The forest fell into silence once more.
Not the gentle quiet of peace, but the heavy, watchful stillness of something ancient and sentient, as if every towering tree and gnarled root were holding their breath, waiting for what would come next.
Dave stood amid the decayed remains of Mireya and Baldric. Their bodies lay half-consumed, tangled in writhing roots that pulsed like living veins, sucking at their blood and marrow as if drinking the richest wine. The scent of damp earth mixed with coppery iron filled the air, thick and suffocating.
And Dave—he felt something stirring inside him. Not hunger. Not thirst. Something deeper, primal, and terrifyingly alive. A power that pulsed beneath his skin like molten lava, threading through his veins, warming his bones with an almost electric heat.
He hadn't lifted a finger. Hadn't done anything but stand still.
Yet the forest had chosen him. Had claimed him.
A strange sensation blossomed within—an invasion and a gift in one. The souls of the dead, Edric's pride and Caron's cunning, flooded his mind. Their memories tangled with his own, sharp shards of regret and fear cutting through the haze. He heard the echoes of their thoughts, whispers slipping beneath his skin like poison and promise intertwined.
Strike first next time. Never trust the desperate.
Some of it burned with pain, some with bitter warning. All of it was alive.
Dave staggered backward, his breaths shallow and ragged, yet his posture remained proud, unbowed. His clothes hung in tatters, smeared with mud and stained by the blood of the fallen. The coppery scent clung stubbornly to his sleeves, a cruel reminder of death's close company.
But the forest did not attack. No snarling beasts emerged from the shadows. No restless spirits clawed from the soil.
Instead, it welcomed him.
A cold wind curled through the blackened canopy overhead. Leaves shimmered faintly, veins of onyx glistening in the half-light. Somewhere far off, beneath the tangled roots and rotten earth, a voice stirred—not spoken aloud, not screamed in anger, but carried in the very vibration of the soil.
"You are a vessel. You are a fracture in the flame. Come deeper."
Dave spun, heart pounding. "Who's there?"
Only silence answered.
But he didn't expect a voice. Not a human one, anyway.
By the third hour of his wandering, Dave had forced himself onward—step by cautious step—deeper into the forest's suffocating gloom.
He knew little of this place. Whispers from the palace spoke of it as a cursed tomb where criminals were abandoned to die, where howling monsters lurked beneath trees twisted by dark magic, and where even the mightiest Tier 5 mages vanished without trace.
But none of them had heard the forest whisper directly to their souls.
The ground beneath his feet was blackened earth, foul and dry, smelling not of fertile soil but of rot and sorrow. Strange fungi cast faint eerie glows beneath fallen logs, and thorned vines shifted subtly when he wasn't looking, as if alive with a malevolent purpose. Above him, skeletal branches clawed at a sky permanently trapped in twilight, never brightening, never darkening.
Shadows played tricks at the edge of his vision—ghostly figures flickered in the fog, vanishing whenever he dared to look directly. The forest echoed with distant sounds: laughter, screams, a child's weeping.
He didn't respond.
The soul inside him—the forest's first gift—warned him not to.
By the next day, he reached a glade devoid of life. No moss carpeted the soil here. Only bones—hundreds of them—some bleached white by time, others still fresh and dripping with dark fluid.
At the center stood a colossal dead tree, hollowed and split at its base like a cracked skull.
Dave approached with careful steps, the chill of death thick in the air.
As his hand brushed the rough bark, a voice not his own flooded his mind—a voice ancient and unyielding.
"You are not yet shaped. You are raw iron. But you have fed the roots. And you have been fed in turn. Take the next step."
The bark beneath his fingers was warm, unnaturally so.
Suddenly, pain lanced through his arm—sharp, twisting, like thousands of invisible hooks digging beneath his skin. But no blood welled. No wound formed. Instead, the forest poured its essence into him.
A vision unfolded behind his closed eyes.
He found himself inhabiting another body.
Robes of a mage clung to him. His hands were tattooed with glowing glyphs that pulsed with arcane fire. Around him, a battlefield strewn with corpses stretched endlessly. And before him stood a woman cloaked in shadows, her smile sharp and jagged as broken glass.
"You are weak," she said, voice cold and mocking. "And because of that, they will all die."
Flames erupted, engulfing him.
Dave gasped awake, choking on dirt and cold air. It wasn't a memory of his own—it couldn't be.
But the glyphs burned behind his eyelids, vivid and alive.
He saw the chant written clearly in his mind:
Fire Chant II: Emberlash
Tier: 2
Affinity: Fire
He had leveled up.
More than that—the forest had given it to him.
"Am I even the one in control?" he whispered into the quiet night.
No reply came.
Only the low hum of roots beneath the soil, the presence watching, feeding.
Later, he lit a fire, but it flickered weakly, devoured by the cold air that sucked heat like a living thing.
He sat in silence, wrapped in shadows.
Then, from the darkness beyond the failing flames, something stirred.
Not a beast. Not a man.
A figure emerged—vaguely humanoid, formed from twisting bark and swirling smoke. Its face was a mask of splintered wood, cracked and warped, and its voice sounded like a flute played through water.
"You took the gift. You consumed the offering. Now the roots will test you."
Dave rose, fists clenched tight, muscles tense. "What are you?"
The figure gave no answer.
Slowly, it sank into the earth, fading like mist absorbed by soil.
The forest shuddered.
A spike of agony lanced through Dave's chest—not a wound, but a stretching, tearing feeling deep inside, like something breaking open.
Beneath it, something fragile and alive stirred.
A seed, sprouting.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping, clutching his ribs.
A whisper curled on the wind:
"You are becoming."