Throughout the journey they didn't speak.
By the time they reached the clea, the mist was already thin.
No one announced their arrival this time. No heavy veil parted. The forest did not conceal what waited, as if some had changed.
The guardian was awake.
The great tree stood as it always had vast, scared, ancient but something in its posture had shifted. The bark bore deeper fractures. The grooves that once looked like old wounds now seemed freshly strained.
Mist coiled at its base, but loosely.
It wasn't guarding rather it was holding.
The amber eyes opened slowly.
"So you felt it."
Chaya stepped forward without kneeling.
"It's moving quicker than expected."
A pause.
The mist stirred once around the trunk.
"This is not supposed to happen."
Limbo's gazed sharpened.
"Then, now what?"
The voice rolled through the clearing, lower than before.
"Influence."
The word settled heavier than corruption ever had.
Caya frowned. "From below?"
"From beyond," the guardian corrected.
The air tightened.
Limbo felt it immediately - the difference in that answer. Rot was natural imbalance. Corruption was decay, influence meant direction.
Something was steering thing, manipulating natural resources, harming natural balance.
"The soil is thining," Chaya said calmly. "The Northern ridge is drained."
"If nothing..."
"It will continue," the guardian replied. "Untill it devoured evrything..."
The roots beneath the clearing shifted faintly, as if reacting to its own words.
"The forest is not dying," the guardian continued. "It's loosing...slow by slow."
Limbo stepped forward slightly.
"Lossened... for what?"
The mist gathered more tightly around the trunk.
"When anchor points weakens, collapase does not begin at the crown."
"It always start with below... bottom."
Silence followed.
The wind did not move.
Even the insects held still.
Limbo's thoughts aligned quickly.
"The siphon isn't spreading randomly," he said. "It's preparing ground."
"Yes."
"For emergence?"
A pause.
"Yes."
The answer did not echo.
Chaya's voice was steady. "Can it be severed, or prevent somehow from spreading?"
The guardian did not answer immediately.
Instead, the mist shifted towards Limbo.
"You are not burdened with this."
"The word were direct.
"You are not chosen."
Limbo didn't not flinch.
"You're free to positioned yourself."
He held the guardian's gaze.
"Positioned for what?"
The amber light dimmed slightly.
"The roots do not grow towards the sky."
A breath.
"They grow towards resistance."
Understanding came slowly.
The guardian could hold balance above.
But it could not descend into what fed beneath.
"I am anchored," the guardian said.
"Yes," limbo replied quietly.
"I cannot leave this place. I cannot descend where the siphon feeds."
The clearing felt thinner with each word.
"But you," the guardian continued, "walk unbound."
Caya stiffened. You wish him to fight it?
"I wish nothing."
The mist tightened around the tree.
"If he wishesh to protect what he loves... he will move."
The words were not command.
They were fact.
Limbo's jaw tightened.
"Who is influencing it?" A pause.
"Then.."
"It was once ..one of mine ... guard."
"You're a guardian itself, so why would you need a guard?"
A guardian smile as if he was mocking.
"Do I have to pay attention to every matters of forest!"
"I pay attention, but I can't always present, so they handles the matters on my behalf.
"Due to someone Elydar was badlyhurt."
"....at Northern forest."
"North... Elydar?"
Elders were confused.
But...
Limbo... He's expression were struggling to stable, shame, awkwardness, as if mess made by child has been caught.
Suddenly,
The soil beneath the clearing gave a faint tremor.
Moving on,
"A serpent," the guardian said. "Great...old. Bound below root and stone."
Chaya's breath caught softly.
"It was not born corrupted."
Another tremor.
"It was altered."
"By what?" Caya demanded.
The amber eyes flickered.
"By something that does not belong to this forest."
That was all I know.
No name, nor the shape...just absence of belonging.
Limbo felt the pulse beneath the earth again.
Faint.
Pateint.... listening.
"It knows," he said quietly.
"Yes."
The guardian did not deny it.
"You felt it."
The words landed heavier than expected.
Silence stretched long enough discomfort to reduce. Then-
The mist began to condense.
Not violently but deliberately.
Chaya stepped back slightly.
"Wait.. "
The guardian did not.
A thin beam of pale light emerged from the base of the great tree.
It wasn't a green, nor an amber or lightning.
Something quiter..
White-gold.
It extended slowly, like a root of light searching through air.
It reached limbo.
Touching his chest, almost for one breath.
And it went inward his body.
The glow passed through his skin, illuminating faint lines along his arms and collarbone, patterns that had never appeared, lightning did not Spark.
Forest mana did not surge.
Everything stilled.
The elders shielded their eyes instinctively.
Then...the light vanished.
Gone...
No Mark remained, no object.
Nothing in his hands.
But the ground felt different.
Closer...
Limbo inhaled sharply.
The chaos that had once clashed between his affinities did not fight.
They alighned.
Not merged...but balanced.
The guardian's voice came softer now.
"I cannot descend."
A pause.
"But now...part of me can."
Chaya looked towards the tree.
The bark along one side split slightly deeper.
A new crack.
The cost was visible.
Limbo swallowed.
"What did you give me?"
"...I didn't even agree!!!"
"Structure."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you need."
The mist thinned further.
"You will understand when the coil rises."
The air gre colder for a heartbeat.
Then steadied.
Caya stepped forward, "how long?"
The embers eyes dimmed faintly.
"You do not have seasons."
A pause.
"You have weeks."
Chaya's grip titghned.
"That is not enough, too.."
We must take actions...
The mist began withdrawing towards the trunk.
"We will prepare," chaya said.
The guardian did not respond, but something ... Happened to Limbo.
It's presence was already fading.
As they turned to leave, the voice followed them once more.
"When it looks at you..."
A breath.
"Do not look away."
They stepped beyond the clearing.
The forest did not feel hidden anymore.
It felt strained.
Limbo walked in silence.
But now..
He could feel it clearly.
Beneath the soil.
A vast body coiled through layers of stone and root.
Not asleep...but waiting.
And far below... something ancient shifted.
In recognition...
As if long wait about to end...
Finally...