The glowing silver of the great tree was fading as the time passes. The surroundings were filled with light and the scream of Root Guardian was now in total silence. Only the system console and Gaja's weak breath remain.
Rin sits beside Gaja, carefully giving him first aid by wrapping bandages on his arm. He was weak but steady. Rin gave him a recovery potion and some other medicines that help in recovery.
Meanwhile, Limbo was quietly staring at the forest. He was looking at the system message,
[ Data integrity compromised]
[Unknown script injection detected.]
Limbo whispered, "unknown script?"
Limbo tried to decode and stabilize the codes. But the inscription of an unknown language he was able to decode, "why?"
He asked to system.
Meanwhile,
Rin reads Limbo's facial expression, "Hey, what's wrong?" She instantly grasped that something was wrong.
Just focusing on thoughts? Limbo didn't tell.
A vibration runs through the ground.
Gaja's fingers moved.
The marking on his arms, which had cooled down with the beast, suddenly ignited again.
Bright silver to turning into dark red. A tremble runs throughout his body. Rin holds him before anything happens again.
Rin asked aloud, "Gaja, are you okay?"
Gaja wasn't in a condition to speak, but in broken words, he tried to say slowly.
"...Seal.. It's not broken..it remains."
He's voice had trembled.
"They are.. watching... And soon... find us.."
"Who?" Limbo asked.
"Don't know? I just feel it."
Limbo,
The system opens with a notification, and he reads the message. The language was changed. It wasn't just inscription, it was something different. Ancient but strangely familiar, but he couldn't remember it, but somehow he recognised the fragment, old and almost forgotten, but familiar.
"Sanskrit." He murmured.
What did you say? Rin asked.
But Limbo remained silent. He was still looking at the window.
The system window flickered widely, then stabilized for a moment.
[ Core network: 3 active nodes. ]
[ Core Synchronisation: 1/3. ]
[ Next signal Source: slight East. ]
[ Fragments collected: 2/7. ]
With the message system, it was close. But before fading, in faint some lines were written.
"Don't trust the map."
"Why, system never show this type of message," Limbo blinked, and lost in deep thought. But the ground trembled again but this time it was stronger than. Before.
Rin get up and starts to scan the area. The forest was looking different , something was unclear movements she noticed. "Limbo, the trees. Are they..."
"Next encountered begins." I guessed.
A few hours passed, and they rested for a few minutes. Nothing happened during that time...
The silver tree remains cracked, releasing faint, tiny particles of light that lift upward, like transferring a signal or data.
Limbo sees them as binary code erupting from a source in an unknown direction.
Meanwhile,
Rin felt curious, or maybe she was attracted. She knelt to trace them, but the moment she tried to touch them, the light looked back.
As if it recognised her, really? Or may trace the location of her...
"Don't touch that, Rin!" Limbo pulled Rin back. Rin was confused. She didn't grasp that quickly, but Limbo did.
"Why did you pull me? We might know something." Rin said.
"I had a strange feeling."
"It's a part of the resonance code. That could corrupt your memory." Limbo explains his theory.
"And maybe you will end up as Gaja?"
Rin was looking in shock, and a cold shiver traveled through her body. "How do you know that?"
I just guess, and i have reason for that,
1. It is related to Gaja's condition.
2. Gaja was also attracted to it, remember.
3. Gaja didn't feel but we saw he was slowly acting strange.
4. I saw unusual mana flowing in that eruption.
"There will be other reasons, but, I don't know if this is true or not?"
The system also warned, but he didn't mention that.
A long silence. Only the wind is blowing. Swooooshhh...
After a while, a sound came,
"..Fragment... restored...link... incomplete."
Also, Gaja opens his eyes, and the dark red glow is nowhere to be seen. He looked around him, and he was confused and exhausted. "Did we...win?" He asked.
"Yeah," Limbo said to assure him, "but this is not the end." Limbo was still looking at the tree. He was trying to search for any information he could get.
"We ended one problem, but this will not end here... I guess we have to face two more..." He said in a serious tone.
Everyone was silent. Gaja also looked agree, he also felt the same. He can sense it. There's more to it than it looks.
System screen blinked once again, with a message,
[ Core Guardian status: Terminated(1/3). ]
[ Next signal: Reactivating... ]
Limbo, take a deep breath. He didn't need the explanation from the system that what it means.
"Pack up," he said quietly. "We're leaving. Now."
Rin looked at him, "Did you see something?"
Limbo looked towards her, "Guardian wasn't protecting the tree, maybe something else."
"Also, we have to move forward. We can't stay here for too long. Now that Gaja has awakened, we have to move forward as planned."
Gaja agrees. He has collected enough strength to march forward. Rin collected all her supplies, and also collected some herbs and samples of silver tree. But without touching them.
The wind blows once again, carrying the same hum like before.
The three of them can feel that next time might be different.
Something beneath the earth was awake...