The weeping moon drenched the skies red. Below it lay a godless desert, where blew a sickly wind which sang dead songs and reeked of rot and broken dreams. And in these lonely dunes, two colossal figures wrestled each other in a clash across time and space.

  Faeria sank knee-deep into the sand as she jumped down the slope. With a swift twist, she kneed the ape square in its magma laden face. And then, with haste, completed a combo of devastating strikes.

  The ape was thrown back, stunned as it lay on the desert floor. Its immense, cracked body was buried beneath the sand, making the sand burn. As it stretched upright again, dust flew around.

  A pair of incandescent, wrathful eyes met her chilly gaze.

  She slid down, prepared to give it another round of beating.

  The golem tilted its massive head upwards and opened its mouth wide. Bellowing so loud that it rolled across the desert in waves, vibrating through the loose, hot sand beneath Faeria’s feet.

  Not a roar of dominance, but the cry of wounded prey. Underneath the false bravado, its fear leaked out of the cracks and wafted out, too easy to taste.

  Her unreliable, fragmented memories relayed that they’d met at least a few dozen moons, under the same cursed skies. Though in many of these, she wouldn’t be fighting it, letting the contestant who awakened her handle this pesky thing.

  In her foolishness, she would think herself a match for the Stone Sage, blind and unaware of the reality.

  This cycle was different. Somehow, Zayn absorbing the cursed thing early had allowed her to awaken the memories of the past cycles—all of them.

  The shadow of her cape stretched down the dune, drenching the sand as it went. From that pregnant shadow rose vines that resembled the arteries of a festering, dead god, knotting together until they formed a titanic, rotting whip.

  Bracing herself against the shifting wind, Faeria raised the whip overhead and swung it down in a wide arc, like the blade of an executioner. The strike landed on ape’s exposed shoulder, tearing into the already cracked stone, sending loose boulders and rotting wood flying.

  The golem planted one arm into the desert and bellowed again. The land responded, pillars of molten lava erupted around it, bursting from beneath the sand and shooting towards her with the velocity of a mana cannon.

  Pathetic.

  That same attack tactic had failed already. Once. Twice. Too many times to count. Yet it still insisted on using it.

  Her form dissolved into the shadows of the dune, causing the pillars to slam into empty air and strike each other, the resulting impact booming in the air.

  In the earlier moons, the golem could barely think beyond its instincts. Now it had the fighting instincts of a toddler. Not scary when phrased in that manner, but the implication was that it was close to developing a full consciousness. That was why it had preferences and tactics. Albeit that made it weaker. For now.

  Sensing she had vanished, it looked around with anger and roared again.

  Emerging from the ape’s shadow, Faeria launched herself upward and twisted hard, driving her knee straight into the golem’s face. It dropped down, its head submerged under the sand. She battered it where it stung. Elbows, shoulders, wrists. The heavily protected parts were destroyed one by one, revealing what lay beneath.

  Less than circuits, they had grown to resemble veins and arteries.

  “You seek to be a living thing?” She shut them down one after another, making it harder for mana to travel through and heal its injuries. “Your audacity proved to be your bane.”

  When it tried to push itself upright, Faeria braced both feet against its chest and kicked it down with devastating force, sending dust flying hundreds of meters high. “Stay down, I am not done with you.” She snorted, then, one by one, she ripped out magma thorns from its body. Not caring about the damage it did to her hands.

  Vines crept out and wrapped around her, fixing her melted hand with fresh mass. With [TreeLink], she established a psychic connection to the inverted forest, allowing her to summon its power freely through her umbral realm, freer than ever before.

  The side effect of such unchecked power was that she had to listen to unintelligible, obsessive ravings of the lost ones. To claim that thousands of weeping voices weren’t affecting her adversely would be to shroud herself in falsehood.

  She swung the spikes down in a vile temper, piercing through the golem's body as a nail would through dead wood. Out fell molten rock. One by one, she tore holes in its body, uncaring of its resistance. Her Shadows grew deeper, whispering into her ear of her failure.

  Of her surrendering herself to fate. That she lost against the sage not once, not twice, but many times, that was her punishment. This time, she lost without fighting.

  They taunted her for running away.

  But her own crumbling subconscious couldn’t falter her. The shame she would bear if that would save her race. She would carry the dishonour as her badge if it would let Fae rise once more. That was what it meant to be named Faeria—the protector of Fae.

  The ape tried to put up a final struggle, whining in pain, almost roaring out broken words. Its magma body attempted to Steel Hard once more, trying to create a shell around its body. Too bad, that wouldn’t help it stand and fight.

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  She let it harden up.

  What was one more round of beating to her?

  She wasn’t done with it anyway.

  From the fractured desert floor where shadows and sand entangled, more vines erupted. Coiling up her legs, spine, and shoulders. Slithery things that added mass to her already massive body. A new burst of otherworldly strength fortified her.

  The curse had not only twisted the Fae into treants, but it had also given birth to their own version of a world tree.

  A twisted prototype of it, something that called herself the Swarm Mother.

  She suspected she knew who 'she' was, but that 'she' had refused to come to face her. The coward, always watching from the side.

  She snorted. In her hands, she forged the Ironwyrm Spear and planted her feet wide on the golem’s chest. With both hands, she drove it down repeatedly, right on its chest. A crack appeared as she kept slamming, each strike deepening it further.

  Living thing, it would like to be, but it was not. Still a golem that worked on a central core. Once she detached the core, it would fall like a doll without strings.

  Just as she was about to succeed in cracking it, an ear-splitting explosion scattered her thoughts.

  The ravings grew louder, inconsistent, before filling her mind with an endless burning pain. Mournful wailings. She looked at the ape in confusion.

  The stone ape was immobilised so that it couldn’t have attacked. “How?”

  Before she could make sense of it, a thunderous noise struck her insides once more, radiating into a pain around her chest. Thanks to [TreeLink], she felt it clearly this time.

  The pain of being burnt for millennia. The curse. It all returned.

  She hit the ground hard, rolling as the fire tore through her sides. Frothing, she looked at her sides, much of her conjured body had been blown off, plumes of fire spreading out and demobilising it.

  A figure in red burst out from the smoke, sporting a hateful grin on his dumb face. He shifted his gaze at her and smirked like a winner. “The plans have changed a bit, Madam—no, General Faeria, thank you for your generous help.” He ripped off a scroll.

  “You!”

  From the depths of the desert, an immense pillar of root rose...and missed her.

  Missed? He missed?

  She looked at him in confusion, and found that he had raised both his middle fingers towards her, repeating the words she said to him, “You have done enough.”

  She swung her arm out to stop the madman, but the residual pain of the burn messed her up and immobilised her body. He leapt and climbed down, landing right atop the ape’s face. The way the stupid thing stared at the boy, it was just as surprised as her.

  Hidden within its surprise was a bit of hope and glee.

  Faeria got a terrible feeling that wormed and festered within her.

  What did he plan to do? There was…no way. Even for him, that’s mad.

  “Long time no see, ape. You want me inside of you so bad, huh? ” Zayn grinned as he crouched on the ape’s nose, waving his hands at it, “Well, here I am.”

  Next, he did the unthinkable.

  He jumped right inside its mouth.

  ***

  Nine out of ten dentists would claim there was a better way to deal with this than jumping inside the mouth of a monstrous ape. Zayn always believed in those who went against the tide. Even if its mouth had been unwashed for a while.

  To be fair, he had really been given no good options.

  On one hand, he could let Faeria do whatever she wanted. Fool him, imprison him, and take him to her race with the help of the teleportation crystal, if her claim about her race… was even true, which he had no way to verify. Much of her plan required him to just ‘trust’ her, and yet throughout the whole thing, she acted mysteriously.

  Enclosing him within her shadow dimension was the final nail in the coffin.

  At least the Stone Ape had a much simpler and more primal motive.

  Hunger.

  To be whole by devouring the Sphere inside of him. Understandable. After all, who wouldn’t want to fill the void inside of them?

  He even appreciated the straightforwardness.

  Understanding was one thing, nobody fancied being a happy meal, so he made a third plan!

  He would do this his own way, get the ultimate weapon, leave this hellish dungeon on his own terms.

  Sliding down the throat of the Ape, he was immediately struck with the smell of petrichor, something he was gradually getting used to. The liquid magma attempted its best to fry him, but with Dryadic Physiology, it was far from a real problem. His healing so far was sufficient to push back the burn.

  ‘I See Through It’ helped make it manageable, too. He could see exactly where the magma ran rampant, avoiding the areas with too much fiery mana.

  Being crisped by fire was the worst way to die, after all.

  With Dryadic Physiology, it would be a slow process. He would feel it as the heat slowly cook him from the inside, while his body kept adapting, but eventually it would be too much, burning him from inside and out.

  Nope. That was no way to go.

  He jumped down the slope. Sliding through the cracked, magma-lidden esophagus. The hardest part of it all? The stench, it burned. And that the ape’s body was convulsing from the inside. Like a real thing.

  He free-fell up and down like an out-of-control rollercoaster. Thankfully, the bloodmetal chain-hooks anchored him well enough. Stopping him from being swatted around like a fly.

  Huffing, he stared down the running rivers of magma.

  Being such a colossal thing, the ape’s veins and arteries—mere imitations of real things—were equivalent to great manholes of earth. Making use of the inertia, he launched himself down.

  It was similar to climbing down a steep mountain, with his metal hooks supporting him downwards.

  Good news in all of this was that his talent was almost there. Not yet formed, but it was already beginning to show its power. He didn’t have to specify which shapes to conjure. He already had some “presets” saved within, such as ‘Chains’, ‘Sword’, and ‘Spear’. That made things much easier on the mind.

  Eventually, when he reached closer to the heart, he realised there was no way to avoid the magma. All the paths that led into its heart had magma flowing into them.

  As he jumped down, his skin cracked immediately, and an immense amount of pain almost knocked him unconscious. Teeth gritted, he persisted through it, swimming in.

  The heat injected into his veins, slow cooking him. His blood ate the heat up, cells adapting every second, burning with tiny motes of digestible fire that quenched onto each other, until it grew sufficient to fight back.

  Feat unlocked! Greater Flame resistance!

  The continuous pressure worked well for the flame resistance, bringing it up to 50%. But that didn’t really help with the magma splashes and fire.

  ‘Undying cockroach’ active!

  Thankfully, he reached the heart before turning into human barbecue. He jumped inside its heart, bracing himself upright. Everything here was glittering, crystallised pieces of rock. He scanned the insides—the walls of it, through it, and found a glowing pulse inside.

  Unlike the human heart, there were no compartments here, only an incredibly massive chamber.

  High up, there was…a hovering, churning ball of mana, like the cursed sphere. Just way larger.

  It rotated like a planet on its own axis, making mana in the air shift in a peculiar, weird spiral that resonated with him.

  Yellow cheered, urging to be let out. To allow it to devour.

  He exhaled a flame mana-infused breath.

  There were so many ways…this could go wrong, but…what other choice did he have, now that things had come to this?

  Letting yellow rise to the sphere, he allowed them to merge into one. His eyes shone in curiosity as he muttered, “Devour.”