The Dendro Archon's fingertip hovered above the Vision, trembling slightly, but she didn't immediately touch it.
With excruciating slowness, she extended her finger and gently touched the cracked glass shell.
The instant her fingertip made contact—
Hum!
A deep, resonant hum, as if echoing from ancient times, pierced through the raging sandstorm and reverberated directly in the depths of the uninhabited consciousness.
The cracked Dendro Vision suddenly erupted with an unprecedented surge of light. Azure-green radiance soared skyward, instantly dispersing the sandstorm within a radius of several dozen meters, creating a brief, tranquil Domain.
The light didn't radiate outward; instead, as if drawn by some unseen force, it frantically coiled back toward the Dendro Archon's fingertip touching the Vision.
The azure-green radiance swirled and coalesced at her fingertip, not dissipating, but rapidly coalescing in the center of her pale palm. In mere moments, it solidified into...
A seed.
A plain, unassuming seed, resembling those produced by the most common roadside shrubs, lay quietly in the palm of the God of Wisdom.
It was only the size of a fingernail, its surface a warm, light brown with delicate wood-grain patterns.
"What is this...?"
Lumine stared at the suddenly materialized seed, then at the Dendro Vision, now completely dimmed and its cracks seemingly more pronounced after the light had faded. She was utterly bewildered.
A shattered Vision had ultimately transformed into such an ordinary seed? What kind of contingency plan was this? Could it really save Silaya?
Rukkhadevata, however, seemed oblivious to Lumine's questions.
Her entire focus was fixed on the tiny seed. She gently cupped her palm, cradling it with utmost care.
Closing her eyes, the Dendro Archon's long lashes cast shadows across her dust-streaked cheeks.
A soft, pure green light, like warm spring water, flowed from her fingertips, enveloping the seed in a tender embrace.
This was divine power—the God of Wisdom's most primal force—now unreservedly nourishing this tiny miracle.
Lumine held her breath, watching. The moment the golden divine energy enveloped the seed, something within her mind seemed to be gently stirred.
Seed...
New sprout...
Something seemed to be connecting, yet always just out of reach. This sliver of disconnection ultimately prevented Lumine from piecing together the full picture.
Chu Xi and Fidelle stared intently at the Dendro Archon and the seed in her hand.
The Dendro Archon's divine power flowed into the seed like a gentle stream. Under the golden light, the brown seed coat gradually became transparent, revealing the curled, luminous embryo within.
These weren't plant fibers; they were strands of pure memory, crystallized into light. Each strand coiled around fragments of Silaya's shattered existence.
Lumine suddenly felt dizzy. In a daze, she saw countless memory fragments flash through her consciousness like shooting stars: Silaya's profile as she hunched over her desk in the Akademiya, scribbling furiously; her focused gaze as her fingertips traced the ancient runes in the Mausoleum of King Deshret; the resolute line of her lips as she sealed bloodstained Forbidden Knowledge into clay jars...
These images, meant to be completely erased by Irminsul, were now being forcibly dredged up from oblivion by the seed.
"The anchor point has been activated..."
"What?"
Lumine's head swam, as if her brain were about to grow anew.
Rukkhadevata: "Traveler, since you remember the entire process, you must also recall this: Forbidden Knowledge tainted Irminsul. Because I am one with Irminsul, I couldn't erase myself. Similarly, the 'she' who replaced me couldn't erase herself either. Her deletion inevitably left Irminsul's cleansing of the Forbidden Knowledge incomplete."
Lumine suddenly understood: "The vision I just had—where ***sealed something into a clay pot—that was..."
Rukkhadevata: "The Forbidden Knowledge!"
Paimon flew behind Lumine, voicing her confusion: "If that thing wasn't completely erased, then why are Sumeru's Eleazar, the Ley Lines, and even you and Nahida showing no signs of abnormality? Everyone seems to be completely healed!"
"Because... that remnant of Forbidden Knowledge, the part that couldn't be completely deleted, had already been sealed away—or rather, utilized—before 'she' erased herself."
Rukkhadevata's voice seemed to pierce through time and space. The seed in her palm suddenly erupted into a pillar of light that shot straight into the heavens.
Within the light, however, weren't complete memories, but fractured reflections—
On the left side, Lumine saw a scene from Silaya's Laboratory. Silaya was placing her Dendro Vision at the core of an Alchemical Array, its edges etched with forbidden symbols—the forbidden knowledge Deshret had sought to glimpse.
On the right side, a horrifying sight unfolded: the stripped Forbidden Knowledge churned within a ceramic jar, spontaneously coalescing into an embryonic form. The jar's wall reflected Silaya's whispering figure, though her words remained inaudible.
The sandstorm surrounding the pillar of light froze eerily still. A grain of sand that brushed Lumine's cheek dissolved into a stream of data and vanished.
Rukkhadevata suddenly groaned, the divine power she was channeling into the seed fluctuating violently.
Dark, inky veins were spreading upward from her fingertips, her skin boiling with wedge-shaped glyphs wherever the veins passed.
"The backlash from the Forbidden Knowledge..."
She gritted her teeth, maintaining the flow of divine power despite the strain, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
As if sensing the danger, the seed suddenly erupted with an even more intense emerald glow. Within the light, a semi-transparent phantom of Silaya appeared, her hands pressed together against the back of Rukkhadevata's hand. Her luminous lips moved silently.
Lumine saw the shape of her lips clearly:
"...the second vessel is in The Mausoleum of King Deshret..."
Before the words could finish, the phantom shattered into stardust, returning to the seed.
Inside the seed, strands of light began to frantically reassemble, projecting a complex three-dimensional star map onto Rukkhadevata's palm. At the heart of this map lay the present-day Mausoleum of King Deshret.
Deep within the crypt, at a specific coordinate point, Lumine discovered an empty clay jar. Fresh cracks marked its base—clearly, something had long since broken free of its confinement.
"So that's how it is..."
Rukkhadevata suddenly opened her eyes, her emerald irises swirling with billions of streams of data.
"She split herself—sealing her pure memories within a Vision as an anchor for her return, while fusing her corrupted memories and Forbidden Knowledge to forge a new body... Such audacity, such confidence..."
Fidelle, who had remained silent until now, spoke up:
"Dendro Archon, you said 'she' fused her corrupted memories and Forbidden Knowledge to create a new body. But if those memories and knowledge are corrupted and forbidden, wouldn't the resulting body deviate from 'her' original intent? Wouldn't a body forged from so much negative energy inevitably become... a demon...?"
It was unimaginable that the being she had longed to meet—a Pure Soul like herself—would dare such a bold move, leaving her utterly... baffled...
Rukkhadevata: "'She' was well aware of the immense danger involved, but 'she' had no other choice. 'She' attempted to fight fire with fire, desperately seeking to use the still-unresolved calamity caused by Deshret at that time to devour and fuse the Malice that had shaped her physical form, adding that Malice to the existing disaster..."
"In the end, 'she' succeeded. 'She' forged a nearly perfect body."
Paimon: "So, judging by this, 'she' seems to have completed her entire plan. Does that mean we could use the teleport and body 'she' left behind here to rescue 'her' from being erased?"
Rukkhadevata sighed wearily. The more she understood 'her', the more she pitied 'her'.
"'Her' plan ultimately failed."
Lumine: "Did something go wrong?"
Rukkhadevata: "Yes. In the very moment she was about to be erased, she abandoned the plan. Perhaps she hadn't anticipated that the body she intended to return to would gradually develop its own consciousness..."