The first few hours of the watch were the worst. The adrenaline of the battle had faded, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness and a gnawing, psychological dread. The fire crackled, a lonely sound in the profound silence of the ruins. Every flicker of its light sent shadows dancing across the warped stone, and more than once, Thomas or Kira would jump at a shadow that looked too much like a shifting, geometric plane or a twisting, human-like form.
The screaming tree was the worst. It stood just at the edge of the firelight, a permanent, silent testament to the horror they had witnessed. No one looked directly at it, but everyone was aware of it, a focal point for their shared trauma.
Astraeus lay by the fire, drifting in and out of a shallow, pain-filled state that was not quite sleep. He was too weak to move, too weak to speak, but he could hear. He listened to the silence, and he listened to the whispers.
"He unmade them," Thomas said, his voice a low, trembling murmur. He and Kira were huddled together on the far side of the fire, as far from Astraeus as they could get without leaving the circle of light. "Not killed. Unmade. One minute they were people, the next… they were candy. Or a tree. Gods, the tree…"
"It's not natural," Kira agreed, her voice equally hushed. "Ethereal Essence is the power of creation, of order. Even destructive spells have a logic to them. That… that was just madness. It was the power of a thing that hates the concept of 'is'."
"And it's inside him," Thomas concluded, his voice dropping even lower, full of a new and terrible fear. "What if he can't control it? What if he gets angry in the middle of the guild hall? What if he has a nightmare? Will we all just turn into screaming trees?"
Darius, who had been silently staring into the darkness, finally spoke, his voice a low rumble that cut through their fearful whispers. "He saved our lives. The Shard would have consumed us all. The Architect would have its gateway. Whatever price he paid, he paid it for us."
"I know that," Thomas shot back, his fear making him defensive. "But that doesn't make it less terrifying. That power… it's not the power of a hero. It's the power of an end boss."
Lyra, who had been silently tending to Astraeus, finally looked up, her eyes flashing with a protective anger. "Stop it. Both of you. He can probably hear you. He's lying right there, broken and bleeding because he did the one thing that could save us, and you're talking about him like he's a monster."
"Isn't he?" Kira asked softly, the question hanging in the cold night air.
Before Lyra could reply, Astraeus managed a weak, rasping sound. All eyes snapped to him. He forced his own open, the effort monumental, and looked at them. He couldn't speak, but he hoped his expression conveyed something – an apology, a reassurance, anything to quell the fear he saw in their eyes.
Internally, he was having a very different conversation.
They are right to be afraid, Kha'Zul stated, his voice devoid of sympathy. You should be afraid. You hold a power that can erase existence, and you have the emotional control of a toddler who has just been denied a sweet-roll.
What is this… Chaos Corruption? Astraeus thought, focusing on the practical problem to avoid the sting of his friends' fear.
It is the consequence of your recklessness. Raw Chaos is not like Ethereal Essence. It does not flow through you; it becomes you. It overwrites your physical and spiritual form. Right now, your body is a battlefield. The chaotic energy is trying to turn you into a permanent, self-sustaining rift. Your nature as a Reality Anchor is the only thing fighting back, trying to reassert the principle that you should, in fact, exist as a stable, coherent being.
The System said seventy-two hours.
An estimate. It is the time the System predicts it will take for your Anchor nature to win the war. But it is not a passive process. You must participate. You must guide your recovery.
How? I can't even move.
You will not guide it with action, but with inaction. Your instinct is to fight the corruption, to push back against the pain and the chaos. This is a mistake. Fighting Chaos with order is like trying to build a dam out of sand in the middle of a tsunami. You will only exhaust yourself and be swept away.
Kha'Zul's lesson was cold, clinical, but it resonated with a deep, fundamental truth. Astraeus could feel it now – his own power, his Ethereal Essence, trying to reassert itself, only to be devoured by the seething crimson-black residue within him.
So what do I do? Astraeus asked, a sense of desperation creeping into his thoughts.
You accept it, Kha'Zul replied. Do not fight the Chaos. Do not resist it. Allow it to be. You are an Anchor. Your very nature is a law of reality. Let that nature do its work. Float in the storm. Do not try to swim against it. Your body knows how to heal. Your soul knows how to exist. Let them. Meditate. Find the silence within the noise. Find the stillness within the storm. That is your first lesson in control.
It was counter-intuitive. It was terrifying. To simply lie back and let this horrifying, unmaking power wash through him felt like surrender. But he could feel the truth in Kha'Zul's words. Every time he instinctively tried to fight the pain, it grew worse. Every time he tried to focus his will, the dizziness intensified.
He took a shaky, internal breath and let go.
He stopped fighting the pain in his head and simply observed it. He stopped resisting the feeling of being unraveled and simply allowed it to be. He sank into the chaos, not as a victim, but as a silent observer.
And in the heart of that raging storm, he found a single, tiny point of absolute calm. It was him. The core of his being. The part of him that was Astraeus Ren. It was small, fragile, but it was there. And it was stable.
He focused on that point of stillness, nurturing it not with power, but with acceptance. The pain did not vanish, but it became distant, less immediate. The feeling of dissolution remained, but it no longer felt like an imminent threat. It was just… a condition of his current existence.
Outside, his breathing evened out. The tension in his limbs eased slightly. Lyra, watching him with an eagle eye, noticed the subtle change. She placed a hand on his forehead. It was still cold, but perhaps not as deathly so as before.
"He's resting," she whispered to the others, a note of hope in her voice. "I think he's going to be okay."
Thomas and Kira shared a look, their fear not entirely gone, but banked for now. Darius gave a single, slow nod, his posture relaxing by a fraction of an inch.
They settled into a new silence, the silence of the long watch. They were still afraid. But now, a fragile, tentative hope had begun to push back against the darkness. Their friend was still with them. The monster had not consumed him. Not yet.