The forest's aura of corruption grew ever more oppressive, with glowing spores drifting visibly through the air. Trees contorted into increasingly grotesque shapes, their branches writhing like spasming limbs, leaves coated in foul, viscous mucus. The ground became soft and springy, covered in a thick, pulsating fungal mat that squelched unpleasantly underfoot.
Yet Raine's perception guided them along a relatively "thin" path of energy through this living hell. The path was far from safe—corrupted creatures were everywhere. Beneath the fungal carpet, Corrosive Vines lurked, springing up suddenly to entangle ankles; from the canopy dripped Acid Slugs, able to melt flesh instantly; and swarms of Wailing Beetles, fist-sized with carapaces etched with anguished human faces, scuttled relentlessly.
Despite this, their coordination grew increasingly seamless. Raine took the lead in detection and primary offense. Though the Frostwhisper Sword's energy was still not fully restored, his swordsmanship instincts persisted. Coupled with his ever-more-mastered "Wither" absorption, he could weaken or even instantly kill weaker corrupted creatures at the moment of contact. Lianna covered gaps and delivered precision strikes; her long needles always found the weak points in an enemy's energy structure, killing with surgical efficiency.
During a rest, Raine once again performed energy resonance absorption. This time, he tried channeling a portion of the relatively pure life energy he drew not directly into Lianna, but into her hands.
"Try to feel it," Raine whispered. "Use your own power to assimilate it. Your essence must revive itself—external nourishment is only a supplement."
Lianna paused, then understood his intention. She closed her eyes, cautiously guiding her faint but tenacious Wither energy to touch and envelop the foreign life energy. At first, the process was awkward; her power naturally leaned toward deprivation rather than absorption. But with Raine's calm, balanced energy buffering the process, she gradually found a subtle equilibrium.
Threads of warmth finally began to merge into her essence, and the pace of her recovery noticeably increased. Opening her eyes, she looked at Raine with a more complex expression. This man not only advanced astonishingly in raw power, but also displayed incredible insight into the very nature and application of energy.
"Thank you," she said softly—her first time expressing gratitude so earnestly.
Raine merely nodded, continuing to keep watch over their surroundings.
The mysterious horn and whispers sounded at intervals, each time clearer, the guidance of their direction becoming increasingly precise. Unease mounted as they delved deeper: unnatural traces began to appear—corrosive vines neatly severed by some sharp tool, shattered bone fragments etched with unknown runes, and even a small polished fragment, neither metal nor stone, bearing a faint, chilling aura similar to the Tomb Keeper's, yet far more subtle.
"It seems we're not the only 'things' moving through this forest," Lianna said, picking up the black fragment. After careful sensing, she added, "The aura is ancient… but it doesn't carry the same hostility or oppression as the Tomb Keeper."
Raine's mechanical right eye recorded every detail of the fragment, storing it in the database for comparison—still no matches.
After several more hours of travel, crossing a swamp thick with hallucinogenic spores, the scene before them suddenly opened up—not beautiful, but presenting strange, fragmented signs of civilization.
They stood on a high ridge, looking down at a massive crater, as if struck by a meteor. Along the edges of the pit, small yet strangely structured huts clung to the walls. The shelters were made of twisted wood, gigantic animal bones, and a dark clay-like substance, shaped like inverted bowls or honeycombs, and coated with glowing moss and strange symbols—barely enough to withstand the dense, corrupt mists rising from the pit.
Even more shocking was the bottom of the crater—it wasn't rock or soil, but a massive, pulsating membrane! Its surface bristled with thick veins and ever-opening and closing orifices, radiating an evil far older and more intense than the corrupted heart of the mine itself. The entire crater seemed like a living, gigantic organ of decay.
And the huts… perched on its edges like colonies parasitic on this immense, corrupt organ?
"Eclipse overhead…" Lianna whispered, drawing in a sharp breath and gripping her long needles. "What kind of nightmare is this?!"
Raine's mechanical eye screamed alarms: energy levels below were extraordinarily high and extremely dangerous. The Life Seed mark on his left chest pulsed with strong rejection and warning, while the tainted energy in his crystalline right arm stirred restlessly, as if sensing a kindred presence.
At that moment, a faint sound—not from corrupted creatures—emanated from behind them!
Swish!
Several figures materialized from the shadows like phantoms, encircling them.
They wore crude clothing of animal hides and woven black fibers; their skin, pale from long absence of sunlight, was etched with dark, rune-like scars of corruption. Their eyes were large, with strange vertical pupils adapted to darkness, flickering with caution, fear, and… a hint of curiosity? In their hands were rough bone spears and black stone blades, the tips and edges gleaming with refined corrupt toxins.
They were living beings! Or at least, they had once been alive!
At the front was a relatively tall elder, his face scarred beyond recognition. He stared intently at Raine—or more precisely, at the faintly glowing Life Seed mark on Raine's left chest. His cloudy vertical pupils were filled with a mix of disbelief, excitement… and awe?
He stepped forward, his voice hoarse, rough, and peppered with archaic words in the common tongue:"…Green… Blooded One? Messenger… of the Heart of the Forest? You… you have finally answered the summoning?"
Green-blooded? Heart of the Forest? Summoning?
Raine and Lianna exchanged a glance, both seeing the uncertainty mirrored in the other's eyes. These seemingly local "natives" had apparently mistaken him for something else—was it because of the aura of the Life Seed?
Raine didn't respond. He calmly sized them up, his mechanical right eye rapidly analyzing their vital signs and energy fluctuations. They also harbored potent corrupted energy, but in a strange way that had achieved balance with their own life force—perhaps even… symbiosis? This was nothing like the pure Deep Divers or fully corrupted creatures.
Seeing Raine remain silent, the elder became even more agitated. With a thud, he fell to his knees. The others followed suit, kneeling quickly, their voices urgent and laced with both pain and hope:"Great Messenger! Please save us! Save the Kanah tribe! Mother… Mother… she suffers more, she grows more insane! We can no longer restrain her!"
Mother? Raine immediately thought of the massive, living membrane at the bottom of the crater. These survivors… they called that thing "Mother"? And they were tormented by her suffering?
Lianna whispered to Raine:"They've clearly lived here for a long time, coexisting with the corruption, mutating… but they've maintained some measure of sanity. They're even… trying to control it? This is unbelievable!"
At that moment, the gigantic membrane "Mother" at the bottom of the pit convulsed violently, emitting a deep, thunderous groan of pain! A denser, more mentally corrupting fog of corruption surged outward!
The kneeling survivors screamed in terror, clutching their heads as their bodies shook violently. The corruption scars on their skin glowed dark red, struggling against this intensified wave of corruption!
"Again! Mother's agony!" the elder howled in pain, looking pleadingly at Raine. "Messenger! Please! Use the Heart of the Forest to soothe Mother! Otherwise, she will consume us all, turning us into maddened nourishment!"
Raine's mechanical right eye caught it—during the violent convulsions of the massive membrane, a certain area on its surface faintly revealed a gigantic dark-red sigil, similar to the scars on the elder's body, yet far more complex and complete. At the center of that sigil, something seemed embedded… a piece of metal fragment, emitting a faint silver-blue glow, incongruous with the surrounding environment.
γ's mechanical eye fragment?!
Raine's heart skipped a beat.
Had γ once been here? Had they even attempted… something to that "Mother"? Was the fragment accidentally left behind, or… deliberately embedded?
The situation instantly became immensely complicated.
These survivors had mistaken him for a savior, while this so-called "Mother" was clearly an extremely dangerous entity. The presence of γ's fragment only added a massive variable.
Should he risk playing the "messenger" to investigate, or turn and flee from this perilous place?
Raine looked at the survivors writhing in agony, then down at the frenziedly wriggling membrane at the bottom of the pit, where the faint silver-blue light pulsed. His eyes flickered with indecision.
Lianna saw the fragment too. Her expression turned grave. She gently touched Raine and whispered:"The risk is enormous… but that could be a crucial clue."
The horn sound resonated faintly again, this time seemingly emanating directly from a certain direction at the bottom of the pit.
Raine drew a deep breath and made his decision.
He stepped forward, imitating the stance of a memory fragment of an elven priest. He pressed his left hand, which glowed faintly with jade-green light, onto the elder's forehead, channeling the "soothing" and "nourishing" functions of the Life Seed to their fullest.
"Lead me to see 'Mother'," he said, his voice as calm and authoritative as possible. "The Heart of the Forest has heard her suffering."
The elder trembled as he felt the pure, vibrant energy flow into his body, however slight. Tears streamed down his face as overwhelming emotion consumed him.
"Yes! Yes! Please, Messenger, follow me!"
The survivors scrambled to their feet, their eyes blazing with fervent hope, as if they had finally seen their savior.
Lianna followed Raine closely, her palms slick with sweat. She knew they were stepping into a situation potentially far stranger and deadlier than even the Gravekeeper.
Raine, however, was fully focused—maintaining the guise of the "messenger" while frantically calculating every possibility and countermeasure. The energy within his crystalline right arm stirred subtly, and the Frosttongue Sword hummed quietly in its sheath.
A dance on the edge of madness was about to begin.