The thing from the fissure unfolded like a nightmare given form.
Lin Moyan's breath caught as the creature hauled its bulk onto solid ground, its segmented body glistening with black ichor. Not roots—not exactly. Something older. Something that had been sleeping deep beneath the Verdant Abyss long before the first Warden took their vows. Each segment of its elongated form pulsed with a sickly inner light, revealing glimpses of half-digested matter moving sluggishly beneath its translucent hide.
Jian Luo's claws scraped against stone as he shifted into a fighting stance. "Well," he muttered, "that's properly fucked."
The root-being beside Moyan let out a shuddering series of notes—less a song now than a scream given melody. Its tendril grip on Moyan's wrist tightened painfully as the monstrous thing turned its attention toward them.
It had no eyes.
That was the worst part.
Just smooth, wet planes of flesh where a face should have been, stretching and contracting with each labored breath. Yet Moyan felt its attention like a physical weight, pressing against his skin, probing at the roots woven through his body.
Haiyu moved first.
Her daggers flashed as she lunged, the vines in her wrist extending to give her reach no human should possess. The blades struck true—sinking deep into the creature's hide with a wet crunch.
Nothing happened.
No scream. No recoil. The daggers simply... vanished, swallowed by the pulsing flesh as if they'd never existed. Haiyu barely yanked her hands back in time to avoid the same fate.
The root-being's song turned frantic. It released Moyan's wrist and stepped forward, its own tendril-fingers weaving through the air in intricate patterns. The silver-barked saplings responded immediately, their branches twisting toward the creature in unison.
Moyan understood.
"Don't let it touch the trees!"
Jian Luo was already moving, his transformed body cutting through the clearing with unnatural speed. His talons raked across the creature's flank, leaving deep furrows that oozed thick, black fluid. This time, the thing reacted—not with pain, but with something almost like curiosity. Its head-like appendage swiveled toward Jian Luo, the blank flesh rippling.
Then it spoke.
Not in notes or words, but in vibrations that traveled up through the earth and into their bones. The meaning carved itself directly into Moyan's mind:
*You are not Wardens.*
The accusation hit like a physical blow. The roots in Moyan's chest constricted painfully, as if in agreement. The seed's voice whispered through his blood:
*Show it.*
Moyan didn't think—he acted.
He plunged his hand into the fresh wound Jian Luo had created. The creature's flesh parted like rotten fruit, hot and pulsing around his wrist. The roots in his arm exploded outward, seeking, probing, connecting.
The visions came like a tidal wave:
A world before the Verdant Abyss, when the great trees still touched the sky.
The first incision—Nyxara's dagger sinking into living wood.
Generations of Wardens kneeling, always kneeling, as silver seeds were pressed into their palms.
And deeper, older—something vast sleeping in the dark, waiting for the roots to weaken, for the songs to fade.
The creature shuddered violently. Moyan's roots pulsed gold where they touched its blackened flesh, the light spreading rapidly through its segmented body. It wasn't pain—it was recognition.
*You remember.*
The thought wasn't his own. The creature was showing him now, showing them all. The saplings' song swelled in response, the notes forming images in the air:
The root-beings had been here first.
Tenders of the great trees.
Guardians of the first songs.
Then the Wardens came with their silver seeds and their hunger for order.
Haiyu gasped as the vision touched her. Her wrist vines bloomed suddenly, tiny silver flowers opening along their length. Jian Luo staggered, his claws retracting slightly as the amber glow in his eyes flickered.
The creature was changing.
Its blackened segments lightened where Moyan's roots touched them, the sickly glow giving way to something cleaner, brighter. The smooth planes of its face rippled, forming something almost like features.
Then the ground shook again.
Harder this time.
The root-being's song cut off mid-note as new fissures spiderwebbed through the clearing. Not just beneath them—across the entire field of saplings, the earth bulged and split as something far larger began to wake.
The creature before them let out a final, shuddering vibration:
*The roots remember. The Gardener comes.*
Then it collapsed inward, its body dissolving into a thousand silver tendrils that sank back into the earth.
Silence.
Then—
A single sapling at the clearing's edge trembled. Its bark split with a sound like cracking ice, revealing pulsing golden light within. One by one, the others followed, their trunks opening like flowers at dawn.
From each emerged a small, root-woven figure.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
All singing the same note—a pure, clear tone that made the air hum.
Jian Luo wiped black ichor from his claws. "So. We've got an army of singing tree people and something big waking up underground." He flashed a sharp grin. "I've had worse days."
Haiyu's hands moved in quick signs: "They're not an army. They're a warning."
Moyan knew she was right. The seed in his chest pulsed in time with the saplings' song, its roots whispering of something far beneath them—something that had been sleeping since the first tree fell.
The first true Gardener.
Not the twisted imitation Kainan's corpse had become.
The original.
The roots beneath his skin burned with sudden urgency. They remembered. They all remembered.
And soon—very soon—the Gardener would wake.
The song of the trees rose to a crescendo as the root-beings turned in unison toward the largest fissure. Their tiny hands wove through the air, shaping patterns that hung glowing in the twilight.
Moyan recognized them instantly.
Wardens' signs.
Old ones.
Older than the Sect.
Older than Nyxara.
Haiyu's breath caught as she translated: "Prepare. The first song ends. The last begins."
Jian Luo cracked his neck. "Guess we're not done yet."
Moyan flexed his transformed hand, watching the golden light pulse through his veins. The roots remembered.
And now, so did he.
As the last rays of sunlight faded, the field of saplings fell silent. The root-beings froze in perfect unison, their song cutting off mid-note.
In the sudden quiet, only one sound remained:
A deep, rhythmic thudding from beneath their feet.
Like a heartbeat.
Like something stirring from a very long sleep.
The first true note of the last song had been struck.
And Moyan, his roots singing in harmony with the world's pain, stepped forward to meet it.