The urge to act, to unleash the fury of the Serpent's Roar upon the unsuspecting Hollow, was a fire in Ren's blood. It was a simple, clean solution. But the lessons of the Sanctuary held him back. The Eldest had taught him to understand. Olthann had taught him to listen. A blind charge, however powerful, was the path of a fool, not a Guardian.
He suppressed his rage, forcing it into a cold, sharp focus. His mission was not just to shatter the new Blight Heart; it was to save the Guardian of this place. A direct assault might destroy the crystal, but the ensuing chaos could doom the already weakened Kasai. He needed more information. He needed a plan.
First, he needed a safe place from which to observe, a base of operations in this stinking, hostile swamp. He retreated from the ridge, melting back into the dead willows. He closed his eyes, ignoring the painful thrum of his scar and the monotonous chant of the Hollow. Instead, he reached out with the new sense Olthann had helped awaken, the ability to listen to the language of the land.
Here, it was not the slow, deep voice of a healthy forest, but a chorus of pained, dying whispers. Yet, even amidst the decay, he could sense faint, struggling threads of life. He followed one, a thread that felt stubborn and resilient. It led him on a winding, treacherous path for nearly an hour, deeper into the mire, until he found it: a small, solid islet, no bigger than his family's hut, dominated by a single, ancient mangrove-like tree. Its roots, gnarled and thick as a man's limbs, plunged deep into the mire, but the tree itself was still stubbornly alive, its leaves a dark, waxy green. It was a tiny fortress of life in a sea of death. This would be his haven.
From the relative safety of the gnarled roots, Ren began his long watch. For a full day and into the next, he observed the Hollow and their insidious work. Their routine was meticulous. Only three of the five would chant at any given time, their voices a low, hypnotic drone that coaxed the Heart-seed to grow. The other two would either rest or perform other tasks. One would patrol the perimeter of the dead island in slow, gliding circles. The other would periodically add substances to the mud around the crystal—sometimes the corrupted remains of a fish or bird, other times a vial of thick, black liquid that would sizzle as it touched the ground. They were not just feeding the Heart with magic; they were nourishing it with death, creating a fertile bed of rot for their poison to bloom.
He watched Kasai, the Great Turtle. The Guardian was mostly dormant, its massive head resting on the edge of the pool, its ancient eyes closed. Its breathing was slow, a deep, shuddering intake of air every few minutes. But it was not passive. Several times, Ren saw a faint, deep green light pulse from within the turtle's mossy shell, momentarily pushing back the creeping violet veins of corruption. Kasai was fighting, a slow, internal war of attrition against a poison that never slept. The sight filled Ren with a profound sadness and a renewed determination.
On the second night, while scouting the edges of his islet, Ren noticed a flicker of movement in a small, shadowed pool nearby. He crept closer. The water here, filtered by the roots of his sanctuary tree, was clearer than elsewhere. In the water was a creature he had never seen before—a small, pale salamander, almost translucent, that glowed with a soft, internal silver light.
As he watched, a dark, leech-like creature, twisted by the blight, shot through the water towards the salamander. Before Ren could even think to act, the salamander pulsed once, emitting a soft flash of its pure, silver light. The flash was not powerful, but it was incredibly pure. The blighted leech recoiled as if struck, its form spasming, and darted away into the murky depths.
Ren stared, his mind racing. He was not the only source of pure energy in this swamp. Life, in its own small, desperate way, was fighting back. This small creature, this tiny beacon, had just shown him a new path. These salamanders were drawn to, or perhaps were the source of, pockets of purity within the mire. If he could find more of them, they could lead him to other safe havens, to sources of clean water, perhaps even to a way to help Kasai fight the poison from within.
His plan began to shift. A direct assault on the Heart was still the final goal, but it was no longer the first step. The Mire held its own secrets, its own small alliances of life against decay. He needed to understand them. He needed to gather the last remnants of the swamp's own strength before he committed his own.
He looked from the spot where the silver salamander had disappeared towards the island where the Hollow chanted their song of Unraveling. He had a new, immediate mission: not to attack, but to explore. He had to find the source of the Mire's own hidden light.