The daylight did not bring the comfort I had hoped for. The air in the forest felt heavier, filled not only with the whispers of the trees but also with the unspoken tension among the four of us. Elara avoided me meticulously, her eyes darting away from mine whenever our paths crossed. Vespera, on the other hand, stared at me with an analytical intensity that was deeply unsettling. Only Liriel seemed unchanged, her divine arrogance intact as she floated a few inches above the ground, sparing herself from contact with "vulgar earthly matter."
We followed the trail of corruption — a chilling sensation at the back of the neck guiding us deeper into the forest. The vegetation changed gradually. The once-healthy trees with silver trunks gave way to twisted ones with black bark and pale, sickly green leaves. The air smelled of rotten honey and oxidized metal.
"We're getting close," murmured Elara, her voice tense. She rubbed her arms as if she were cold.
"Finally," Liriel declared, landing softly on the ground. "I'll end this triviality quickly."
Before anyone could respond, she strode forward through the diseased trees and disappeared from sight.
"Liriel, wait!" I shouted, but it was already too late.
We ran after her, stumbling over exposed roots that looked like black claws rising from the earth. What we found in a circular clearing made my blood run cold.
At the center stood a single tree — or what was left of one. Its trunk was a column of twisted charcoal, pulsing with a deep, sickly purple light. From its cracked bark, black sap oozed, dripping onto the barren ground and hissing like acid. It was the source of the corruption — a cancer at the heart of the forest.
Liriel stood before the abomination, her hands raised, already surrounded by an aura of golden light.
"Insignificant stain of darkness," she proclaimed, her voice echoing with power. "I purify you!"
A beam of divine energy, so bright it hurt to look at, shot from her hands and struck the corrupted tree. Golden light and purple darkness collided with a deafening roar. At first, it seemed to be working. The darkness recoiled, shrinking under the divine assault.
But then the tree fought back. From its twisted canopy, tendrils of pure shadow materialized, lashing toward Liriel. They didn't strike her physically, but they seemed to drain her light. Her golden aura flickered. She screamed — a sound of pure surprise and pain — and fell to her knees.
"Liriel!" Elara cried, raising her staff. "We need to help her!"
"Vespera, cover us!" I ordered, drawing my borrowed sword.
Vespera didn't need to be told twice. Her arrows, though still imprecise, flew toward the shadowy tendrils, distracting them. Elara began to chant a containment spell, a weak and trembling barrier forming around us, holding the shadows back for a few precious seconds.
I ran to Liriel. She was gasping, her face pale, sweat running down her forehead. The golden aura had vanished completely.
"Idiot!" she hissed through clenched teeth as I approached. "I… I underestimated this… filth."
"You pushed yourself too hard," I said, kneeling beside her. Her body, always so imposing and full of pride, now seemed incredibly fragile.
"A goddess does not 'push herself too hard,' mortal," she retorted, but her voice was losing strength. "I… merely channeled more power than this mortal vessel can temporarily withstand. It is… humiliating."
A tendril of shadow broke through Elara's barrier and lashed toward us. I threw myself over Liriel, shielding her with my body. The shadow struck my back, and it felt like being hit by a block of ice. The pain was sharp and penetrating, but I endured it.
For a brief moment, our eyes met. The pride and anger in hers gave way to something else — surprise, confusion, and a raw vulnerability I had never seen before.
"Why would you do that?" she whispered, her breath warm against my face.
"Because you're part of this damned group," I said, my voice hoarse. "And we protect our own."
The battle raged around us. Vespera shouted, her arrows whistling through the air. Elara cried out in exhaustion as her barrier collapsed. We were losing.
Liriel closed her eyes, an expression of deep frustration on her face. "I can't… I can't let you die because of my arrogance." She opened her eyes again, and they were filled with a strange, terribly mortal emotion. "Takumi, listen to me. I… I've been experiencing feelings. Shameful feelings. For you. It's ridiculous, unworthy of a deity of my caliber, it's… unacceptable."
She was confessing. In the middle of chaos, on the brink of defeat, the proudest goddess I had ever known was admitting that she had feelings for a mortal.
The anger, fear, and frustration of months under her rule, the recent confusion with Elara, the pressure of battle — all of it exploded inside me in a single, irrational, powerful impulse.
"Unworthy?" I shouted, grabbing her shoulders. My fingers sank into the silver fabric of her dress. "There's nothing unworthy about it!"
And I kissed her.
It wasn't a soft or questioning kiss like Elara's. It was a kiss of confrontation. Rough, desperate — an act of pure defiance against fate, against cosmic hierarchies, against the very idea that what we felt — what she felt — was somehow lesser because of who we were. It was my clumsy humanity defying her divinity.
Liriel went rigid with surprise. For a split second, she didn't react. Then something inside her seemed to break. Her lips, so often curved in disdain, responded with equal intensity. It was a kiss of surrender and affirmation, wild and primal. Her hands clutched at my clothes, pulling me closer, as if she were drowning and I was her only lifeline.
It was a moment stolen from time — a perfect instant of chaos amid the darkness.
Then a pulse of golden energy burst from within her, throwing me backward. Light flooded the clearing, and the shadowy tendrils recoiled with an agonized screech. Liriel rose to her feet, her form once again wrapped in power, her regal posture restored. But her eyes… her eyes were still wide, breathless, fixed on me with an expression of pure and absolute fear.
She had regained her powers. But something had changed forever.
The clearing fell silent, the corrupted tree now contained but not destroyed, trembling beneath the golden light surrounding it.
And then I realized. I turned.
Vespera stood there, her bow lowered, staring at me and Liriel with wide eyes. This time, there wasn't just curiosity in her gaze. There was hurt. A realization that she was now, unquestionably, the outsider.
And Elara… Elara stood a few steps behind, her staff fallen to the ground. She had witnessed everything. The trust and affection we had shared the night before now seemed fragile and distant. Her face was pale, her lips trembled slightly, and her eyes — once full of an unspoken promise — were now filled with unshed tears and silent betrayal.
Liriel, regaining her divine composure with visible effort, discreetly wiped her lips with the back of her hand. "The… the anomaly is contained," she announced, her voice returning to that tone of distant authority, though lacking its usual conviction. "We must… report the success."
She didn't look at me again. But the touch of her lips still burned against mine — a ghost of fire and light.
Vespera picked up her bow and turned away, her body tense. Elara retrieved her staff from the ground, her hands trembling.
I stood in the center of the clearing, the corrupted tree pulsing faintly behind me, the taste of divinity and despair lingering in my mouth, and the weight of three pairs of eyes — of jealousy, hurt, and pure divine terror — fixed upon me.
The mission was a success. We had contained the seed of corruption.
But in the process, I had unleashed something far more dangerous and unpredictable. And for the first time, I had no idea how we were going to clean up this mess.