They left the Silver Grove after three days, fully healed and stronger than ever. The beast wraiths saw them off with a psychic chorus of well-wishes, which mostly felt like a gentle headache.
"Next time, ask for a written note," Kiran grumbled, rubbing his temple.
Sylvia had taken point, navigating using the psychic map Damien shared. The destination: the north-western edge of the Shattered Lands, where the chaotic scars gave way to an impossibly vast, ancient forest that seemed to defy the surrounding ruin—the Sylvanweald, home of the Verdant Court.
As they neared the border, the air changed. The scent of ozone and decay was replaced by the rich perfume of loam, blooming night-flowers, and something sharper—magic, old and deep. The trees here were not the glowing fungi of the Depths, but colossal sentinels with bark like etched silver and leaves that shimmered with internal moonlight.
"Elves," Lyra whispered, her kitsune senses tingling. "Lots of them. And they're… watching."
"Of course they are," Sylvia said, not breaking stride. "They've probably been watching us since we left the crystal zone. Arrogant leaf-lickers."
They hadn't taken ten steps into the first proper glade when the "welcoming party" appeared.
They melted from the trees, silent as shadows. There were six of them, tall and graceful, with pointed ears and eyes the color of polished jade or twilight amber. They wore leather armor that seemed grown rather than crafted, and carried bows of living wood and blades of thorny vine. Their leader, a male elf with hair the color of white birch bark and an expression of profound disdain, stepped forward.
[Target Analysis: Verdant Warden Captain (Elf). Cultivation: 5th Order, 1st Rank (Nature's Whisper Stage). Affinity: Wood/Life. Enhanced Senses, Phytokinesis.]
[Subordinates: x5 Verdant Wardens. Cultivation: 4th Order, 4th-5th Rank. Affinities: Varied (Wind, Beast-Tamer, Perfect-shot Archery).]
"The shattered lands spew forth more refuse," the Captain said, his voice a melodic sneer. "Turn back, mongrels. The Sylvanweald tolerates no corruption, no… mixed things." His gaze swept over them, lingering on Lyra's tails, Kiran's void-eyes, Brom's stone-flesh, and Damien's storm-grey gaze with particular disgust.
"Charming," Kiran drawled. "We're here to talk."
"Beast-kin, void-touched, earth-wrought abominations, and a human with stolen eyes," the Captain listed. "You have nothing to say that the Court wishes to hear. This is your only warning. Leave, or be rooted where you stand."
Lyra bristled. "We're not 'things'! We're—"
"They are not here for dialogue," Damien interrupted, his voice calm. He had seen the outcome probabilities. The Elves' 'Ancient Grudge' was against anything they deemed impure or a remnant of the human-led corporate folly that caused the Fall. They saw the team as walking violations of natural order. "They are here for a purge."
The Captain's smile was thin and cold. "The flawed one understands. Wardens, cleanse this blight."
The Elves moved. They didn't charge. The forest itself attacked. Roots erupted from the ground to snare their feet. Vines shot from the trees like whips. The air thickened, trying to choke them with pollen.
Brom stomped. "Rune: Stability." Golden light flared from his feet, solidifying the ground in a ten-yard radius. The roots shattered against it.
Kiran pointed at two Wardens drawing their bows. "Erase: Trajectory." The arrows they loosed simply vanished mid-flight, as if the path they were supposed to take never existed. The elves stared, confused.
Lyra clapped her hands. "Prismatic Mirage: Swarm of Stinging Wasps!" A cloud of terrifyingly real-looking wasps, woven from light and the concept of 'Painful Annoyance,' erupted toward the elves. They batted at the air, their cool composure breaking.
Sylvia was already gone from sight. A moment later, a yelp came from the tree line as her chain-sickle wrapped around an elf archer's perch and yanked him from the canopy.
But the Captain was the true threat. He didn't move. He raised a hand, and the great trees around them groaned. Their branches twisted, forming enormous, wooden fists that slammed down towards Damien.
Damien Rime-Slipped, but the forest itself seemed to anticipate him. A wall of thorns erupted where he phased. He twisted, but a thorn grazed his arm, and instantly, a burning numbness spread—a potent neurotoxin.
[Status: Verdant Venom (Elite). Causes paralysis and spiritual necrosis. Resistance from Convergence Physique: 65%. Slowing effect active.]
His movements became sluggish. The Captain smiled, drawing a blade that seemed made of crystallized emerald. "Your stolen tricks are slow, human. Nature's patience is endless, but its wrath is swift."
He lunged, a blur of green. Damien parried with a dagger, but the force knocked him back, his numb arm barely responding.
Then, a prismatic foxfire shield flared between them. Lyra stood, her tails fanned out, eyes blazing. "You don't get to touch him!"
She wasn't just defending. She pushed. Her Prismatic Flame, fueled by the Dawnheart Fruit and her breakthrough, took on a new property. It didn't just burn; it transmuted. Where her foxfire touched the Captain's wooden fists, the wood didn't char—it bloomed. Beautiful, fragrant flowers erupted from the attacking limbs, weighing them down, robbing them of menace.
The Captain stared in horror. "You… how dare you twist nature's form! Abomination!"
"I beautify it, you mossy stick-in-the-mud!" Lyra shot back, a fierce grin on her face.
In that moment of distraction, Damien pushed through the venom. He didn't attack the Captain. He used his Cosmic Lens on the forest itself. He saw the flows of life energy, the network connecting the trees to the Elf Captain. He saw a single, brittle point—a link to an ancient, towering Heart-Tree a mile away that was the source of his authority.
Damien raised the Conductor's Focus. He didn't have the charge for a full Harmony. But he could do something else. He focused all his will, all his frost, into a single, precise command through the Focus.
"Amplify: Winter's Breath."
A wave of cold, so pure and absolute it carried the concept of Dormancy, shot from the Focus, not at the Captain, but along the spiritual network he'd seen, straight towards the distant Heart-Tree.
The effect was instantaneous. The forest around them gasped. The aggressive plants wilted. The Captain's connection to the woodland power sputtered and died. His emerald blade dimmed. He stumbled, his cultivated strength fleeing as the forest itself was forced into a momentary, deep sleep.
"Impossible…" he whispered.
Kiran appeared behind him, a void-dagger at his throat. "Nature took a nap. Talk. Why the hostility? What's the 'Ancient Grudge'?"
The Captain, defeated and powerless, glared. "Your kind… the human corporations… you broke the world. You fused magic and machine in abominable ways, created races like the beast-kin and the void-touched as products. You poisoned the deep ley lines. The Verdant Court remembers. We purge the remnants of your folly to heal the world."
So that was it. The Elves saw themselves as the world's immune system, and anyone with "artificial" origins—which, thanks to the Fall, included Lyra's kitsune heritage, Kiran's void-touch, even Brom's likely genetically-engineered Stone-Giant ancestors—were viruses.
"We didn't break it," Damien said, walking forward, his arm still numb but his gaze sharp. "But we will fix it. And we will not be purged by those who hide in their forests while the world decays. You will let us pass. You will tell your Court that Damien Karyon is not a remnant. He is the future. And if they stand in our way, we will return. Not to purge, but to prune."
He nodded to Kiran, who withdrew the dagger and shoved the Captain away.
The Elf Wardens, recovering from Lyra's wasps and Sylvia's ambush, gathered their stunned leader. They didn't speak another word. They simply melted back into the trees, the forest itself seeming to sigh and close ranks behind them.
The team stood in the suddenly quiet, dormant glade.
"Well," Sylvia said, rewinding her chain. "That went well. Made friends, exchanged cultural viewpoints, threatened an ancient civilization. Productive day."
Lyra rushed to Damien's side. "Your arm!"
"The venom is being neutralized," he said, watching as his Convergence Physique slowly broke down the toxin. Her concern was a warm pressure in his chest, distinct from the cold of the venom. "Your intervention was… timely. And effective."
She beamed. "I told you I'm not just for show."
Kiran was frowning at the map. "So, the pointy-eared purists are a dead end for alliances. Where to next? The witch-demon tourist trap or the grumpy dwarf crash-site?"
Damien looked north, towards the mist-shrouded peaks of the Mistveil Archipelago. "The Volatile Neutrality. We will see if their conflicts have room for a third party."
As they turned to leave the dormant glade, Lyra's hand brushed against Damien's, the one not numb. He didn't pull away.
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