Once again, Zayn returned to the ashen remains of the forest. Tracing the shattered mana circle with a frown, he tried to piece it together.

  So it wasn’t the Sage who laid the circles—it was the Fae themselves.

  What a cruel irony!

  The weapon they intended to disarm the Sage with became their own undoing. Didn’t seem to have taught them a lesson, though.

  The treants encircled him from above, roaring, slapping whips on the ground. Just waiting for him to walk out. In their twisted bellows lurked a hint of righteous anger. A wrath built for eons and ready to be unleashed on him—the unwilling bearer of Sage’s ultimate weapon.

  A dangerous idea flashed through Zayn as he looked back at the circle.

  He dropped down from the stone slabs, crouched low, and made his way towards one of the smaller spell circles.

  He stared at a tiny section of the larger circle—one that had been disconnected from the rest. It was full of charged mana, yet it was the least dangerous out of them all. With a few swift swipes of bloodmetal, he curved out the patch of mud surrounding the sigil and picked it up very carefully.

  Just a fragment of the magic circle, a single sigil no larger than a book. Thick strings of mana swarmed across its surface, exuding a burnt, smoky tang.

  ??? — Part of a mana circle that once contained concentrated Flame mana. Handle with caution.

  Nodding in satisfaction, he turned around with an unmistakably “evil” smirk.

  The treants recoiled at once. The entire grove descended into complete chaos. They howled and screeched like monkeys going haywire.

  Effect established.

  “Why do I hear no one laughing anymore?” He asked, cupping a hand to his ear in mock curiosity.

  A bunch of frightened, furious screeches were all he heard in reply. Music to his ears.

  Composed, he walked uphill. Closing in on the ‘Treant Slasher’ with steady, firm steps. The faint wind tugged at his long coat, ruffled his hair, amplifying his aura of dominance!

  “I’m going to make you all eat dirt of fire!”

  A sliver of him empathized with them. A tiny bit.

  Statistically, not all of the thirty-three thousand Fae were responsible for what happened to Sage’s family. But they’d paid for the crime by association, tangled in a mess they hadn’t created.

  So what?

  What if they were just people forced into war? Mere sacrifices for the ultimate weapon? None of that mattered. Not to him.

  What mattered was that they were rabid dogs after his life.

  Swaggering towards the frozen ‘Treant Slasher’, he grinned toothily. “If this sigil goes off now, imagine the fire! The heat! The intensity! I can walk through it, but what’d happen to you all?”

  Verdant Skin and [Undying Cockroach] gave him an unreasonable belief: that he could just about survive any fire. Even nukes—he told himself. To sell a lie, you’d have to believe it yourself first.

  And today was his lucky day. Every last one of them bought his act.

  ‘Treant Slasher’ squirmed like an uncontrolled muscle spasm. The eye on its chest screamed, I regret the day I was born, but the beast had climbed too deep into the pot to turn back.

  Treants in the back even shoved it towards him. Snarling in fury, the beast turned at the backstabbers, bellowing in a futile attempt to recover its honor.

  Once that failed, it twisted around and, with a bounding step, leapt down, brandishing its hideous, overlong claws at Zayn.

  But he remained composed.

  The patch of mud was with him!

  Holding it above his head, he thrust it forward like a priest warding off a demon.

  And it worked…just as intended.

  The roots of the treant froze. Its long, rib-like claws lost momentum midair as it attempted—too late—to correct its trajectory.

  Sweeping a blurry red blade, Zayn slashed its claws off like magma through ice. It collapsed with a loud howl and twisted on the ground like a fish out of water.

  Leaping, Zayn landed on top of it, ensnaring it within a blood vine.

  Too big a fish, unfortunately. It kept trying to swat him away, trying to rip the vine apart, and it was just about to succeed.

  As if!

  Grinning, he sent Charges down. At least six threads bolted out of his left arm. Flashes of red. Tearing through his pathways before burning into the treant, one after another, until its skin cracked red from the inside.

  It ruptured into a mist of scarlet gore. Out of the mist, Zayn walked out, arms expanded outwards like a showman, holding the patch like a magic book.

  “It appears I do not need this.” He threw the patch away, which made the treants leap back like scaredy cats. Before it fell, he caught it with a blood vine.

  A magic trick!

  But things weren’t as easy as they appeared to the audience of trees. On the inside, he was totally panicking. That earlier attack had nearly left his left arm in disrepair. At least half an hour it would take before his hand was restored to normal, even with ‘Spirit wine’.

  Impulsive, stupid. He cursed himself as he lumbered closer to the treants. Still putting on the fake bravado.

  The act must go on.

  “Yesterday, all of you encircled me like a helpless puppy, bullying me with numbers.” He smiled pretentiously like the great action heroes—like The Helldiver. “Today, I am inside your home, and all you can do is watch.”

  Wasn’t he cool? Goddamn, he was!

  Too bad they didn’t understand a word of what was said. Just like he didn’t understand them. But the fact about pretension was…his body language did the talking.

  His fearless attitude was like kryptonite to the rabid bunch of trees.

  Raising the magic circle, he made all the treants go haywire again, laughing like a madman.

  Yeah, it worked perfectly enough.

  Ding! Northwalker has sent you a text!

  Northwalker: You do know that spell circles and sigils won't work like that, right?

  “What? It won’t work?” His heart skipped a beat. All his confidence deflated like a balloon.

  The treants all halted, staring at him in confusion.

  With a strained smile, he looked at them. He was screwed, ruined, bamboozled by his own benefactor.

  But soon he recovered, red lightning cracked out of his body, “Of course! So it appears it is still uncooked! But do not fret! Once I inject my red mana inside, it'll explode with an extra “hot” flavour!”

  That comment shattered the treants. No longer caring about anything, they scurried away.

  Even the remaining trees broke out of their lethargy and ran the hell away, each undead for themselves.

  Northwalker: Can you complete math without knowing the formula? That circle is like that. If you knew the inner workings of the spell or had a good understanding of fire, you could have patched in the missing part of the circle, but you don’t.

  Are you with me, or them? He internally cursed Northwalker. This was the worst benefactor in the history of benefactors. Probably. Of all time.

  Good thing the treants had the intelligence of toddlers. His scattered act only deepened their terror.

  As a puppet with its strings cut, he trudged across the cracked land. Footsteps loud, breath heavy. Until the charred soil and twitching vines gave way to the darker treeline to his destination.

  Northwalker: Have you found the door out?

  Zayn stood in front of the Umbrella of Darkness and confirmed, “I have.”

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  ***

  All day, he’d raked his brain to find the supposed ‘door’ out of this place. Then, as he roamed the ashen forest, he realized it was quite the carbon copy of a daytime forest. All too similar in layout and structure.

  The trees all had the same gap. Grass was replaced by shattered, glass-like soil. And instead of swamps and ponds, there were deep basins—cracked depressions on the ground left by the remnant circles.

  Now it all made sense.

  He thought the magic circles were the door out, but as he inspected, he only felt mortal danger from each of them. Years of extreme sports had honed his intuition. He instantly knew those weren’t doors to salvation, but death.

  If such and such was true, there was only one place where the door out could be—the copse of trees.

  Walking inside, he grew more confident in his assumption. Yesterday, when he looked for the ultimate weapon, he’d smelled the same ash and rot. Too desperate to take notice of it, he’d just rushed in.

  The realization made his skin crawl.

  As soon as he entered, he sensed that the mana signals here weren't working in the right manner. Everything seemed subtly wrong. Like walking into a mirror dimension where the ashes of his memories played over and over.

  It felt like deja vu, except all he sensed was continuous deja vu. As though he’d lived…his entire life here.

  ‘I see through it’ detects an immense amount of Dream mana!

  The mana here wasn’t corrupted. Instead, they were more similar to the mana patterns in the memory crystals. The colour was the same: translucent and dreamy. Casually interlocking with each other like a spider's nest.

  Ding! Hidden objective — Pass ‘The inverted forest of Memories’!

  The Inverted Forest of Memories houses the lingering memories of the Fae. While passing through it, one may find oneself listening to familiar voices.

  Do not look back.

  Those who look back are forever unable to leave, becoming part of the forest.

  He rooted himself and breathed in. Right. This was indeed the door back. The matter about memories was troubling, though he shouldn’t have much trouble.

  He wasn’t one to linger in his memories, yeah?

  His posture grew rigid as he carefully stepped forward. Underneath his steps, things crumbled with a crisp noise. Though it didn’t feel like it, he hoped it was either a fallen leaf or a branch.

  The smell that drifted upwards was not that of a burn and ash. Instead, it smelled oddly nostalgic, pulling him back to the days of crayons, rubbers and new books. Even detergent…as weird as that sounded.

  He remembered that one time Leah had washed her entire room because a neighbor's cat had walked inside. The smell of detergent had lingered in her room…for days. He remembered this one other time—

  He frowned and pinched himself with maximum strength to stay in reality. But the feeling only strengthened. No matter what he did, memories began to pop up.

  Words, scenes, and memories seemed to be playing all around him.

  “Your brain is being tricked, don’t fall for it,” He said to himself.

  Soon…figures rose around him from the burnt mass on the ground. Roots and barks turning into humanoid, familiar silhouettes. None of them attacked him. They just stared and said words he could understand.

  “Hey, loser.”

  One of them squeaked. A distorted silhouette one-third his size. A kid.

  He knew that voice once. The kindergarten bully. But not anymore. He’d forgotten them all.

  “Weirdo.”

  Another one.

  He rapidly passed through the forming silhouettes, thinking of them as mere white noise. Though they were anything but static or normal. Their rotten barks and tendrils shifted as they attempted to hold him back.

  “Wow, this loser wrote an essay on how many toes a dragon should have.”

  “What are you? Expert on monster footlogy? Freak!”

  He wished he could see their faces now. That knowledge was certainly going to be useful in Eldera. Dragons had three toes.

  He’d confirm it for them to see, sooner or later.

  “Oi, you useless small brother!”

  That was…Leah. His twin sister, despite her claims.

  “Did you steal money from my purse?!”

  Nope.

  “Y-you stole my pocket money and gambled it…all away?! Die, you useless brother!”

  Must have been the wind.

  But maybe? He’d long forgotten all of these. This was useless.

  Anybody else would be affected by them, not him.

  Long since he’d given them all up; long since he ran away from it all. So long that he didn’t even remember his mother’s voice anymore. He didn’t—

  “Zayn!”

  A soft voice rebuked him from behind.

  Ba-dump!

  He froze, his heart beating erratically. His entire body convulsed and squirmed, attempting to turn around against his own will. But he bit his tongue and took a step forward.

  “Don’t run so fast.”

  Hers was a voice he hadn’t heard in nearly a decade. He gritted his teeth. He had to wage war against the world to take just one step. A silhouette formed out of the burnt roots, one resembling her, and stood right behind him.

  She extended her arm and put it on his shoulder.

  His mind begged him to turn around. To take just one look. In almost nine years, he’d not seen her. Eight years and nine months…since he heard her voice. Perhaps more.

  Perhaps…seventeen days more.

  “The faster you run, the more you miss what really matters to you.”

  He let out hot, pent-up breaths and summoned Hollowfang within his grip.

  He aimed its sharp edge at his chest, striking himself between his lungs and heart without hesitation. As blood spurted out of his chest, a notification rose.

  ‘Undying cockroach’ active!

  A sense of clarity flooded him. The voices grew muted, and he became distant from his own feelings. Despite his body protesting, he ran.

  He ran, ran, and ran.

  Because that was...the only thing that he was good at.

  ***

  He ran until his muscles convulsed, until his bones rattled, until his body was soaked in perspiration and grime. Which meant he ran a lot of miles, but even then, he found no way out.

  Instead, he saw an endless spiraling forest with dream mana stretched out like webs. He'd have lost his mind if not for a timely system text.

  Resistance — ‘Memory Prying’ has been added to Verdant Skin!

  That was a relief, knowing Verdant skin could even do something like that. Now that the memories weren't messing his mind up, he could see them again.

  The Undead Treants.

  They still stood all around him. Doing nothing. Thankfully, the words they spoke were no longer ones he knew. They'd become meaningless, once more.

  With a huff, he drew a breath.

  He sat atop a stack of books. Supposedly, those were the only things real in this place. It was entirely possible that space wasn’t real here. Perhaps he’d been running around in circles.

  “No way, right?” He chuckled.

  Wring

  All of a sudden, a warning rang in the air. The air quietened down; the vibrations ceased.

  Soon, he too felt it.

  A presence. Something beyond his understanding. A gaze unlike the treants. This gaze was intelligent, and it seemed to pierce into him, at his essence. Trying to see who he was.

  Ashes rained down on him like a snowfall.

  Just like yesterday. When that immense figure rose to call the treants back, he had seen the same. Her placid gaze…he felt it on himself again.

  Her?

  Was this place her domain? Or perhaps, this entire forest of memories…was her?

  That only made sense, since she was their mother figure.

  A cold sensation enveloped him.

  Could she see his memories? Perhaps she had even brought him here? To see through his memories? He deactivated ‘I see through it’ and let his sixth sense do the talking.

  The wind vibrated, and from the darkness, a figure of a woman rose.

  Well, half a woman.

  Her upper half was like that of a woman, while her lower half was a tree stub with roots and tendrils. She dragged her roots along the ground, stepping over the corpses of her own kin.

  Swarm mother —???

  Not the immense, colossal thing of yesterday. She was the same size as a human woman. Thankfully, fortitude helped him not lose his shit, even against her.

  When he’d walked into this forest, he’d assumed she was here somewhere. After all, she was the Swarm mother, the boss of the treants. He just hoped he would be too insignificant for her to give a visit.

  Unfortunately, she did.

  And the timing of her visit was diabolical. His clothes were too torn, muscles shredded, and blood layers coated around his heart. In conclusion, he was a real mess.

  What a terrible first impression.

  “You run well.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  She circled him, examining him like an animal in a zoo. The gaze he would send at someone if he thought they had a screw or two loose.

  With a big smile on his face, he lied. “Swarm mother, I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  “You do not lie well.” She smiled back chillingly, lips distorting to reveal rows of tendrils, making his blood run cold.

  “It's true!” He hastily denied.

  That day, when Raka was taken, he’d sensed her gaze too. Back then, She had perhaps also been looking at him strangely, watching him holding onto a chain as if his life depended on it.

  “I wanted to thank you for giving Raka life. And for saving me! I owe my life to you.”

  Part of it was true. The giving Raka life part, at least, that he was rather grateful for.

  “You are not as uncouth as you appear.” She smiled and continued to circle him. “Why refrain from using the power that is inside you?”

  He gave her a blank look.

  What power? The power of mental instability and bad jokes?

  Until his foggy brain cleared up.

  She was talking about the ‘cursed weapon’ inside of him. He’d forgotten about it. He wanted to forget about it.

  So...why’d he not use it?

  “Because this is a second chance at life for me,” he declared. “Eldera is my chance to find a new footing. To start clean.”

  Liar, he snarked at himself.

  But if she could parse through his memories like a book…she had seen his memories, and these lies would seem real.

  The truth was...he knew what would happen if he used the sphere. It would make the Treants more manic. He would be attacked from everywhere. Using it here would ensure a fast death.

  “This time, I want to be there for my family, and—and have the people I love beside me. No amount of power is…worth throwing all that.”

  He laughed inside.

  He’d chosen Red Rager, knowing he’d find no salvation even in this world. He was lying, and yet his chest felt lighter saying it, like the words had been waiting in his throat for years.

  Family? People he loved? Having them all?

  Sounded like a pipe dream to him.

  But maybe she would believe him. It sounded convenient. Real.

  “I don’t want to be an outcast again. All my life, I had to pay the price for a single mistake. I don’t—I don’t want to have to run away anymore because of another.”

  What a pretentious bastard! He was just conveniently finding excuses. But this time, he was bound to be caught, right? He stared away. Avoiding her playful, judging gaze.

  “Life doesn’t unfold the way you seek it to. It gives you fixed options.” She shook her head, “A nexus of choices. Boxes to follow, one or another. And regardless of what you choose, the outcome remains the same.”

  Surprised, Zayn finally found the courage to stare directly. On her alien face, he caught a hint of lingering sadness.

  He didn’t know much about her, but he could infer things based on what he knew.

  Perhaps, amongst the figures involved, she was the most pitiable one.

  She led Sage away because she didn’t want him and Fae to go to war. She hated war and wanted to hide in this jungle. But the Fae attacked anyway, and led themselves all into ruin. Both her lover and her race were stuck here inside.

  How could she not blame herself…for it?

  “If all choices lead to bad outcomes,” she asked, “What would you choose?”

  Zayn grew silent.

  He knew how that was. The grass seemed greener on the other side. Back then, he thought running away would fix his life. But nothing changed. He’d been stuck at the same place.

  Shrugging, he declared to her face, “If there are no good choices, I will make one myself.”

  This was the only truth he'd spoken.

  He stared at her without a hint of fear, waiting...

  Sensing his conviction, she nodded, “Very well then.”

  The black void was torn off like a page of a book, revealing the greenery beyond. The door back to the real world was in front of him.

  A faint relief washed over him.

  He didn’t rush out. He asked the most pressing question in his mind, “Is there a way for me to get Raka back?”

  Unlike him, it had crossed the threshold and stepped into the abyss. Inside those realms of horror. He’d not understood the gravity of that. Not until now.

  “I can’t help you get it back. It piqued the interest of certain beings in the abyss,” she replied. “But maybe ‘he’ can.”

  He frowned, “The Stone Sage?”

  She nodded.

  Relieved, he stumbled forward, his body nearly giving out. Although she held no malice, meeting someone so beyond him put a strain on him.

  Yet, before he walked out, he remembered something and halted.

  He scanned the treants in the surrounding area.

  “By the way,” a silly grin rose on his face. “You wouldn’t mind if I beat them up a bit, right?”