Chapter 57: The Roots Beneath Veilwood
The wind was sharp as the airship cut across the horizon, dipping low toward the emerald sea of trees sprawling beneath the morning sun. Veilwood. A place shrouded in myth, where legends said the trees whispered secrets and time flowed differently. It had once been a training ground for the earliest spirit cultivators—before it vanished from most maps, swallowed by silence and stories.
Ashen Aras stood at the prow, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the shifting mist below. The Cipher had whispered again last night.
"The Second Vault opens. Beneath the roots."
He had heard enough whispers by now to know when one held weight.
Ilia joined him, eyes scanning the vast forest canopy. "This place feels… wrong."
"Not wrong," Ashen murmured. "Guarded."
Behind them, Kael adjusted the stabilizers. "You mean cursed."
Neirin snorted. "Let's not throw that word around lightly."
"Tell that to the spirit beasts down there," Kael said. "I've already sensed four different aura signatures strong enough to flatten a city."
They weren't exaggerating. As the ship descended, waves of pressure rolled upward—primal, ancient. Ashen felt them prickling against his skin like static. There was something old beneath those trees.
The airship touched down in a narrow glade near the Veilwood's fringe. Roots the size of carriages coiled across the ground like sleeping serpents, while colossal trees twisted high into the clouds. Strange fruit glowed faintly among their branches, and the air buzzed with unseen insects that shimmered and vanished in bursts of light.
They stepped down cautiously, blades sheathed but hands hovering near hilts.
"I can feel it," Ilia said, voice hushed. "The Vault's beneath us. But it's buried deep—deeper than the last."
Kael nodded toward a broken stone pathway barely visible through the moss. "That used to be the path to the Grove of Thrones. If the legends are right, the original cultivators sealed their roots to the world there."
Ashen moved forward. "Then we follow it."
—
Hours passed beneath the Veilwood canopy, each step further sinking them into an unnatural stillness. Time seemed elastic—stretching and snapping around them. Sometimes the sun overhead dimmed, other times it seemed to rise again when it should've been dusk.
"This forest bends time," Neirin muttered. "Even the trees are resisting our presence."
"It's not resistance," Ilia said, pressing her hand to a thick trunk. "It's memory. They're testing us."
The path ended at a broken arch of ancient stone covered in thorn-vines. Beyond it stretched a glade of absolute silence. The trees ringed it like judges in a courtroom. At the center, a wide depression sank into the earth, overgrown with moss and swirling faintly with residual spirit energy.
Ashen stepped into the glade.
A shockwave pulsed outward. The silence deepened.
Then the ground trembled.
Roots tore upward from the soil, snapping and writhing like tentacles. From beneath the earth rose a construct—a stone tree, its bark etched with hundreds of runes, its crown carved into a hollowed vault door. Its base was tangled with bones. Human. Beast. Forgotten.
"The Root Vault," Ilia whispered.
Kael unslung his blade. "Why is it shaped like a tree?"
"Because the cultivators who built it wanted to remind us where all power starts," Ashen said. "In the roots."
Suddenly, the Cipher burned inside his mind.
Prove your claim. Or be consumed.
A screech echoed through the glade. The roots surged.
From behind the tree-vault emerged a guardian.
It wasn't like the last—no humanoid form or divine construct. This was raw nature. A beast of gnarled bark, eyes like molten sap, claws dripping with black ichor. Its breath was mist and rot.
Kael leapt first, fire blazing from his palms, striking the guardian's side with a blast that melted bark—but the beast only staggered and roared louder. Neirin followed, sword a blur, carving symbols into the air.
Ashen didn't move. Not yet.
He closed his eyes.
"The roots are testing us. Not with strength. With intent."
He reached into the Cipher, feeling its resonance vibrate in time with the tree's heartbeat. It wasn't asking him to fight. It was asking him to speak.
Ashen stepped into the beast's path, arms lowered.
"Enough!"
His voice rang with command—not power, but purpose.
The guardian paused, snarling.
Ashen knelt before it, placing one hand on the soil.
"I am Ashen Aras," he said. "Bearer of the Cipher. Descendant of the Earthbound Flame. I do not seek to conquer this land, or the Vault beneath. I seek to awaken what was lost—and protect what remains."
The Cipher pulsed in sync with the ground.
The roots stopped.
Slowly, the guardian stepped back. It lowered its head.
The Vault groaned. Runes lit up along its trunk, spinning slowly, unlocking.
Kael whistled. "Okay. That was new."
Neirin wiped sweat from his brow. "You tamed it with a speech."
Ashen stood. "No. I listened."
The Vault creaked open. A tunnel descended into the earth—lined with glowing bark, pulsing in time with Ashen's own breath. They stepped inside, one by one.
—
The interior of the Root Vault was unlike anything they'd seen before. No gold or ancient artifacts. No spirit weapons or holograms. Instead, living memories danced along the walls—fragments of past lives, of cultivators seated in meditation beneath stars, of empires falling and being reborn.
The vault was a library of Earth's will.
Ashen reached the center chamber. A crystal tree stood at its heart, its branches filled with glowing fruit. Each fruit flickered with scenes of the past—wars, peace talks, the construction of temples long since buried.
One fruit pulsed brighter than the rest.
Ashen reached out, hand trembling.
The moment his fingers touched it, he was pulled in.
—
A vision overwhelmed him.
He stood on a battlefield—Earth, but twisted. Cities burned. Skies split with chaos lightning. Above him, great warships rained fire down upon mountains.
At the center of it all stood a figure draped in black robes, a crown of flame upon his head, and eyes like collapsing stars.
Ashen's breath caught.
It was him.
Or rather—someone who wore his face.
The past or the future?
The figure turned toward him and whispered: "The thrones will return. You must choose which to burn."
Ashen gasped and staggered back, the fruit crumbling in his palm.
The others rushed toward him.
"What did you see?" Ilia asked.
Ashen looked at them, then toward the tree.
"War," he said. "And a decision."
The Vault's light dimmed.
Then the chamber cracked.
Above them, the glade erupted.
The Vault's activation had been felt—across the Veilwood, across the continent. Others would come. Some in search of power. Others to silence it.
Ashen turned toward the exit.
"The roots have stirred. It won't stop here."
Kael smirked. "Good. I was getting bored."
They emerged from the Vault as the forest shifted around them, no longer hostile. Paths opened where there had been none. Birds sang a chorus that hadn't been heard in centuries.
Veilwood had accepted them.
But peace would be brief.
Ashen felt it in his bones—another Vault was whispering now.
Far to the east. Beneath the Crimson Spires.
And this time, someone else was already heading there.
---
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