HThe dawn of the new day did not break with brilliance but seeped slowly through the dense canopy of the Whispering Forest, like a smear of milk across a grey sky. The moment we took our final steps out of that ghostly forest's boundary, the sensation was like surfacing after a dive that had gone too deep, my chest bursting with a craving for fresh air. The psychic whispers, which had been a relentless background score of torture for the past three days, abruptly ceased. The interruption was so sudden that it created a deafening silence in my mind, a void that was almost painful for a split second before being replaced by a wave of pure relief. For the first time in days, the silence no longer felt threatening; it was a sweet release, a precious gift.
I froze, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. I could hear the sounds of the real world returning. The sound of the wind truly rustling through the tall grass, a gentle symphony of life. The sound of birds in the distance beginning their morning chorus, clear and unburdened. And most importantly, I heard the sound of my own steady, relieved breathing—audible proof that I was still here, still intact.
"Finally out," Kael was the first to speak, his voice still a bit hoarse but regaining its inherent steadiness. He placed his hands on his hips, tilted his head back, and let out a long exhale. His massive chest expanded and deflated like a bellows, as if he were trying to expel all the remnants of suffocation and madness from his lungs. His usually stony expression relaxed, revealing lines of fatigue but also profound relief.
Elara said nothing. She simply found a moss-covered rock and sat down, her arms hanging loosely, her face upturned toward the weak sunlight. A gentle smile, almost imperceptible, bloomed on her pale lips. The tension that had tormented her in the Whispering Forest, the focus required to maintain those fragile talismans, seemed to have evaporated, leaving behind a weary serenity. She looked like a flower that had just weathered a storm—bruised but unbroken.
The terrain before us was a spectacular change. The jungle had receded behind us like a giant wall of black-green, a clear boundary between madness and sanity. Before us lay rolling hills stretching to the horizon, covered in a carpet of lush wild grass that grew waist-high, still drenched in morning dew that glittered like diamonds in the dawn light. The air was crisp and cool, carrying the scent of damp earth, wildflowers, and life. It was a picture of rebirth, a stark contrast to the death and rotting stillness we had just endured.
The path of blue light in my mind, which had flickered and wavered within the forest, now appeared clearer and more stable than ever. It was like a turquoise laser thread, pointing straight ahead, piercing through the hills. Tel'Adria was somewhere in this direction. A sense of hope—an emotion I had almost forgotten, buried under layers of fear and exhaustion—began to kindle once more, warm and trembling.
"We lost quite a bit of time in there," I said, my voice shaking slightly with emotion. I looked back at the forest; it looked even more terrifying from the outside, a pitch-black mass swallowing the light. "We need to make up for lost time."
Kael nodded, but he didn't rush to stand up. "We will go, but not right away. We need to rest. Eat a proper meal. Our spirits need healing just as much as our bodies." He looked at me and Elara. "None of us can continue if we keep forcing ourselves."
He was right. Although our bodies had recovered thanks to the Silver Tear, our minds had been worn down to the nub. We found a small brook bubbling nearby, the water so clear we could see every pebble on the bottom. We took off our shoes and waded into the cold water, feeling as though we were washing away not just the grime but the haunting memories as well. Kael, despite maintaining his stoic exterior, submerged his previously injured arm in the flow, a rare smile flashing across his lips as he felt the coolness. Elara cupped water onto her face, letting it run through her silver hair; she looked like a spirit of the stream.
We kindled a small fire, not because of the cold, but because its warmth and light provided a sense of safety, an opposition to the eternal darkness of the Whispering Forest. We took out the remaining dry rations and shared them. The meal was simple, but sitting by the crackling fire, listening to the brook, it felt like a royal feast.
"I never thought I'd say this," Kael began, breaking the comfortable silence, "but I'd rather face another Akrasha than go back into that forest." He stared into the fire, his eyes reflecting the flames but seeming to look somewhere far away. "Those voices... they weren't just echoes. They dig deep inside you, dragging out things you tried to bury. Faces... failures..." He shook his head, as if to dispel an unwanted image.
This was the first time Kael had admitted to mental vulnerability so openly. It made me realize that his strength lay not in having no weaknesses, but in his ability to face and overcome them.
"Every soul trapped in there is a tragedy," Elara said softly, her voice mournful. "They cannot move on. The forest is like a giant stomach, digesting their memories and emotions, but never releasing them. What we heard was their eternal cry for help."
I shuddered at the thought. "So... how did the 'Heart of the Forest' help us? Why was I able to find the Absorption Stone?"
Elara looked at me, her gaze thoughtful. "Your stone is a fragment of this world's soul, a condensation of primal life energy. While the Whispering Forest is a distortion, an anomaly of that energy—a disease. The 'Heart' can sense that anomaly and can also sense the cure for it. The Absorption Stone is like a black hole for psychic energy, a point of emptiness. Your stone simply showed you the path to silence."
Her explanation had a logic of its own, a magical logic I was slowly learning to accept. I no longer tried to analyze everything through the laws of physics. I was learning to feel. I placed my hand on the stone on my chest. It was still warm, but I could sense a deep weariness from it, as if it, too, had fought a battle of its own in that forest.
After resting for about an hour, we extinguished the fire and continued our journey. With our spirits partially restored, we began a fast and steady pace. Kael once again took the lead, his axe back in its familiar place on his back. His experience in traversing wilderness was invaluable. He read the terrain like an open book, choosing the easiest paths, avoiding areas that might hide sinkholes or predators.
As the sun climbed higher, the hills became sharper, and we began to notice signs of a faded civilization. An old stone road, nearly swallowed completely by weeds and roots, wound through the hills. Occasionally, we passed crumbling stone walls, perhaps once the fences of a farm, or the foundation of an old guard post. These remnants brought both hope and a vague sadness. People had once lived here, farmed, built families. Now, only silent ruins remained, testimonies to a bygone era.
Around noon, while walking along the ancient stone road, Elara abruptly stopped. She didn't signal; she just stood still, her eyes fixed on a spot on the ground. Kael and I stopped too, alert.
"What is it?" Kael asked, his hand already on the handle of his axe.
Elara didn't answer immediately. She slowly knelt beside the stone path, her slender fingers hovering in the air, a few centimeters above a stone slab, as if she didn't dare to touch it. "It's here," she whispered, her voice hardening, losing its usual softness.
I stepped closer and looked where she was pointing. On a large stone slab, there was a deep scratch, looking quite fresh. It didn't look like a scratch from claws or weapons. It was jagged and seemed to have been created by immense force. But the strangest and most disturbing thing was that the edges of the scratch were jet black, as if burned by some strong acid, and from within the crack, a layer of purple-black, viscous slime was slowly oozing out. It glistened sickly under the sun, and I could smell a sour, foul odor, the smell of unnatural rot.
"Blight," Elara said, louder this time. "The Corruption. It has spread this far."
That name, spoken in this beautiful landscape, sounded jarring and terrifying. I felt a shiver run down my spine, not from cold but from a primal fear. I had heard them speak of it, imagined it, but this was the first time I had witnessed its trace with my own eyes. It was no longer an abstract concept in stories; it was tangible—a pollution gnawing at this world silently.
Kael poked the slime gently with the tip of his axe. It fizzled, releasing purple bubbles and a thin wisp of smoke, and the stench became even more pungent. "Damn this thing," he growled, the morning's relief completely vanished, replaced by the vigilance of a soldier on the battlefield. His eyes scanned the surrounding hills; hills that had looked so peaceful now seemed to hide countless dangers. "We must be more careful. Anything infected by this becomes mad and infinitely more aggressive."
"It doesn't just affect animals," Elara added, standing up and taking a step back from the contaminated stone. Her face was as grave as a doctor diagnosing a terminal illness. "Plants, soil, water sources... everything can be poisoned. It is a plague of life itself. It doesn't kill; it distorts. It turns life into a grotesque mockery of itself. If a normal person is exposed to it for too long without magical protection, their mind will be the first thing to rot, followed by the body."
Her words painted a picture even more horrific than the monsters we had faced. This enemy could not be hewn by an axe or burned by fire. It was invisible, it seeped into the earth, blended into the water, and attacked the weakest point of every creature: the mind. Tel'Adria, our destination, might not be a safe haven, but a fortress under siege by a ruthless and cunning enemy.
Our journey changed immediately. The relaxation vanished, replaced by a simmering tension. Every shadow, every bush could conceal an infected animal. Every stream could be poisoned. I focused on the "Heart of the Forest," trying to expand my perception. Beyond the path of blue light, I began to sense other things. "Points" of living energy from animals, faint flows of underground water. But now, interspersed within that map of life energy were "dead zones"—areas where I felt nothing at all, only a cold void, a hole in the tapestry of life. Those were the places the Blight had traversed, leaving tracks like burns on flesh.
Late in the afternoon, after hours of moving in silence and tension, we reached a place that made all three of us stop. We were standing at the top of a slope, looking down into a small valley. Before us lay the ruins of a village. About a dozen wooden houses lay scattered, most collapsed, roofs punctured, walls rotting away. Weeds grew through the floorboards, trying to reclaim what humans had taken. A heavy silence blanketed the place, a silence distinct from the others. It was not the sacred stillness of the Silent Garden or the suffocating silence of the Whispering Forest. This was the silence of absence, the silence in a place that should have been filled with laughter, children playing, the clang of a smithy, and people calling out to one another.
The air here smelled different. Beyond the mold and oblivion, there was a pungent scent of incomplete decay, and wafting somewhere was the stench of the Blight we had smelled at noon.
"Should we go in?" I asked, a deep sense of unease rising within me. This place gave me a worse feeling than Akrasha's labyrinth.
Kael was silent for a long moment, his eyes scanning every ruined house. "We need to know what happened," he finally said, his voice lowered. "And if there is any food or clean water left, we need it. Our supplies are running low."
His logic was brutal but undeniable. We entered the village cautiously, Kael in front, axe firmly in hand, every step steady and deliberate. Elara followed close behind, her hand hovering over the herb pouches at her waist. I walked last, trying to use the "Heart of the Forest" to scan the area, but all I could sense was a grey shade of death, occasionally flashing with faint spots of residual Blight energy.
Strangely, there were no signs of an attack or a battle. No bodies, no dried bloodstains, no arrows stuck in the walls. Only emptiness and the signs of a life interrupted abruptly. An overturned wheelbarrow, potatoes spilling onto the ground, a few already sprouting. A window left wide open, a tattered curtain flapping in the wind. It seemed everyone had... vanished.
We decided to check the houses systematically. The first house was nearly empty, furniture rotted or broken. The second house had a wooden cradle in the middle of the room, a blanket folded neatly inside, but no child. The feeling of cold in that room exceeded the temperature of the air.
In the third house, which was relatively intact, we found something. On an overturned oak dining table lay an old leather-bound book. It was a diary. The pages were yellowed and damp, moldy in places, but the ink was still legible. Elara carefully picked it up, using a dry cloth to gently wipe away the grime. We gathered around her under the fading afternoon light piercing through the hole in the roof. Elara began to read, her voice steady but unable to hide the tension.
"Diary of Eamon, farmer. First day of harvest.
The weather this year is wonderful. Warm sun, favorable rain. The wheat in the fields is golden. The Finnigan kids are running wild again, scaring my chickens. A peaceful day like any other."
Elara flipped a few pages.
"Day seven. Strange things. My old cow Bessie died this morning. She wasn't sick, nor attacked by beasts. Last night she was fine. This morning I found her lying there, eyes staring wide. Her skin had a strange grey color. Old Gunter says she probably ate poisonous mushrooms."
"Day twelve. A few more sheep dead. Just like Bessie. People are getting worried. The well water in the village tastes strange lately, metallic and slightly fishy. We sent men to check the source but found nothing unusual."
"Day sixteen. People are starting to cough, a dry and persistent cough that won't stop. At night, many say they have nightmares, dreams of dark corridors and purple eyes staring from the shadows. Little Joric of the Finnigan family started screaming at night; he keeps pointing at an empty corner and crying. His mother says his eyes... have purple streaks."
Elara's voice began to tremble. Kael clenched his jaw tight, veins popping on his temples.
"Day twenty. Madness has begun. This morning, Gunter attacked his own wife with a hoe, mumbling about 'impostors.' Luckily people intervened in time. He said his wife had purple eyes. But no one saw that. Suspicion spreads through the village like a plague. People are starting to lock their doors, looking at neighbors with hostile eyes."
"Day twenty-three. A pale purple fog covered the valley last night. It didn't dissipate when the sun rose. The air smells terrible. Screams rang out from the Finnigan house. When we broke the door down, the scene was horrific. They... they had harmed each other. Blood everywhere. And little Joric sat in the corner, laughing alone, his eyes completely a glowing purple."
"Day twenty-five. I have locked the door. I dare not go out. The scratching never stops outside. Not human sounds... not human anymore. Sometimes I hear singing, a strange, seductive melody, promising a place without pain. I look through the crack in the door. There is a light... a soft light at the end of the road. People are walking towards it, staggering like ghosts. Even the dead... they are walking too..."
The last entry was scrawled, shaky, and barely legible. The ink had blurred from something that looked like tears.
"...must go... light... beautiful... it calls my name... forgive me..."
Elara slammed the diary shut. The silence in the room became suffocatingly heavy. The terrifying truth, more detailed and personal than anything we could have imagined, crashed down on me. This enemy didn't just kill. It deceived, it tortured psychologically, it turned neighborly love into hell, turned loved ones into enemies, and finally, it erased everything, turning their homes into nameless graves. "Go towards the light"—a final illusion to lure broken souls into total destruction.
That night, we didn't camp in the village. We climbed a nearby hill, finding a vantage point with our backs against a cliff. We lit a large fire, not for warmth, but as an act of defiance against the darkness and despair shrouding the valley below. No one spoke much. The words in the diary still haunted my mind. I kept picturing Eamon's face, an ordinary farmer, as he wrote those last lines, torn between fear and the temptation of the illusion.
Kael sat silently, his large hands continuously cleaning the blade of his axe with a piece of leather, a repetitive action to calm himself. His eyes gazed far toward the horizon, toward Tel'Adria. His steadfastness was now mingled with palpable anxiety, and a cold fury. He wasn't just fighting for our survival anymore. He was fighting to return to a place that might no longer be as he remembered, and to avenge people like Eamon.
I looked into the "Heart of the Forest," warming on my chest. Its warmth was a comfort, a reminder that life and purity still existed in this world, and it was worth fighting for. The war against the Blight was not merely a physical one; it was a battle between hope and despair, between memory and oblivion, between life and decay. And now, we were right in the middle of that frontline. I was no longer Lyan, the lost physics student just wanting to find a way home. I was a part of this war, and the stone I carried was not just a compass; it was a weapon.