The fog thickened, curling low across the clearing.
Bioluminescent spores pulsed faintly through the marsh, dim and uneven. Then the ground trembled.
The Tree of Souls rose from the mud.
Its trunk was blackened and swollen, veins glowing sickly green beneath cracked bark. Branches twisted without wind, each movement deliberate. Roots shifted beneath the surface, repositioning before any attack was made.
Alex tightened his grip on Orionis Sagitta.
Roots erupted.
One snapped toward Milo. Another coiled around Alex's legs, tightening instantly.
Alex drove the spear down and triggered Tempus. Time stretched just enough for the blade to burn into the phasing root before it recoiled. The grip loosened. He rolled free as another strike tore through the space he'd occupied.
Milo loosed.
Path bent the fog. Lightning snapped through two roots before they could fully surface. A third slipped through the altered corridor and lashed again.
Sera froze the mud beneath it. Frost crawled up the root's length, locking it mid-motion.
The Tree pulsed.
Not an attack—a recalculation.
The fog shifted. Milo's corridors bent wrong. Roots phased at irregular intervals, striking just after dodges, just before reactions.
Alex adjusted instinctively. Chaos whispered corrections. Orionis Sagitta struck where solidity would be**, not where it was.**
[ ENEMY DETECTED ]
Soul Tree
Threat: 1
Existence: 3
Karma: 1
The Tree responded by increasing pressure.
Roots swept in coordinated arcs. Hydrangea growths ruptured from the mud, their parasitic pull distorting footing and balance. The ground itself sank and shifted, opening false paths and closing real ones.
Three roots lunged at once.
Alex triggered Tempus again—shorter this time. The strain bit deep.
He drove the spear through the central root, Lux anchoring the strike as Chaos burned through spectral bark. Milo severed another with converging lightning arcs. Sera froze the third mid-swing, giving Alex just enough space to disengage.
The Tree's trunk pulsed violently.
Green light surged through its veins.
This wasn't escalation.
It was evaluation.
Alex moved without waiting for instruction.
He charged.
Orionis Sagitta flared as he aimed for the core—where roots converged, where the pulse originated. Milo's arrows followed, converging from altered trajectories. Sera locked the base in frost, constricting movement.
The Tree shuddered.
Branches folded inward. Roots withdrew. The green light dimmed.
The souls bound within dispersed into the fog.
Silence followed.
Alex dropped to one knee, breath ragged.
The marsh did not react.
It observed.
— — —
[ RUNES DETECTED ]
Chaos (III) ×2
— — —
Alex did not reach for them.
Not immediately.
The runes pulsed at the edge of perception—dense, unstable, heavy. Too much for an Awakening state. Too much to integrate safely.
He sealed them.
— — —
Kaelthar stepped from the fog.
"Well done," he said. "You survived the Tree."
No praise beyond that.
"Tomorrow, you enter the Void Realm," he continued. "What you've faced here was preparation. What comes next will not allow correction."
His gaze lingered on Alex for a fraction too long.
"Rest," Kaelthar said. "Or don't. Either way, the next trial will not wait."
He turned and vanished back into the marsh.
— — —
Later, when the others settled, Alex moved alone.
Far enough not to be seen. Not far enough to escape consequence.
He released a fraction of the sealed power.
Chaos surged.
Orionis Sagitta twisted mid-thrust—its trajectory unstable, mass increasing without permission. Alex forced control, cutting the flow before it spiraled further.
The spear vibrated violently before settling.
That was enough.
From the fog, movement answered.
Not one presence.
Several.
Alex steadied his stance.
This was not mastery.
It was a warning.
And the marsh was listening.
— — —