Before dawn, the Elven Forest was shrouded in a pale violet mist. Raine sat cross-legged on the Mother Tree's largest aerial root, the tri-colored mark on his chest flickering with his breath. His eyes were closed, yet he could clearly see everything around him—Gamma curled up inside the alchemical tent, her silver-blue artificial eye flickering even in rest mode; Ironbeard sprawled by the campfire, his beard still stained with last night's ale; as for Ravenna, she was nowhere to be seen, but the lingering trail of violet-gold energy in the air showed she had only just left.
"Are you ready?" Elondir's voice came from beneath the tree. The old elf's white robe was damp with morning dew, and in his hands he held a chalice carved of jade. "Entering the Emerald Dreamscape requires a guide."
Raine opened his eyes, golden and green halos rippling in his pupils. "How is Nissea's condition?"
"Her vital signs are stable, but her consciousness remains trapped in the deep dream." Elondir handed him the chalice, within which glimmered a liquid that radiated starlight. "This is a medium brewed from the Mother Tree's morning dew and the Aurora Tower's energy. It will help you locate her consciousness coordinates."
The moment the liquid touched his lips, Raine's vision split apart—reality faded like a washed-out oil painting, replaced by countless overlapping emerald layers. He saw the Mother Tree in its spiritual form: not the material trunk, but a three-dimensional web woven of billions of glowing threads, each one connected to a sleeping elven mind. At the deepest and darkest node, Nissea's spirit appeared like a firefly trapped in amber, bound by layers of dark-red strands.
"Remember, time flows differently in the dreamscape." Elondir's warning grew distant. "The three-day limit in reality may be no more than three hours here…"
The voice vanished completely. Raine felt himself falling, through one translucent emerald membrane after another. With each layer he passed, his body grew lighter, until at last even his human shape dissolved into a pure stream of energy.
When the fall ceased, he stood in a bizarre forest. The trees here grew upside down—their crowns buried deep in the earth, their roots spreading into the sky like coral. A pale green mist hovered at knee-height, occasionally forming human faces before dispersing. From afar came the sound of running water, but upon approaching, one would realize it was in fact the whispers of countless elves.
"Nissea?" Raine's voice echoed strangely in the dreamscape, as though spoken from a dozen directions at once.
There was no reply. But when he activated the mark on his chest, a faint silver-blue path emerged within the fog, pointing toward the depths of the forest. As he advanced, the density of the inverted trees grew, their roots entwining into a suffocating dome. Suddenly, Raine realized the true nature of these "trees"—they were projections of slumbering elven minds, and the dark-red mists drifting among them were the traces of the Council's corruption.
The light-path suddenly broke off. Ahead lay a circular clearing, at the center of which stood a normally grown birch tree. Beneath it leaned a familiar figure. Nissea's spirit form looked younger than in reality—her silver hair almost transparent, emerald-colored veins faintly visible beneath her skin. But at this moment, she was trapped inside a cocoon woven from dark-red runes, with only her face exposed.
"Raine…" Her voice sounded as though muffled behind frosted glass. "You shouldn't have come…"
The cocoon writhed. Dark-red mist condensed into twelve blurry silhouettes, closing in tightly around Raine. They wore the ancient garb of Watchers, but their faces were twisted and deformed, and in their eyes flickered a mechanical crimson light.
"Traitor…" The foremost figure spoke with a voice like electronic synthesis. "Surrender the Core authority…"
Raine's Frostsong Sword appeared in his hand of its own accord, but its emerald flame was far weaker here than in reality. When the first fallen Watcher lunged at him, he instinctively unleashed [Spirit Phoenix Slash]—only to find that his sword-qi merely dispersed part of the foe's mist. At once, the dark-red energy reformed, and worse, it had absorbed the properties of the emerald sword-qi, returning with waves of life-force woven into its next strike.
"In the dream… they mimic your abilities…" Nissea warned with effort. "Use… the Dragon…"
Before she could finish, the rune-cocoon tightened around her, forcing her into a painful curl. Raine immediately switched tactics—his draconic bloodline flaring into a dazzling golden radiance within the dream. This time, [Dragon's Breath Slash] scorched the fallen figure, but worse consequences followed: the instant the golden energy touched the dark-red mist, the entire dream-space began to quake, and the inverted trees' roots writhed like living things.
"Stop!" Nissea screamed. "You'll awaken the Corrupted Root!"
Too late. The ground split open with a deafening crack. From beneath erupted countless colossal roots wrapped in dark-red runes. They were not the machinery-flesh hybrids of the waking world, but pure nightmare constructs—their surfaces covered with ceaselessly blinking eyes, their rifts splitting open to reveal human arms, and at their tips, suckers that wailed like crying infants.
Raine stumbled and dodged amidst the onslaught of the roots. Battles in the dream consumed far more mental strength than in reality; each time he was grazed, no blood spilled—only fragments of memory were torn away. In one desperate sidestep, his gaze caught upon the birch tree behind Nissea—the only normal object in the entire dream. On its trunk was carved a glowing triangular sigil.
The Seed of Life, the Seed of Machinery, the Dragon's Heart.
The markings of the three keys!
"Nissea!" he shouted, forcing his way forward through the whipping roots, risking a strike to reach the birch tree. "Give me your hand!"
The elven girl struggled to extend her left hand. The instant their fingers touched, the mark on Raine's chest suddenly resonated with the symbol carved into the tree! Emerald, violet-gold, and golden light interwove into a net, temporarily driving back the dark-red roots. But the cocoon of runes struck back even more violently—it pierced directly into Nissea's back, beginning to siphon away her Watcher authority!
"Raine… listen…" Nissea's spirit-body was growing translucent. "The Mother Tree gave you the Core authority… it means you can… reshape the dream…"
"How?"
"Imagine… what you know best…"
The roots lashed out again. Raine shut his eyes, forcing himself to recall his deepest memory. Not the battlefield of the Elven Forest, not the splendor of the Aurora Tower, but that ordinary little tavern—the beer stains on the wooden table that could never be scrubbed away, the crackling pinewood in the hearth, the first snow drifting outside the window…
The dream trembled even more violently. When Raine opened his eyes again, the inverted forest was gone. In its place was the warm, bustling interior of a tavern. The fallen Watchers were trapped amidst the sudden tables and chairs, the corrupt roots constrained by the low ceiling. Nissea had been transferred to a rocking chair by the fireplace, and the cocoon of runes grew visibly thinner beneath the firelight.
"Clever…" She gave a frail smile. "But it won't… last long…"
Indeed, the tavern's walls were already oozing with dark-red slime, ominous scratching rising from beneath the floorboards. Raine dropped to one knee before her rocking chair, laying the Frostsong Sword across his lap. "Tell me how to free you."
"Sever… the link…" Nissea pointed to her chest, where a dark-red thread extended into the void. "But not with the sword… with this…"
Her fingertip touched lightly between Raine's brows. A flood of unfamiliar memory surged into him—he saw the scene of the first Watchers sealing the "Gate." Twelve elven elders weaving the three powers into a single chain. The true key was not the power itself, but a particular… frequency.
"Resonance…" Raine realized. He gripped Nissea's wrist with his left hand, pressed his right against the mark on his chest, and began consciously modulating the rhythm of the three energies.
The emerald pulse of life as the foundation, the violet-gold precision of alchemy as the beat, the primal wildness of dragons as the variation. When the three frequencies overlapped in perfect harmony, a miracle occurred—the mark on his chest projected a three-dimensional rune, resonating violently with the dark-red thread inside Nissea!
"Ah!" The elf girl arched her back in agony. The thread began to snap, but with each severed strand, more surged out from the void. Worse, the tavern-scape was collapsing, the fallen Watchers already breaking free, the corrupt roots writhing out of every crack.
Raine clenched his teeth, driving the resonance to its limits. His skin began to fissure, green-gold light seeping through the cracks—he was burning his spirit-body itself within the dream! Just as he was about to collapse, something cold pressed against his back.
"Useless gardener—you really can't do without me." Ravenna's voice carried its familiar mockery. Violet-gold energy poured into Raine like a clear spring, filling the missing gap in the frequency. The resonance of fourfold power finally reached critical mass, and the dark-red threads in Nissea's chest snapped all at once, like harp strings breaking!
The entire dream began to collapse. The fallen Watchers dissolved in the soundwave, while the corrupt roots shriveled like vampires under sunlight. Nissea's spirit-body was finally free—but unsettlingly, a mark identical to Raine's had appeared upon her chest, only tinged more toward emerald.
"Go… quickly…" She pushed the two of them. "The dream is falling apart…"
The exit was even more chaotic than the entry. Raine felt as if crammed into a kaleidoscope, countless fragments of memory whirling past—his own, Nissea's, even those of the fallen Watchers. The strangest moment of all—he clearly glimpsed the inner structure of the Gear-Moon: it was not a natural celestial body, but a colossal construct of endless gears and pipes, and at its core slumbered…
The air of the real world rushed into his lungs like cold water. Raine jolted upright, gasping violently beneath the Mother Tree. Ravenna was likewise just regaining consciousness, the violet-gold patterns on her skin dimmed. And most miraculous of all—Nissea's eyelids were trembling!
"Welcome back, Watcher," Elondil said through tears, helping her up.
The elf girl's pupils had turned completely emerald, the mark on her chest resonating with the Mother Tree. When she spoke, her voice carried a strange double-tone, as though the Mother Tree itself was speaking through her:
"The Council… is awakening the Weaver…"
"The Weaver?" Gamma leaned in curiously.
Nissea's gaze was still somewhat unfocused. "The true name of the Gear-Moon… it weaves the net of fate… the Council wants to use it… to rewrite the laws of the world…"
Raine exchanged a glance with Ravenna. This matched exactly what he had glimpsed in the dream. But before he could ask more, the Mother Tree suddenly shuddered violently! All the half-mechanical fruits burst open at once, metallic seeds shooting like a storm of arrows toward the northeast. Gamma's silver-blue augmetic eye instantly tracked the trajectories:
"They're marking something!"
Elondil's face went pale. "The Mother Tree is warning us! The Council has begun the final phase!"
As if to confirm his words, rhythmic tremors shook the ground, like some vast machine coming to life. Through his emerald sight, Raine pierced the earth and saw the leyline network—its silver-blue currents were being forcibly drained, flowing northeast. The Council was siphoning the continent's energy!
"No time to rest." Ravenna was already gathering her gear. "While the Mother Tree can still hold part of their attention, we must move out immediately."
Ironbeard checked the freshly replaced steam core on his pack. "The dwarven airship is on standby, but it can only take us to the edge of the Obsidian Mountains."
Nissea struggled to her feet. Her body was frail, but her eyes shone with unwavering resolve. "I know… the entrance to the Hidden Path…"
At that moment, Gamma's silver-blue eye projected the last recording from the Aurora Tower: among the seven crystallized mages, one suddenly shattered, revealing intricate mechanisms beneath its surface—that was no human, but a Council infiltrator!
"No wonder they could find every sanctuary…" Ravenna's dagger spun between her fingers. "The rot was inside from the start."
Raine touched the mark on his chest, feeling the Mother Tree's final message. The shadow of the Gear-Moon hung over the continent's fate, and they were about to confront the core of this ancient conspiracy. As Nissea opened the tree-hollow leading to the Hidden Path, he cast one last look back at the Elven Forest—the Mother Tree stretched its branches in the morning light, its half-mechanical growths no longer grotesque, but instead like signs of some new evolution.
"Let's go." He stepped into the hollow first. "It's time to end this."
In the dim tunnel, leyline energy pulsed along the walls like veins. None of them noticed that the emerald patterns beneath Raine's skin were subtly changing—some lines were staining dark-red, like diluted corruption. And deep within his consciousness, the whisper from the Gear-Moon never ceased…