As he lay broken at the valley floor, Silias felt it — a shift.
A subtle, eerie sense that the spell had done something wrong. Not just cast him into the Dream Realm... but misfired. Something had changed. Something was out of order.
That feeling alone made him forget his wounds.
Even as blood seeped and breath faded, even as death reached for him again, his thoughts wouldn't stop circling that moment — the missed mark.
And then, it came.
The anomaly.
A sight he never expected, not even in the wildest, most twisted edges of his dreams.
The Ashen Barrow's soul-devouring tree.
The same godforsaken entity that once bound something forbidden, something vile.
But here, now… it was different.
It was a sapling.
Still growing. Small. Fragile.
And yet no less dreadful.
Its presence bled wrongness.
Staring at it, Silias could only think:
"Why is this… here?
Shouldn't this be in the Forgotten Shore?"
He approached it—slowly, cautiously.
Each step laced with unease.
And no less bewilderment.
Silias sat down, cross-legged across from it, staring into the pale, pulsing bark of the sapling.
For a brief moment, something in its shape, its smallness, almost made him lower his guard.
But then he remembered.
He had seen this thing grown, matured, and monstrous.
He had seen it feed on souls.
This was no innocent sprout.
Its ability to enthrall — to cloud the mind, to make the grotesque appear harmless — was working on him even now.
He hadn't meant to approach.
Hadn't meant to stare at it like it was a curious child.
It was a horror, not what it seemed.
That realization struck him like a slap.
And in that moment of helplessness, desperate to break the spell, Silias grabbed a jagged stone from the ground — and stabbed himself.
Once.
Then again.
And again.
His breaths came ragged, eyes unfocused. But for a moment — with each stab — the fog lifted.
The pain was real. His.
Then, before he could think twice, he reached forward… and gripped the sapling's base.
His frail, bleeding hands wrapped around its bark —
—and pulled.
With all his weak and battered body could muster…
He tore the cursed thing from the earth.
The spell resounded through the air, a wave of relief washing over him.
[You have slain a Fallen Terror: Soul Devouring Tree Sapling]
[You have received a memory]
He collapsed, shuddering, gasping for breath.
Then his eyes widened in sudden realization —
beneath the uprooted root lay something vile: an egg.
Not just a sapling of an enthralling beast,
but a host for something far worse.
Something that could only be described as pure horror… now stirring to life.
He watched the small egg crack open, a grotesque, twitching egg ling writhing free—its malformed limbs flailing helplessly.
Bloodied stone clenched tight, he brought it down with brutal force, again and again, crushing fragile bones and soft flesh into a pulpy, bloody smear.
His fury was unrelenting, a savage storm unleashed, pounding the wretched thing until no trace of life remained—until the horror was nothing but shattered ruin beneath his hands.
The spell spoke again,
[You have slain a Great beast, Vile thieving bird's spawn]
[You have received a memory]
Then he sank down, breath ragged, leaning against the rough bark of a nearby tree. He summoned the runes before him, watching them with a complex swirl of emotions—joy, confusion, and a flicker of excitement stirring deep inside.
There they were, his first batch of memories from the spell.
'Yes!'
Name: [Thornpiercer]
Rank: Ascended
Tier: III
Enchantments—
[Entangling Curse], [Sap Venom],
[Verdant Regrowth], [Whispering Shadow].
[Entangling Curse]: On strike, faint thorned tendrils flicker, lightly slowing foes and unsettling their footing, a subtle reminder of the blade's natural origin.
[Sap Venom]: The blade seeps a creeping toxin that dulls the senses and corrodes resolve, turning even the fiercest resistance to fragile doubt.
[Verdant Regrowth]: Drawing on the wielder's essence, the blade slowly heals itself over time, maintaining its sharpness and resilience without draining vitality out of the soul.
[Whispering Shadow]: Lingering voices haunt the blade's path, sowing unease and fear in the hearts of those nearby, unraveling courage like a silent plague.
Then a rare smile tugged at Silas's lips, a spark of quiet relief breaking through the haze.
"So, this is a tempered sin of solace... not so cruel after all."
He was briefly caught in a moment of joy—until a sudden, sharp impact shattered his calm. He nearly toppled to the ground, even as he sat.
[Drop of Ichor]
His head snapped up, shaken and confused.
"No… what? How? Who?"
[Beneath the weight of Ariel's forgotten truths, deep within the Tomb of Ariel — a crypt meant for his sibling, the Demon of Oblivion — lay a secret none dared to speak aloud. Though Weaver and Ariel were siblings, their very essence was starkly different. Weaver, the demon of fate, wove the threads of existence with a twisted beauty, feared and hated even by gods themselves. His weaving was dark and elusive, a subtle manipulation of destinies that few could understand.
Ariel, true to his name, spoke dreadful truths—harsh, unyielding, and unavoidable. Where Weaver's presence was a shadowy enigma, Ariel was the stark light of reality, blunt and merciless.
Their lineages, though intertwined, bore the mark of profound difference. A whispered saying lingered between them: Weaver could never truly speak the truth, and Ariel, for all his dread, never hesitated to do so.
Buried beneath layers of forgotten and forbidden secrets within the tomb was a fragment of this forbidden lineage—hidden away, entwined with shadows and silence, a secret that tied Ariel's fate to his siblings in ways the world was never meant to know.]
His brain pulsed with searing pain, his head throbbed violently, and blood streamed from his nose and ears, agony ripping through him as torrents of forbidden knowledge flooded his mind..
His endless reading had made him familiar with these names, and so he pondered,
"Is it weaving? Runes? Like the Demon of Desire… or Hope? Or just names?"
Suddenly, it clicked—sorcery of names was used in Ariel's tomb, which meant his lineage carried a darker, hidden side of that power
Then the Spell questioned
Then the Spell echoed,
[Do you wish to accept this lineage?]
[Yes] [No]
After a brief pause, Silias whispered aloud,
"Yes."
Then the pain came—blinding, relentless, and raw—like shards of fire ripping through every fiber of his being. His muscles convulsed uncontrollably, nerves screaming as if aflame beneath his skin. Blood thundered in his ears, drowning out all thought. Each breath was a jagged knife slicing through his chest. Time fractured into a torturous eternity where every second dragged like a cruel punishment.
He gritted his teeth, tears streaming down his face, begging silently—
"When will this end? When can I go back? Not to my own world, but at least to the waking world"
After the pain, there was silence.
Relief came not as peace, but as exhaustion — a numb quiet that smothered his nerves like ash over fire. Silias spent what felt like days wandering the strange valley, eating fruit from trees that shimmered with dream light and bled when plucked. Some healed his wounds. Others left him choking on shadows. He never learned which did which.
The forest whispered.
Sometimes, in his restless half-sleep, he would hear the names again — Ariel, Oblivion, Weaver. He never looked at the runes again. Not yet. Not after what he felt burrow into his bones.
He had no idea what conflict brewed in this place… if it was even a Nightmare. It felt wrong, like something the spell never meant to show. As if he had stumbled into a hidden layer — one that had no business being seen by an Aspirant. He kept to the edges, avoided the trees that bled ichor, and tried not to think.
The valley had been too quiet for too long. Silias had known it—felt it in the way the wind no longer blew through the vines and the trees whispered among themselves like wary beasts.
This place wasn't empty. It was claimed.
And now... he would challenge that claim.
He crouched behind a knotted root wall, heart pounding too loudly in his chest. He'd spent two days watching from the shadows. The creature was massive—lumbering and part plant, its body formed of blackened wood and thorny bark, its limbs a twisted mimicry of man and beast. It breathed mist. It shed leaves that withered the ground. And it watched, always facing east, guarding something it refused to leave.