The mist thickened as they entered Hollow Vale, a place whispered about in campfire tales but absent from any official maps. No birds sang here, no wind stirred the ancient trees. The silence pressed against their ears, heavy and suffocating.
They reached the heart of the vale a clearing dominated by a massive, petrified tree whose trunk was riddled with glowing fissures. The next shard pulsed deep within its hollow core.
Before they could approach, the ground trembled. The fissures widened, spilling radiant light as a shape emerged: a towering figure made of bark, stone, and pure energy, its form shifting between humanoid and beast.
The Guardian's voice was like grinding stone. "Thieves of the Veil… turn back. The shards are not for mortal hands."
Aloysius stepped forward. "We don't seek to steal. We seek to save what remains."
The Guardian's many eyes some carved into bark, others glowing like molten gold studied him. "All who came before said the same. They took, they fell, and the Veil bled."
With a roar, it attacked. Roots burst from the soil, wrapping around Kaelis and Elyon, dragging them toward the glowing trunk. Aloysius leapt forward, blade flashing with shard-light, each strike singing with unnatural resonance.
The Guardian did not bleed it shattered, fragments reforming instantly. It was not a being to be slain, but a trial to be endured.
Then, the Guardian's voice shifted, low and almost sorrowful: "If you would claim the shard, you must bear my memory… every pain, every loss."
Light engulfed Aloysius, and the world dissolved into scenes not his own wars, betrayals, the fall of civilizations until he no longer knew where his mind ended and the Guardian's began.