My world-tree system-Chapter 59 - 58: Awakening

The metallic clink echoed in his mind, more vibrant than ever.

[ Ding Hidden Quest completed ]

[Creating Life [1/1]]

[Reward granted]

Foster felt his heart miss a beat.

But the message didn’t end there.

A second, deeper, older tinkle resonated in every fibre of his being.

[New skill acquired: Authority of judgement]

A shiver ran through him.

And then-

A warmth.

At first gentle, almost comforting, then burning, scorching, consuming every part of his body.

He put a trembling hand to his chest as his tattoos briefly lit up with a golden glow.

[Tree of Judgement:]

[Everything out of balance must be brought back into balance.]

[Once activated, the Tree of Judgement harmonises the balance of power between you and your opponent for a limited time.]

[If your enemy is stronger than you, their power is reduced until it aligns with yours].

- That’s a completely broken skill,’ he nearly yelled.

[Activation requires a vital offering: the greater the power gap, the greater the debt to pay].

[Effect lasts 3 minutes]

[When the power stops, the host suffers a backlash].

Foster had remained silent for a long moment after learning of his new ability. His gaze was lost in the void, one hand resting on his chest, where he could feel the seed of the World Tree pulsing gently inside him. [Tree of Judgement]

He sighed and stood up. The night was still young, and he needed answers.

When he found Lïanna, she was standing on one of Vollua’s large natural pontoons, facing the starry sky and bathed in the silvery light of the full moon. The wind made her long green hair dance, and the silhouette she projected into the darkness seemed unreal, like a dream that threatened to fade at any moment.

Foster approached slowly.

- You’re still here, so...

She turns her head towards him, an amused expression on her lips.

- Where did you want me to go?

- I don’t know... Maybe you were a mirage.

Lïanna laughed softly. It was a light, crystalline laugh, but it carried with it a strange wisdom, as if she understood what he was feeling better than he did.

- I’m real, Foster. Even if... I’m not quite the same.

Her gaze darkened for a moment, and she looked down at her belly, where the seed of renewal was pulsing faintly.. Foster followed his gesture, and he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling slightly as he realised what it meant.

- So... is it true?

Lïanna nodded slowly.

- We’ve done it.

He clenched his fists, emotion taking his breath away. It was all too much. Too many events, too many miracles, too much hope all at once.

- Tell me everything.

She leaned against the living railing of the pontoon, and Foster did the same beside her. For a long moment, she remained silent, as if searching for the right words. Then at last she spoke.

She told him about her awakening, the light, the warmth of the Mother Tree around her. The consciousness that had guided her. The feeling that she had been born just now and had always existed. She explained to him that her body, although it seemed in every way to be that of a World Tree elf, was only an extension of the Mother Tree itself. Her real body was the Tree.

Favoriser looked at him in disbelief.

- So... you’re not really an ’individual’?

Lïanna tilted her head thoughtfully.

- Yes... and no. She put her hand on his chest. I have my own thoughts, my own emotions. But at the same time, I feel each leaf, each root of the Mother Tree as if they were part of me.

Foster shuddered slightly. The idea was vertiginous.

- And that grain...

He stared at her belly with a new gravity. Lïanna replied with a gentle, almost tender look.

- It’s the fruit of our union.

He recoiled.

- Am I the father?

She laughed again.

- Not in the way you mean, silly.

Foster coughed, slightly embarrassed.

- I’d rather make sure.

Lïanna smiled, shaking her head.

- This seed was born from our people, from our link with the Mother Tree. We danced together, shared our essence. It’s a child of our hope, not of a single individual.

Foster ran a hand over his face, trying to take it all in.

- What happens now?

- Now we have to look after him.

She gently caresses his belly.

- And we prepare for the future. In 3 weeks, the child should be born and then I’ll have a week to recuperate before the next ritual. I’m Mother Tree Foster, that’s my role.

- So fast ???? he almost shouted.

- Yes, and I have a feeling that these children will be different from the ones you transformed.

- In what way?

- I don’t know, we’ll see, but don’t forget, they are and will be the hope of our people, it’s through them that we’ll win.

Her tone had become more serious. Foster knew what she meant. This birth didn’t just mark a new beginning for their people. It also marked the beginning of new responsibilities, new dangers.

He gritted his teeth.

- Yes... We must prepare ourselves against these monsters, although for now we’re safe.

He looked into Lïanna’s eyes. For a split second, he saw a familiar light, a glimmer of something that betokened... trust. Complicity.

And perhaps even a fragment of tenderness.

He looked away, assuming a straighter posture.

- Thank you for telling me everything.

- Thank you for listening.

And so they remained, side by side, under the moonlight, while Vollua below still vibrated with the echoes of the feast and the songs of their people.

For the first time in a long time, Foster felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

Kassandra’s point of view:

Emptiness.

An endless abyss.

She fell, again and again, sucked into absolute darkness, deprived of landmarks, deprived of body, deprived of identity. A muffled murmur accompanied her fall, a regular beat, like a heartbeat, but cold. Strange.

Then, a voice.

Slave.

The word cut through her soul like an icy blade.

An invisible shiver shook her, but her body... where was her body?

Another word came to mind, striking her mind with the force of a hammer.

Mark.

Then it all came back to her.

The burning vise of domination. The seal of the Seven Lords of the Apocalypse etched into his flesh. The pain of submission. The sensation of slowly losing everything that made her... her.

The Mark had swallowed her.

She was nothing but darkness.

But... no. Something was wrong.

If she was only darkness, why did she still feel that pain?

If she was broken, why hadn’t her memory disappeared?

And above all...

Why did she still feel that warmth deep inside her?

A fragile light, like an ember on the verge of going out, yet refusing to give up.

She concentrated on it.

And the pain returned.

A flash. A vision.

Foster.

She saw him again, standing in front of her, his gaze burning with determination, while she herself, chained by the Mark, was nothing more than a weapon aimed at him.

She saw herself attacking him. She remembered the raw power that had surged through her, the ease with which her modified body had become a predator. She had crushed him, she had seen him bend under her strength...

Until he touched her.

Until his blood penetrated her.

Pain exploded, driving her back into darkness.

She buckled under the shockwave, feeling her consciousness flicker again. But this time, something held her fall.

A warm breath.

A scent of sap and bark.

The World Tree.

A new force had opposed the Mark. Something millennia old, alive, seeking neither domination nor destruction. A balance.

Two forces, opposites in every way, vied for its existence.

And she...

She was at the center

And the fall...

Infinite.

She didn’t know how long she’d been falling. Time had no meaning here. Was it a minute? An hour? An eternity?

Everything was blurred, indistinct. Her body was nothing more than a diffuse thought, a whisper in the void.

And yet...

Something was calling her.

An echo, deep and ancient, resonated in the darkness, like a chorus of intertwined voices.

At first, they were only whispers. Indecipherable. A language she didn’t know, yet instinctively understood.

Then the voices grew stronger, and the call became clearer.

- Lost...

Kassandra shuddered.

- Wake up...

It wasn’t the voice of a single being.

They were many.

Deep, ancient, heavy with knowledge and memories.

- You are not the chosen one.

- And yet, we hear you...

She wanted to answer, but she had no voice.

An invisible hand brushed against her, or so it seemed. An intangible contact, like a current of air charged with energy.

Then a question, whispered with gravity:

- Who are you?

Her mind wavered.

She wanted to answer. But who was she really?

Who was she really?

Was she Kassandra, Captain at the Queen’s command?

Was she a slave, scarred and broken by the Lords of the Apocalypse?

Was she a monster, shaped by darkness?

Or was she something else... something new?

She searched for an answer.

But before she could formulate a word, the voices began again.

- Your body has been defiled.

- But the same sap flows through you as we do.

- A fragile balance...

The voices seemed to be observing, analyzing. As if they were scrutinizing her through the veil of her mind.

Then silence.

Long.

Ponderous.

Until a single voice spoke up, louder than the others, imbued with unfathomable power.

- We don’t know you... and yet you carry our essence.

An invisible force suddenly gripped him, and the fall stopped dead in its tracks.

Her being was shaken by a shockwave, a chill that ran through her body.

Then the voices uttered a final, enigmatic, prophetic phrase:

- You and the chosen one are bound... now and forever.

A flash of light pierced the darkness.

And everything exploded.

A gasp.

The air rushed into her lungs.

Kassandra gasped as she sat up, her fingers clutching the sheets beneath her.

Her heart was beating wildly.

Her skin was burning.

His mind, foggy.

She was back.

But something was wrong.

She heard... something. A pulse. A presence.

Her gaze searched the room. She recognized the carved walls of living wood, the familiar scent of the forest. She was in a bed, in a space that resembled a treatment room.

And yet, it wasn’t the place that worried her.

It was this strange, visceral sensation.

Someone was there.

Not physically.

But inside her.

She turned her head sharply.

She didn’t understand.

She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. Her own mind was... disturbed. It was as if an echo came to her from afar, a fleeting impression, a foreign pulse mingling with her own.

A second passed. Then another.

And suddenly, she felt it.

Foster.

Not the way you’d feel a body nearby, or even a familiar aura. No. It was more visceral, more ingrained. Like a part of herself she’d never noticed before.

Her breath caught.

She didn’t know where he was. He could have been at the other end of the village, a thousand miles away, it didn’t matter. She could feel him, somewhere inside her.

Kassandra parted her lips, a trembling hand resting on her chest where her heart beat in an irregular rhythm.

What the hell was this?

Why did she feel this connection with him?

Then the echo of her own mind answered.

- You and the chosen one are linked... now and forever.

The words whispered in her coma came back to her as a matter of course.

The ancient avatars of the World Tree Seed.

Voices only Foster was supposed to hear.

And yet...

She, too, had heard them.

Kassandra sat up slowly, her body still aching, but her mind ablaze with a thousand questions.

What had happened to her?

What bound them together now?

Foster blinked.

A shiver ran down his spine, so sudden it took his breath away. He instinctively placed a hand on his chest, where his heart was beating in an irregular rhythm.

This wasn’t right.

This wasn’t him.

He felt... something. No, someone.

His fingers tightened. His gaze sought Lïanna, who stopped talking when she saw his troubled expression.

- Foster?" she asked softly.

But he wasn’t listening anymore.

His mind was elsewhere.

Something had just opened up, an invisible, inexplicable current that linked him to a foreign presence. A presence that wasn’t so foreign after all.

Kassandra.

He didn’t need to see her to know it was her.

It was a certainty, a primal instinct, a truth imposed on his mind without him being able to fight it. He could feel Kassandra. Her breath. Her awakening. Her confusion.

It was a raw connection, without filters or barriers. As if a part of her had merged with a part of him, erasing distance, transcendent, omnipresent.

And she felt it too.

A wave of emotions surged through him, too strong, too sudden. Surprise. Incomprehension. Underlying fear, camouflaged under a shell of determination.

None of this was his feeling.

It was his.

Foster took a step back, disturbed. He’d never experienced anything like this, even with the Mother Tree, even with the elves of the World Tree through the link.

This was... different.

- What’s going on, Foster?" gasped Lïanna.

- It’s Kassandra. She’s awakened.

He couldn’t understand why or how. But this link wasn’t an illusion.

It was real.