Mo Ling's face was calm, almost serene, as he walked toward the entrance. He tried to peer into the crack in the tree's bark, but the light seemed afraid to enter.
He stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed him, and the world shifted. When his vision returned, he stood in a vast, boundless dark space.
It was a throne room if such a thing could exist in this place. Far ahead, tens of thousands of yards away, rose a colossal wooden throne, its surface woven with branches and veins of bark.
Upon it sat a corpse clad in dark, decayed armor. Even lifeless, it radiated authority. Its eye sockets were hollow, its remaining skin gray and wasted, yet its presence filled the entire hall.
When Mo Ling looked at it, a strange certainty struck him that it was looking back.
A familiar, ghostly howl echoed through the air.
"Come."
His mind went blank. When awareness returned, he was standing at the foot of the throne.
Before his eyes, the dead world began to breathe again. The wood of the throne shifted from black to rich brown; branches sprouted leaves; the corpse's armor mended itself. Flesh knit together, color returned to skin, and hollow eyes blazed with light.
The ghoul became a majestic, middle-aged, golden-haired man, radiating power.
Mo Ling could only stare. He had never thought the strange system window extraordinary, but this… this was beyond anything he could imagine.
When he spoke, his voice was calm and resonant, like wind passing through the hollow of a tree.
"You've arrived sooner than I expected."
Mo Ling said nothing.
"Do not look so alarmed," the man continued. "You were brought here with purpose. Nothing is born, nor reborn, without reason."
The air seemed to vibrate with his words.
"Think of yourself as an investment, Mo Ling. My investment."
"You are not the first I have chosen, and you will not be the last. Many of us sow our seeds in this world, each hoping one will take root."
He leaned back slightly, resting an arm on the throne.
"Others like me are doing the same. Some raise kings, others monsters. I am indifferent to which you become… as long as you grow."
The silence that followed was heavy, endless.
The man's gaze lingered on Mo Ling for a moment longer before he spoke again.
" You may speak," he said calmly."Ask what you wish and I will decide what you are ready to know."
Mo Ling hesitated, but the question pressed against his throat like a weight he couldn't swallow.
"Why were you dead just moments ago? And how did you come back?"
For a heartbeat, silence reigned. Then, a low chuckle dry and echoing, like wind through hollow wood.
"Dead?" he murmured."No. Merely… undone."
"I faced Draveth the blight souvreigne . He is the antithesis of what I am, where I sowed life, he fed on it. We were bound by the same soil, two truths of one cycle."
He paused, looking down at his hand as faint veins of green light pulsed beneath his pale skin.
"Our battle lasted until even the earth screamed. I burned his essence with vitality; he drowned mine in decay. In the end, neither of us triumphed. I slumbered in my domain since then.
His voice deepened neither sad nor proud, just immeasurably old.
" And so, I waited. The tree waited. Until you came" an arrogant look appeared on his face " I have long since gathered enough vitality to restore my self, I was just studying his roth to counter it next time we fight"
Mo Ling opened his mouth, ready to ask the next question.
Before a word could leave him, the Verdant Monarch's gaze sharpened.
"No," he said softly, but the single syllable carried the weight of mountains.
"There is nothing you need to ask here. Your path lies elsewhere."
A pulse of green light radiated from the Monarch, filling the room. The throne, the roots, the vast hall all dissolved into a soft, shifting glow. Mo Ling felt the ground vanish beneath his feet.
The next moment, he was falling. Or perhaps moving, through endless white, weightless and silent. The world around him bent and twisted, and he realized he was no longer in the throne room.
When his feet touched solid ground again, he looked up. He found himself in a dark cave, baffled.
"I was about to ask him about his pointed ears"
He said while frowning.
RRAAAUUUGGHHH...