The morning mist of the Rotbone Marsh clung to Renn like a shroud of congealed corpses.
He stood beneath a withered tree at the marsh's edge, its pale gray branches clawing toward the leaden sky like skeletal fingers.
The stench of decomposing matter seeped through the fog, curling around his boots.
From within his cloak, the infant let out a muffled cry—like the distant chime of a bell drowned in soaked cloth.
Renn lifted a corner of his cloak. The baby's tiny face trembled in the cold, its sobs quickly swallowed by the marsh's oppressive silence.
"Quiet," Renn whispered, his voice hoarse, fingers brushing instinctively over the surgical kit strapped to his waist—a leather pouch accidentally brought out of the elven ruins, and now the cleanest item he carried.
The baby's cries dwindled into broken sniffles.
From deep within the deadwood thickets came the clatter of metal.
Renn crouched at once, pressing his left hand to the damp, loamy soil.
The vibrations in the ground traveled into his palm—heavy infantry, at least twenty, and horses among them.
He couldn't tell if they were allies or foes.
Swiftly, he drew the cloak tighter, shielding the baby's face in shadow, and edged his back against the rough bark of the tree, slowly shifting his position.
The mist thickened, turning into a gray-white burial cloth, blurring shapes and muffling sound.
He adjusted the bandage over his left eye. A crystalline sting lanced from the socket into his temple.
Everything that had happened in the elven ruins still lingered in his mind like a fever dream: the melting jade effigy, the screaming that echoed through the spire, and the forbidden runes seared into his bones.
The infant stirred again—this time toward his chest.
It was then that Renn noticed the Life Crystal pulsing faintly, its rhythm uncannily matching the infant's breathing.
He frowned and tightened the cloak around the baby.
"Listen," he murmured to the bundle, voice rough as though soaked in swamp water. "We need to get out of here without drawing any attention. If you cry even once, I'll throw you to the Paladins as an offering for their holy water baptism."
The baby blinked up at him. Its deep green eyes gleamed with a metallic sheen in the gray dawn.
At the edge of the deadwood, the banners of the Holy Accord came into view.
Renn counted three heavy infantry phalanxes deployed in a fan-shaped formation. Behind them rode two squadrons of light cavalry.
Further back, scouts from the Thieves' Guild skulked between the trees like hyenas, tightening the net around the Rotbone Marsh.
"Milord! Tracks over here!"
The Paladin's shout tensed every muscle in Renn's body.
He watched three fully armored soldiers approach the swamp's edge, the leader kneeling to inspect the ground.
Renn glanced at his mud-covered boots—damn, he'd forgotten to erase the footprints.
His breath caught.
Mud dripped slowly from his soles, collecting in a murky puddle at the tree's roots.
The leading Paladin reached out with his silver-plated gauntlet and pushed aside the rotten leaves—clear footprints, like arrows, pointed directly toward Renn's hiding spot.
The infant shifted in his arms, those emerald eyes narrowing, as though sensing the danger creeping closer.
Renn pressed his hand over the bundle, feeling the baby's cheek cool beneath his fingertips.
After two seconds of calculation, Renn's right arm pulsed with a faint green light.
Vines on the ground stirred like living things, writhing to life and swiftly covering the tracks they'd left behind.
The very moment the vines wove into a net, the Paladin leader abruptly looked up. Behind the silver helm, his eyes flashed with suspicion.
He reached out to part the newly grown vines, only to find that the prints beneath had vanished without a trace.
"Milord?" one of the knights behind him called out uncertainly.
The leader was silent for a moment, then suddenly drew his sword.
Holy runes along the blade flared with blinding gold, driving back the surrounding fog.
"Strange… the trail ends here." He nudged the newly thickened vines with his boot. "Keep searching ahead!"
Only after the footsteps receded did Renn exhale the breath he'd held.
He stared at his right hand. The baby looked up at him and grinned, its pink gums peeking out.
"…That was you?" Renn asked softly.
The baby only buried its face deeper into his cloak, like a small animal finding warmth.
By noon, the scorching sun baked the scorched soil.
Renn stumbled up the last earthen rise. The foul stench of the Rotbone Marsh was at last replaced by the clean scent of grass and leaves—but the sight before him made his pupils contract sharply.
What should have been an abandoned outskirt had turned into a bustling market.
Colorful tents stretched along the dirt road. The scent of roasting meat and cheap sour ale churned in the heat.
At the distant watchtower, the Holy Accord's golden crest flapped in the wind.
More alarming still were the wooden palisades circling the entire settlement—not mere barricades, but warded enclosures. Each stake bore binding runes, with silver sanctified bells hung from the top.
"Last batch of purified apples! Three coppers a pound!"
A wind-elf merchant's cry echoed through the crowd.
Renn instinctively tightened the swaddling cloth around the infant.
The guards along the palisade were more relaxed than he'd expected—just two Thieves' Guild drifters playing dice in the shade, their shortbows resting carelessly at their feet.
Renn watched them for a while but realized the real threat came from the bloodhounds circling the perimeter—trained scent-hounds with twitching wet noses that could detect the faintest trace of heresy from a hundred leagues away.
The baby squirmed again. The swaddling cloth rustled faintly.
Renn gently pressed down on the bundle and focused on the underbrush around him.
Roughly two miles to the east, a thicket of wild brambles marked a weak spot in the palisade.
"Just a little longer…" Renn whispered, soothing the infant.
At his fingertips, natural energy began to gather. Nearby vines trembled in response to his silent summons.
And then—the Life Crystal at his chest began to throb violently.
Fighting through the pain, Renn looked up. The sight atop the watchtower turned his blood to ice.
The figure in the crimson cloak held in his hand a staff crafted from a magically altered Mother Tree branch.
What once bore the promise of life was now warped into a dark artifact.
Crimson runes slithered across its bark like veins. The single patch of remaining green at its tip pulsed spasmodically, like a heart under chains, emitting waves of diseased energy into the air.
"A Deacon of the Abyssal Council…" Renn's pupils contracted to pinpricks, his throat seized as though by an invisible grip. "And… a corrupted Mother Tree branch…"
Long-buried memories surged up like a tide.
Growing up in the human lands, he had often heard rangers whispering dark tales late at night:That the Abyssal Council wielded black relics attuned to elven blood.
That they nailed captured elves to blood-red altars, corrupting their noble souls with the vilest of spells.
The infant began to tremble violently in his arms. Tiny hands punched through the cloth to grip Renn's tunic with surprising force.
Runes—elven and ancient—began to shimmer on Renn's exposed skin, glowing like morning dew kissed by sunlight.
The Deacon atop the tower suddenly raised his artifact.
The imprisoned Mother Tree fragment let out a soul-rending wail.
A beam of sickly green energy burst forth like a serpent, racing toward Renn.
Where it passed, grass withered, trees crumbled, and even the air hissed with corrosive venom.
In that critical instant, the world seemed to freeze.
The beam halted midair—as though stopped by an invisible wall.
Renn, stunned, looked down to see the baby in his arms glowing with a blinding, sacred radiance.Brilliant platinum light surged outward in waves, sweeping away the darkness.
The toxic green beam melted like frost under the sun, dissolving into motes of harmless light.
"What is this…" Renn's voice caught in his throat.
He saw golden runes—holy and ancient—flickering within the baby's emerald eyes.
The nearest hounds whimpered and lay down, their ferocity softened.
The thieves at the barricade dropped their whistles, eyes wide, slowly sinking to one knee, their faces transformed from menace to calm.
Weapons clattered to the ground in waves of metallic song.
Thieves, cutthroats, and mercenaries all dropped to their knees, coarse hands instinctively pressing to their chests, their violence soothed by a long-lost peace.
"By the Light…" murmured a scar-faced rogue, tears glimmering in his weathered eyes.
His whisper spread like ripples through the crowd. Even the fiercest brutes bowed their heads in reverence.
Above, the Abyssal Deacon screamed.
The black artifact shattered under the light.
The crimson runes fell away like ash, and the corrupted wood—once a Mother Tree's branch—was finally freed.
Green vitality burst from its bark as it unfurled in the light, renewed with life.
"No! Impossible!" the Deacon howled, flailing the crumbling staff as his cloak caught fire in the holy blaze.
His rotting body was laid bare beneath.
"That's… Primordial Radiance! Power that should've died with the gods!"
Farther off, the Holy Accord's heavy cavalry dismounted.
Their treasured weapons clanged to the dirt.
These hardened warriors dropped to their knees, tears streaming down faces scarred by a hundred battles.
One gray-haired knight trembled as he removed his helm.
"Child of Light…" he choked out, fingers tracing an ancient sign of prayer on his chest.
"The Prophecies of Illumination… they were true all along…"
The watchtower crumbled in the blaze of light.
But even its stones transformed mid-fall into flocks of white doves.
The fallen Deacon's last scream faded into the wind as he disintegrated into a wisp of smoke—utterly purified.
A strange peace blanketed the battlefield.
For a moment, there was no enemy, no ally—only silence.
And every gaze turned, one by one, to the infant cradled in Renn's arms.