Chapter 27: The Cathedral of Wood and Whispers
Memories, a countless and vivid multitude, crashed over him as he moved through the trunk. They were so intense, so real, that they overwhelmed his ability to think, smothering his own thoughts under their weight. He was still trying to process why the soulless human husks had spoken to him, why they'd used that name they'd given him. His head pounded, a century of experiences cooling into a single second, lullabies warping and overlapping into funeral hymns. That familiar feeling of insignificance washed over him, the sense that he was nothing more than an Echo, a faint copy of something real.
The Soul Tree was just as terrifying as ever, he thought to himself.
Finally, the tight corridors opened up, spilling him into a cathedral made of wood.
The chamber was vast. Above him, the vaulted ceiling arched into ribs of silent, dark wood, casting a deep, blue-black glow across the entire space. He couldn't help but marvel at it. This was only his second time here, but the intricate designs carved everywhere--which he'd first seen only with dread--now held a strange intrigue. It was hard to believe he was actually at the center of a tree. This felt more like a designed space, something architected. But he shook the thought away. He wasn't here for sightseeing. He had a different business entirely.
His eyes went straight to the altar-like elevation where he'd seen the pale white seed last time.
It was empty.
Dismay and disbelief hit him like a physical blow. First the Halo was gone, and now this? The pale seed was the reason he'd come back. He'd talked himself into believing it could be his ticket to some kind of power. Not that the memory of it didn't terrify him--the scar was still fresh, the vision of that giant hand crowned in seven stars lifting the halos had nearly shattered his sanity. But because it had offered a faint glimmer of hope, a chance it might show him something different this time, something useful.
But it wasn't here.
Had it been destroyed when it exploded into that blinding light? The one that saved him from the ruins during his first encounter with the tree? The vague memory surfaced, bringing with it a frustrating speck of realization. Why hadn't he thought of that before? His thoughts had been too crowded with Tiffany, taking up all the space.
Dejected, his shoulders slumped. So the tree had put on that whole grand, orchestral welcome for him, only to have nothing inside? Ironic. There went his last one-way ticket to power. Well, at least he had tried.
Frustration flared, hot and sudden. In a burst of pure anger, he kicked the solid wooden wall of the cathedral chamber. It was a stupid move. A sharp, shocking pain shot up his leg, instantly drowning his anger in a far more immediate agony. He'd probably dislocated a bone. Wincing, he crumpled, crouching on the hard, lonely wooden floor in the dimness.
His eyes started to hurt, a hot pressure building behind them. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't. He described the feeling to himself vividly just to push it back: the tightness in his throat, the stinging at the corners of his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the world away and find some pure darkness.
But instead of darkness, he saw a screen.
A dangling hologram hung in his vision. For a confused second, he wasn't sure if his eyes were open or shut. Was he seeing this, or thinking it? Didn't matter. The thing was right there. A faint feeling of hope washed through him. He read the words.
EPITHET:
HALLOWED DESCENDANT OF RUIN
His eyes paused on the first line. A thrill went through him, part elation, part confusion. Hallowed Descendant of Ruin? What was that supposed to mean? Why call him that? Questions swarmed him, but that wasn't the main focus right now. He scrolled down, and his brief excitement curdled into sheer embarrassment.
.REEKING MAN
. LECHER
. GLUTTON.
He facepalmed inwardly, cringing. So not only was he called those things in the real world, but it was stuck in his subconscious so hard that the Colossal Tree had picked up on it? Seriously? He never knew the ancient, terrifying tree had such a petty side to it.
"You got me on this one, dear colossal fiend," he muttered inside his head, his mental voice full of embarrassment. He scrolled down further, hoping he wouldn't see anything else as humiliating. Not that it could get much worse--he figured he was pretty much embarrassment-proof by now.
ASPECTAL DOMAIN
- SOUL
- MEMORY
Okay, now that was cool. His hope brightened. So he really could possess power? All hope wasn't lost. He just had to keep grinding. Not that he had a clue what a "domain" really meant--not yet, anyway. He kept looking.
SACRED IDENTITY
- NAMELESS CORE
- BOUNDLESS
So even the grand tree didn't know his origin. He was Nameless. A sudden, sharp pang of nostalgia hit him, vivid and aching. It wasn't nostalgia for a place or a person, but for the idea of having an identity. He remembered the void of not knowing, the endless questions in the dark, the profound loneliness of being a person with no past and no name. To be confirmed as "Nameless" by something this powerful was both a validation and a fresh wound.
And his core was "Boundless"? He didn't know what that meant, but it sounded… big. Maybe it meant limitless potential. And if it meant limitless potential, then that meant supremacy, right? He felt a flicker of elation, but he held it back. It was too early for that. He was just guessing. He looked down to the last section.
LEGACY:
It was blank. Nothing. Just an empty space. Well, if "legacy" meant achievements, then yeah, he had only himself to blame. He literally had none. He was starting from zero.
He looked further down, expecting to see his abilities or his heightened perception listed. But there was nothing. Did they not matter? Or were they part of his "Domain"? Either way, their absence here didn't change the fact that he had them. He still had so much to learn, and right now, he felt like he understood almost nothing.
He opened his eyes.
The world was still bathed in that same blue-black glow. For a moment, he thought he'd jumped back to the real world, because the light was kind of similar. But the hard, unyielding floor under him, instead of his soft bed, told him the truth. He was still in the wooden heart of the tree. The vastness of the chamber felt heavier now, the silent arched ribs of the ceiling both majestic and suffocating.
His eyes, almost against his will, drifted back to the empty altar. He held onto a faint, stubborn glimmer of hope, a childish wish for the seed to just reappear. A wave of disappointment washed over him--the final acceptance of failure.
But it ended the moment he saw them.
There, in the air above the altar where the seed should have been, two circular rifts were shimmering into existence. They swirled like pools of liquid mercury, hanging perfectly vertical. They gave off an otherworldly light that didn't seem to come from the chamber, but from somewhere beyond, from between the layers of reality itself. The light was a glorious, mysterious silver-azure, and inside their shimmering surfaces, tiny motes of brilliance danced like captured stars. They hung there, silent and profound, two gateways to the unknown. They offered no answers, only a silent, daunting question.