could react, Aurelion strode to Zura's side, grabbed her hand, and in one fluid motion, wrapped it and his own hand together around the glowing leaf of the World Tree.
Aurelion closed his eyes. "Alright, Primordia" he thought with a hint of defiance, "let's see what you're all about."
He wrapped his fingers tighter, his own hand covering Zura's, pressing them both against the glowing leaf. He waited for the crushing pressure Krum had described, for the overwhelming torrent of energy that had felled Rokar.
He waited.
And nothing happened.
After a few seconds of absolute silence, a flicker of surprise broke through his composure. He opened his eye.
The cavern was gone.
He saw nothing but an endless, silent darkness stretching in every direction.
He looked down at his hand. Zura's was no longer there. He glanced around. The lizardmen, the sapling, all had vanished.
He looked down again and saw no ground beneath his feet. He was floating, suspended and utterly alone in an infinite blackness.
It was exactly like the Void he had inhabited before his birth.
But there was no terror. No panic. A strange sense of calm settled over him. This was familiar territory.
"The other lizardmen mentioned nothing of this," he analyzed coolly. "If this had happened to them, they would have spoken of it. Or more likely, they would have been terrified. Something is strange happening here."
He remained adrift in the silent expanse for some time, simply observing the perfect emptiness.
Then, he made a decision. He crossed his legs, settling into a meditative posture in the nothingness. If this place was like the Void, then he would treat it as such.
The environment was perfectly conducive to his unique focus, and he was now well practiced. He let his consciousness slip, reaching for the state of pure, thoughtless awareness he had cultivated.
The moment he entered his "nothingness focus," his perception shattered.
The absolute black exploded into a chaotic maelstrom of color. The calm he had known transformed into a swirling, vibrant pandemonium.
Rivers of raw, untamed energy flowed around him in a symphony of dissonant tones.
At the same time, his awareness of his own being became intensely clear. He could perceive his own energy, a core of brilliant, aggressive gold. And he could see the flaw within it .A void in the shape of a scar where his left eye should be, a patch of absolute darkness that drank the light around it.
He shifted his focus back to his surroundings and, with a simple act of will, used his own energy to propel himself forward, gliding through the chaos of colors.
A wave of crimson energy drifted towards him, and he felt a searing heat radiate from it.
He changed direction and encountered a slow, thick current of brown energy. As he passed through it, his momentum slowed, a sense of immense weight and inertia pressing in on him.
He saw a gentle stream of light green ahead and moved towards it, a soothing sensation washing over him as he drew near, a whisper of life.
But each time one of these currents approached, his own golden energy reacted. Without his command, tendrils of his power lashed out, striking at the approaching colors, repelling them with a violent hiss.
His very nature was hostile to this place.
Aurelion watched the vibrant, warring energies, a dawning realization in his mind.
"Are these... the elements? " he thought.
He then looked around the swirling chaos, his gaze sweeping past the rivers of color. He was searching for one in particular. A bright, vibrant wave of blue energy.
After gliding through the maelstrom for a time, he found it. A crackling, agitated current of pure azure. He approached it cautiously.
He extended his hand slightly, letting the tendrils of his own golden energy brush against the blue wave. The moment they made contact, both energies reacted violently. The blue current began to vibrate, and where it met his golden aura, brilliant sparks of raw lightning arced between them, illuminating the void.
Aurelion pulled his hand back, observing the volatile reaction with a critical eye.
"As expected" he thought, a slight smirk touching his lips. "Whether it's compatible or not, nothing can touch me." His smirk widened. "And of course, it's better this way."
As if responding to his thought, the blue wave began to vibrate again. One end, closest to Aurelion, seemed to coalesce. It thinned, a low crackle filling the silence as it took the definite form of a bolt of lightning. It stretched out, a vibrant, crackling arrow pointing away into the darkness.
Aurelion noticed the change immediately, his brow furrowing in thought. This was no longer a random current. It was acting with purpose. After studying it for a few seconds, he pushed himself forward with a pulse of his own energy and began to follow the lightning guide.
He followed the blue spark through the chaos for what felt like an hours, until its destination came into view. The lightning bolt terminated at a massive, five meter sphere of pure white light, so brilliant it shone like a star even amidst the riot of colors.
From the top of the sphere, a single, thick branch of the same white light reached up into the infinite darkness above.
It was only then, looking up at the branch, that Aurelion tilted his head back and saw the true scale of the place.
The entire void, as far as he could perceive, was a forest of these white branches. They formed an immense, interconnected web, their distant glow piercing the darkness like a galaxy of stars.
"What is this?" he wondered, his single eye wide with curiosity.
And then, a voice echoed, not in the void around him, but directly within the confines of his mind.
It was calm, ancient, and peaceful.
"Welcome, my child."