The forest had gone silent.
Not the peaceful silence that came after a storm.
This was different.
The kind of silence that made even the wind seem unwilling to move.
Eryndor stood at the edge of the ruined battlefield, staring at the enormous crater where the ancient Titan’s presence had erupted only moments before.
The ground was still trembling.
Fragments of black stone floated several inches above the earth before slowly falling.
Kael stood nearby, breathing heavily.
Aldren had his sword lowered, his eyes fixed on the enormous seal buried beneath the ground.
For several moments, none of them spoke.
Then Kael broke the silence.
“Is it dead?”
Aldren frowned.
“No.”
Kael looked at him.
“You sound certain.”
“I’m certain because if it were dead, we’d be dead too.”
Eryndor glanced toward the crater.
Beneath the shattered earth, something enormous shifted.
A deep vibration travelled through the ground.
Boom.
The three of them froze.
Boom.
Another vibration.
Then another.
The ancient seal beneath Drakemere’s forest began glowing faintly.
Not brightly.
Not enough to illuminate the surroundings.
But enough to show that the thing beneath them had not disappeared.
It had merely gone quiet.
Eryndor narrowed his eyes.
“So the seal held.”
Aldren nodded.
“For now.”
Kael looked around.
“And the army?”
“They’re gone,” Aldren said.
“All of them?”
“Most.”
Kael’s expression tightened.
“What does that mean?”
Aldren didn’t answer immediately.
He looked toward the distant horizon.
“The ones that survived fled.”
Eryndor remained silent.
He could still remember the strange figures that had appeared during the disturbance.
They had not moved like ordinary soldiers.
They had been too organized.
Too calm.
And yet, whatever they had been searching for, they had failed to obtain it.
At least for now.
Kael suddenly touched his chest.
His expression changed.
“Eryndor.”
Eryndor looked at him.
“My mark.”
The faint symbol on Kael’s skin had begun glowing again.
Eryndor stepped closer.
“What is it doing?”
“I don’t know.”
The glow slowly spread across Kael’s hand.
Then—
It stopped.
Kael stared at his palm.
A thin line of light pointed toward the east.
Aldren noticed it too.
“The direction changed.”
Eryndor looked east.
“Then we follow it.”
Aldren immediately shook his head.
“That’s exactly what we shouldn’t do.”
Kael frowned.
“Why?”
“Because we don’t know where it’s leading.”
Eryndor glanced at him.
“That’s why we need to find out.”
Aldren sighed.
“You two are going to get me killed.”
Kael smiled faintly.
“You were already complaining about that.”
“I was hoping you’d eventually listen.”
Eryndor turned toward the eastern horizon.
Beyond the forest stood mountains.
Beyond the mountains lay territories none of them had explored.
And somewhere beyond those lands was Lunareth.
The Domain of the Chaos Tree.
A place that few cultivators entered willingly.
A place where the forest itself was said to possess a will.
Eryndor had heard stories.
Most were contradictory.
Some said the Chaos Tree was an ancient guardian.
Others claimed it was a living calamity.
Some believed it had existed for longer than recorded history.
Others claimed the tree changed its appearance every thousand years.
Eryndor didn’t know which stories were true.
Perhaps none of them were.
But one thing was certain.
Something in Lunareth was calling Kael.
And Eryndor wanted to know why.
They began walking.
The journey took three days.
They crossed the remains of Drakemere’s outer territories before reaching the mountain range.
The deeper they travelled, the stranger the environment became.
Trees grew taller.
Rivers became unnaturally clear.
Animals watched them from the shadows but rarely attacked.
Even the weather seemed unusual.
At noon, snow fell.
At night, the air became warm enough to resemble summer.
Aldren noticed it first.
“The natural laws are becoming unstable.”
Kael looked around.
“Because we’re approaching Lunareth?”
“Yes.”
Eryndor continued walking.
“How unstable?”
Aldren thought for a moment.
“Enough that you shouldn’t trust anything you see.”
Kael laughed.
“That’s reassuring.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
They continued.
By the fourth morning, the mountains disappeared behind them.
The forest began.
At first, it looked ordinary.
Green trees.
Moss-covered stones.
Small streams.
Birds flying between branches.
But the deeper they went, the less ordinary it became.
The trees grew enormous.
Some were hundreds of meters tall.
Others twisted around one another like enormous serpents.
Roots emerged from the earth and disappeared again several meters away.
Flowers opened when they approached.
Some closed.
Some followed them.
One flower even turned its petals toward Kael and remained that way for several minutes.
Kael noticed.
“I think it likes me.”
Aldren stared at the flower.
“It might be deciding whether you’re edible.”
Kael immediately moved away.
Eryndor almost smiled.
Then he stopped.
Something had changed.
He looked ahead.
The forest had become darker.
Not because there were fewer sources of light.
There were actually more.
Strange blue flowers illuminated the ground.
Tiny glowing insects drifted through the air.
Yet the farther they walked, the darker everything seemed.
Then Eryndor saw it.
A tree.
Not the largest.
Not the oldest.
But somehow different from everything around it.
Its trunk was pale.
Its branches stretched toward the sky.
And growing from its bark were dozens of black leaves.
Eryndor stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
For a brief moment, the world disappeared.
He saw darkness.
A vast empty space.
Something falling.
A single black leaf drifting through the darkness.
Then—
A voice.
Not loud.
Not threatening.
Almost a whisper.
“Begin.”
Eryndor’s eyes opened.
He was standing in the forest again.
Kael was staring at him.
“You stopped.”
Aldren looked concerned.
“Are you alright?”
Eryndor glanced back at the tree.
The black leaves were gone.
There were only ordinary green leaves.
“I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“A tree.”
Kael looked at the tree.
“That’s definitely a tree.”
Eryndor ignored him.
Something about that place felt familiar.
Not familiar like a memory.
More like recognizing a place he had never visited.
He didn’t understand it.
And he didn’t intend to pretend that he did.
“Let’s keep moving.”
They continued.
None of them noticed the small black leaf lying behind them.
Several hours later, they reached the boundary.
There was no wall.
No gate.
No obvious barrier.
Yet all three of them felt it.
A change in the air.
A pressure.
A presence.
Kael’s mark suddenly became warm.
Aldren immediately stopped.
“We’re here.”
Eryndor looked ahead.
The forest stretched endlessly into the distance.
But among the trees, something enormous could be seen.
At first, it looked like a mountain.
Then Eryndor realized it was not a mountain.
It was a tree.
A single tree.
Its trunk was so enormous that the surrounding mountains seemed small beside it.
Its branches stretched across the sky.
Some disappeared beyond the horizon.
Others curved downward and became smaller forests themselves.
Leaves covered the heavens.
Different shades of green, blue, silver, and purple moved gently in the wind.
Kael stared.
“That’s…”
Aldren finished for him.
“The Chaos Tree.”
Eryndor said nothing.
He simply watched.
The tree was beautiful.
And terrifying.
There was something ancient about it.
Not ancient in the way ruins were ancient.
It felt alive.
Aware.
Watching.
Kael’s mark suddenly burned.
He grabbed his arm.
“Eryndor!”
Before Eryndor could answer—
The entire forest moved.
Leaves rustled.
Roots shifted beneath the soil.
Thousands of flowers closed simultaneously.
Then a deep voice echoed across Lunareth.
“Who walks beneath my branches?”
The voice did not come from one direction.
It came from everywhere.
The ground.
The trees.
The wind.
The roots.
Even the air.
Kael swallowed.
Aldren slowly raised his sword.
Eryndor stepped forward.
“We seek answers.”
Silence.
Then the enormous tree moved.
One branch slowly descended from the heavens.
It stopped several meters above them.
A single leaf detached itself.
It floated downward.
And landed in Eryndor’s hand.
The moment his fingers touched it—
Everything became silent.
Eryndor saw the black leaf again.
The same darkness.
The same endless space.
But this time, there was something else.
A distant light.
He couldn’t reach it.
Couldn’t understand it.
Couldn’t even tell whether it was near or impossibly far away.
Then the vision vanished.
Eryndor looked down.
The leaf in his hand had turned black.
Kael stared at it.
Aldren’s expression became serious.
The voice of the Chaos Tree returned.
“You carry something you do not remember.”
Eryndor looked up.
“What?”
No answer came.
Instead, the tree’s enormous branches moved.
A path opened through the forest.
A narrow path.
Dark.
Silent.
Waiting.
Kael looked at Eryndor.
“Should we go?”
Eryndor stared down the path.
He didn’t know what waited there.
He didn’t know why the tree had given him the leaf.
He didn’t know what Kael’s mark meant.
And he certainly didn’t know what he had supposedly forgotten.
But he knew one thing.
The answers they wanted were somewhere deeper inside Lunareth.
Eryndor closed his hand around the black leaf.
“Yes.”
The three stepped onto the path.
Behind them, the forest closed.
And somewhere far above the clouds, hidden among the branches of the Chaos Tree, something opened its eyes.
Eryndor never saw it.
Not yet.