The descent from the Stone-Fang Mountains and the journey southeast plunged Ren back into a world that felt muted and weary compared to the vibrant life of the Weald. Yet, something within him had changed. He no longer saw the wilderness as just a landscape to be traversed; he now felt it as a living entity. Pressing his hand against the trunk of an old oak, he could feel the slow, steady pulse of its life. He could sense the health of the streams he followed and could feel the subtle warnings from the land when he drew near a patch of blight, allowing him to navigate around the smaller pockets of corruption with an ease that would have been impossible before.
This new sense was his guide for many days as he traveled, following the directions Olthann had given him. The terrain gradually flattened, the soil grew dark and damp, and the great forests gave way to tangled thickets of willow and cypress. The air grew heavy with humidity and the smell of wet earth. He was approaching the marshlands.
With the change in scenery came the return of a familiar, unwelcome sensation. The scar on his leg, which had been blissfully quiet under Olthann's protection, began to awaken. It started as a faint, cool whisper, but with every mile he traveled southeast, it grew into a steady, cold thrum, a needle of dark energy pulling him toward his destination.
He finally arrived at the edge of the Ashen Mire. It was not a grand forest of dying giants, but a sprawling, flat wetland that stretched to the horizon. There was no clear line where the health of the land ended and the sickness began. Instead, it was a gradual decay. The water turned from murky green to a black, oily sheen. The reeds and cattails at the water's edge were brittle and grey, crumbling to dust at a touch. The air was thick with the sulfurous stench of rot, and the only sound was the sickening pop of gas bubbles rising from the stagnant depths.
The cold from Ren's scar was now a constant, painful ache. This entire swamp was steeped in the blight's influence. Taking a deep breath of the foul air, Ren began his infiltration.
The mire was a treacherous maze. The water was shallow in some places, concealing deep, mud-filled pits in others. He moved slowly, using his water magic to create small, solid discs of ice to use as stepping stones where the ground was too soft. Shiro was a tense coil on his shoulder, hissing softly at the feel of the corrupted water and the corrupted life that still skittered just beneath its surface—pale, blind things that were no longer what they were meant to be.
Guided by the insistent pull of his scar, Ren ventured deeper into the heart of the swamp for what felt like hours. The low hum of a Blight Heart, familiar from the Weald, began to reach him, a monotonous drone that was the mire's true heartbeat. Finally, parting a curtain of dead, drooping willows, he found the source.
He stood on a small spit of solid land overlooking a large, deep, circular pool of black water. The water itself seemed to absorb the light, a perfect mirror of the grey, oppressive sky. In the center of the pool, a small, dead island of mud and tangled roots had been formed, and upon it stood five of the grey-robed Hollow.
They were not performing the same violent ritual as in the Weald. Their chanting was softer, more insidious, a coaxing whisper. At their feet lay a "seed" of dark crystal, no larger than Ren's own head. With every chant, it pulsed with a faint violet light, and Ren could feel it drawing the stagnant, corrupted energy from the surrounding mire, growing slowly, like a cancerous pearl.
Their strategy here was different. It was not a direct assault, but a slow, creeping assassination. And he soon saw their target.
Rising from the murky depths of the pool was what looked at first to be another island, one covered in moss and ancient, gnarled stones. But then it moved, and Ren realized he was looking at the shell of a colossal turtle. Its head, when it surfaced to breathe, was ancient and wrinkled, its eyes clouded with age and a deep, weary sadness. Faint, spiderweb-thin lines of blight were just beginning to trace their way across its leathery skin and shell. This was the Guardian of the Mire, Kasai, as Olthann had named it. It was being poisoned in its own home, its strength and spirit slowly leeched away to feed the growth of the new Blight Heart.
Ren felt a surge of cold fury. This was the Hollow's evil at its most cunning—not a roaring fire, but a slow, patient poison.
He crouched behind the willows, his mind racing. He was alone. There would be no great bear to rescue him if he failed. But the enemy was also focused, their guard down, confident in their isolation. And their weapon was not yet fully formed. For the first time, he was not reacting to a catastrophe; he had a chance to prevent one. The hunter, Kael, had seen him as a boy. The Griffin had seen him as a supplicant. Olthann had seen him as an ally to be rescued. Here, hidden in the stinking heart of the Ashen Mire, Ren knew it was time to be what the spirits had named him. It was time to be a Guardian.