Before dawn, the elven forest was shrouded in an eerie stillness. Raine stood atop the highest observation platform of the Mother Tree, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the mark on his chest. Ever since last night's visit from "Silver Branch," the tricolored pattern had begun to throb intermittently, as if countless tiny gears were turning beneath his skin.
"Having that dream again?"
Ravenna's voice came from behind, accompanied by the warm pulse of her signature purple-gold energy. Today she had swapped her usual leather armor for a lightweight chainmail crafted by elven artisans, the flowing metal rings catching the morning light with a violet sheen.
Raine didn't answer immediately. He opened his palm, letting a shaft of sunlight pass through his fingers. In the special perspective of his emerald vision, countless miniature gear phantoms floated within the beam, each rotating in perfect sync.
"This time it's not just a dream," he finally spoke, his voice raspier than usual. "I can feel the Weaver trying to reconstruct my energy circuits." His raised hand suddenly clenched into a fist, knuckles whitening. "It's reshaping me into some kind of… interface."
Ravenna's mechanical eye glinted red. She suddenly grabbed Raine's wrist, her purple-gold energy cutting into his energy system with surgical precision. The air around them twisted, revealing semi-transparent gear projections—they tried to interlock, only to be forcibly blocked by her energy.
"This is worse than last night." She released his wrist, and the gear illusions dissolved. "Gamma's suppressants are weakening."
From below came the clanging of hammer on metal. Ironbeard's new forge had already begun operation, the dwarves' gruff voices occasionally rising above the roar of the steam hammers. Farther off, elven druids chanted morning blessings for the Mother Tree saplings, emerald light particles swirling around the newborn leaves like fireflies.
This seemingly ordinary morning view made Raine's chest tighten. He knew it might be the last calm before the storm.
"How's Gamma?"
Ravenna pulled a small metal vial from her waist and poured out two pills that shimmered with a silver-blue glow. "Take one yourself, and give the other to that little fool. Alfred's 'Stardust Stabilizer'—it temporarily blocks psychic connections."
The pill dissolved instantly on the tongue, a cool sensation spreading through Raine's body. Suddenly, visions of the Aurora Tower flashed before his eyes—seven crystalized mages sat around the Stellar Interference Instrument, one of their crystalline shells slowly cracking.
"Alfred and the others…" he frowned, pressing his fingers against his temple.
"They won't last long." Ravenna glanced toward the northeast, where the sky faintly shimmered with unnatural silver light. "The old man transmitted last night— the aurora barrier can only hold for seven more days at most."
They descended the spiral staircase toward the camp center. Passing the Mother Tree saplings, Raine noticed faint gear-shaped patterns along the edges of the newly grown leaves—exactly as he had seen in his dreams. Niseya knelt beside a sapling, emerald energy streaming from her fingertips into the leaves, attempting to purify the anomalies, but the effect was minimal.
"Watchers." She looked up, and Raine noticed her sclerae now tinged with a faint metallic hue. "The Mother Tree Network just detected new movements along the East Coast."
With a gesture, emerald light particles coalesced into a projection: hundreds of black warships gathering on the sea, each deck manned by mechanical constructs resembling High Priests of the Holy Alliance. Yet even more disturbing was the sea itself—its waters had taken on a strange gelatinous texture, occasionally bulging into enormous bubbles that revealed intricate machinery beneath when they burst.
"Liquid Fortresses." Elrondil's white robe appeared beside the projection, the old elf frowning. "Ancient texts record them as archaic weapons capable of temporarily converting an entire sea into a mechanical lifeform."
Gamma's alchemy workshop suddenly erupted in a blinding silver flash. The girl stumbled out, her right eye's silver-blue prosthetic flickering wildly, the left now fully dark red.
"Raine! Big brother!" she waved a shape-shifting metal plate in frantic motions. "I've cracked Silver Branch's memory fragments! The Council fleet is just a diversion! Their real attack route is—"
The metal plate suddenly melted into liquid, then reformed midair into a three-dimensional map. Twelve glowing paths converged on the Elven Forest from all directions, but three shone especially bright: one from underground, one from the sky, and the final one connecting the Mother Tree sapling directly to the Gear Moon!
"A three-pronged invasion." Ravenna's purple-gold dagger was already in hand. "Standard Council tactics."
Ironbeard slammed his steam hammer to the ground. "Let those tin bastards come! My new weapons need real-world testing!" He pointed to rows of neatly arranged metal cylinders in the workshop. "With Mother Tree sap infused, these Emerald Thunder Bombs can blow apart half a mechanical army with a single shot!"
Niseya's chest mark suddenly flared violently. She bent over in pain, and uncontrolled emerald energy burst forth, forming a new projection in the air—the cracks on the Gear Moon's surface were seeping silver-white fluid. In the vacuum of space, the streams coalesced into arrow shapes, and orbital calculations showed they would strike the Elven Forest precisely at the lunar eclipse three days hence.
"Tears of the Moon." Elrondil's voice carried a rare note of fear. "Legend says they are the Weaver's tears, capable of dissolving all boundaries between life and machine."
Raine dropped to one knee, Frostwhisper sword stabbed into the ground to steady himself. His Emerald Vision activated uncontrollably, his sight forcibly shifting to another dimension—he saw that five of the twelve main ley lines had been fully mechanized, channeling a kind of silver-white energy directly into the Mother Tree's roots; everyone in the camp had faint gear-shaped projections linking them, with Gamma's being the densest; most terrifyingly, energy lines extended from his own chest into the sky, connecting directly to the Gear Moon's core.
"Raine!" Ravenna pressed her hand to his back, purple-gold energy forcibly cutting off the vision.
Gasping, he looked up to see everyone's concerned faces. The weight of the moment was almost suffocating—elves, dwarves, alchemists—the hope of an entire continent rested on this small group.
"Deploy in teams." Raine forced himself to stand, his voice regaining its usual calm. "Ironbeard and the elf druids take ley-line defense; Elrondil organizes long-range watch; Gamma continues decoding Silver Branch's memories; Niseya maintains the Mother Tree network." He turned to Ravenna. "You and I will prepare the final plan."
"What plan?" Gamma asked, curiosity lacing her voice.
A dangerous curve tugged at the corners of Ravenna's mouth. "The plan to blow up the Council's nest on the Moon, of course."
Noon sunlight filtered through the Mother Tree canopy, casting mottled light across the camp. Raine sat alone in the makeshift operations room, Alfred's star maps spread before him. After taking the Stardust Stabilizer, the gear labyrinths in his dreams had blurred, but another, subtler influence had emerged—he found he could draw intricate mechanical diagrams from memory as if the knowledge had always been there.
"Found it." Ravenna entered, carrying two steaming cups of an unknown liquid. "Dwarven specialty—Thunder Coffee. Drink it, and you won't sleep for three days."
Raine took the cup, the burnt aroma mingling with a strange scent of pine resin. "About the plan you mentioned…"
"Right here." She projected a three-dimensional map made of purple-gold energy. "According to Gamma's decoded data, the Council's headquarters is in the Gear Moon's core." The projection zoomed in, revealing a tangle of pipes. "The good news? Alfred left an escape route."
The image switched to the ruins of the Aurora Tower. Among the seven crystallized mages, one base bore a miniature teleportation array pattern.
"The old man anticipated the Council would control the Stellar Interference Instrument." Ravenna's fingertip traced the projection, switching to the Moon's interior. "He embedded reverse teleportation anchors in every key device."
Raine studied the flickering points of light. "Enough energy to transport how many?"
"Two, in theory." Her mechanical eye narrowed. "But someone has to stabilize the channel outside."
A soft knocking sounded at the door. Ravenna's dagger flashed from her hand, lodging in the doorframe, just as Gamma's scream rang out.
"I didn't hear anything!" The girl clutched a huge stack of ancient tomes, her silver-blue prosthetic eye flickering in panic. "Really! I came to deliver the Ancient Teleportation Compendium! Honest!"
Ravenna rolled her eyes and withdrew her dagger. "Come in, little spy."
Gamma shuffled in carefully, her mechanical squirrel perched atop the pile of books. When she saw the 3D projection, her prosthetic eye immediately locked onto the Moon's structure. "Whoa! This is the Council HQ? It's even… uh… disgusting than I imagined?"
The core area in the projection was indeed unsettling—countless pipes twisted like intestines, submerged in silver-white liquid. Occasionally, bubbles surfaced and burst, revealing semi-mechanical, semi-flesh embryonic forms.
"Primordial Incubation Pools." Raine found himself using an unfamiliar term without thinking. "The Council's… wombs for creating new members."
He froze as the words left his mouth. The term, which should have been completely foreign, emerged naturally as if common knowledge. Ravenna and Gamma looked at him in surprise.
"Big brother Raine…" Gamma hesitated, offering a mirror. "Your eyes…"
The reflection in the mirror made Raine's chest tighten—his iris was mechanizing, tiny gears slowly turning at the edge of his pupil. More terrifyingly, the change seemed synchronized with the mark on his chest; each rotation of the gears lit the corresponding microglow along the tricolor pattern.
"Time is running out." Ravenna suddenly slammed her hand on the table and stood. "Gamma, prepare three sets of spatial stabilizers; Raine, continue studying Alfred's star maps; I'll go find Ironbeard and retrofit some gear suitable for the Moon."
She allocated the tasks with decisive force, then paused at the door. "Remember, you idiot—no matter what that broken Moon tries to shove into your head, you are Raine Hawk." The purple-gold patterns flared at her neck. "The fool who would forgo a bounty for a stranger thief."
As the door closed, Raine noticed his mechanical iris had temporarily returned to normal. He bent over the star maps again, but noticed Gamma still standing there, hesitating.
"Something else?"
The girl's prosthetic eye suddenly projected an encrypted image. "I dug this out from the deepest layers of Silver Branch's memory… I thought you should see it."
The footage showed the Council's circular hall, twelve mechanical thrones arranged around a central pillar of light. Unlike the blurry visions before, this time they could clearly see something floating inside the pillar—a door. A door identical to the one beneath the Mother Tree's caverns, only much smaller. The inscriptions on the frame were exactly what Raine had seen in his dreams: "Here sleeps the Last Original Sin—Pride."
"Gamma…" Raine's voice softened instinctively. "Don't tell anyone about this memory. Not even Ravenna."
The girl nodded nervously. "Th-there's something even stranger…" The image switched to a laboratory, dozens of incubation pods lined up, each containing a being resembling Raine. "The Council seems to be… mass-producing 'core carriers'…"
Suddenly, the star map in Raine's hands spontaneously combusted. Emerald flames devoured the parchment in an instant. Expressionless, he watched the fire dance across his fingertips. "So it is."
The Elven Forest at dusk was bathed in blood-red sunlight. Raine stood beside the Mother Tree sapling, watching Niseya pour the final surge of emerald energy into it. The elf girl's complexion was pale, almost translucent; the Watcher's mark had spread across her right arm, forming intricate gear-shaped patterns.
"How much have you seen?" she asked suddenly, her voice as soft as falling leaves.
Raine knew what she meant. "Enough. The Council doesn't want to release the Weaver…" He lightly touched a metallicized leaf on the sapling. "…they want to become the new Weaver themselves."
Niseya gave a bitter smile. "Pride, isn't it? Thinking you can replace an Old God and reshape the world." Her emerald eyes reflected the slowly rising Gear Moon. "But the irony… is that we might have to do the same thing."
Raine felt a chill of dread at her words. To stop the Council, someone might have to take up the Weaver's power—and the choice seemed painfully obvious. The mark on his chest suddenly burned, as if affirming the thought.
At dinner, the camp was heavy with tension yet strangely warm. Ironbeard brought out his treasured dwarven mead; Elondir contributed elven Moonberry preserves; even the usually reserved Niseya drank a few cups. Gamma's mechanical squirrel darted between the table, delivering food and occasionally getting tangled in Ironbeard's beard, causing bursts of laughter.
"To the coming battle!" the dwarf raised his cup, unconcerned as foam spilled over his beard. "May our ancestors bless our axes!"
"To the fallen and the newly born," Elondir said, his white hair glowing gold in the firelight.
Ravenna tapped her cup against Raine's. "To the courage of fools who bite off more than they can chew."
Gamma timidly lifted her juice. "To… friendship?"
Raine looked at the golden-green liquid in his cup—it was elven wine mixed with Mother Tree sap, temporarily enhancing one's connection to the ley lines. He drank it in one gulp, feeling warmth spreading through his body.
"To choice," he murmured. "No matter how many paths lie ahead, we always have the right to choose."
Deep into the night, Raine dreamt again of the Gear Maze. But this time it was different—the walls were lined with doors, each opening to a different version of himself: an elven ranger, a paladin of the holy order, a dragonborn warrior… even a fully mechanized "Councilman Raine," eyes glowing a dark crimson.
At the center of the maze, in front of the door inscribed with the cryptic words, the waiting figure was no longer a multi-limbed shadow—it was a form that made his heart stop:
Ravenna, silver-haired and violet-eyed, stood there with the Frostwhisper Sword thrust through her chest, its hilt entwined with purple-gold and emerald vines.
"All choices have a cost, Watcher," her voice rang with an eerie harmonic. "The question is… which one are you willing to pay?"
Raine jolted awake, sweat soaking his pajamas. Outside, the Gear Moon hung high, its fissures grinning like mocking mouths.
Quietly, he rose and went to Gamma's workshop, beginning to assemble a device in secret—not Alfred's star-map plan, nor Ravenna's Moon assault—but a third possibility…
By the time the first rays of sunlight pierced the clouds, Raine stood atop the Mother Tree, holding the completed device. It was as delicate as a pocket watch, yet engraved with the same inscription as the door. Opening the cover revealed not hands, but three miniature key models: Seed of Life, Seed of Machinery, Heart of Dragons.
"Found you," he whispered.
Ravenna's voice came from behind. Raine didn't turn, gently closing the cover. "I have a plan…"
"Shut up, idiot," she interrupted roughly, looping her arms around his waist from behind. "I know what you're thinking." Her forehead pressed against his back. "But this time, you won't be the hero alone."
The morning wind carried away the rest of her words. On the distant horizon, the first silhouette of a Council black ship was already faintly visible.