Chương 125: The Fate of the World Tree

He had been putting off the trip to Rarohenga for too long, and it was time to address the Devotion problem. It took a couple of hours for the pillar city surrounded by snow to appear in Joe's sights. As it did, this time he saw the bubble shimmer and an opening form. Joe shook his head as he guided his skyboat inside. He knew they had a means to see outside the bubble. He didn't even warn them he was coming today. He still didn't like Devotion at all, but sometimes you had to tolerate those you didn't like.

He couldn't go around ousting people from power that he didn't like. Sometimes the devil you knew was better than the devil you didn't. Joe's skyboat approached the palace toward the centre of the city and touched down just outside it, right next to the patch of grass and trees that held the World Tree. As he touched down, he decided to not put his skyboat away and left it floating just above the paved area as he leapt from the side. He landed lightly as a group of five figures in white robes approached him slowly.

He stood at ease as he scanned the surroundings. There were no signs of the fight he had initiated all those months ago, and everything was clean and pristine.

"Greetings, Progenitor," a bearded man said with a bow. Joe identified him before returning the bow.

"Greetings, Pietr."

"May we ask what brings you to our city today?" Pietr asked. Joe let out a long breath. Was he really going to do this? He still was not sure it was a good idea. But with all the other troubles he had to deal with, it would be one less pressure on his shoulders. He rubbed his forehead once before he decided to just get it over and done with.

"I came to pass ownership of the Tree to Devotion," he said. As if summoned by the mere mention of his name, Devotion appeared between the pair, bowing on one knee.

"Progenitor. Sorry for my late arrival. But… Did you mean what you just said?" Devotion said, his voice trembling slightly.

"Yes," Joe replied simply.

"Thank you. Your choice will be remembered forever," Devotion sprang to his feet, his pristine robes fluttering around him. Joe tried not to roll his eyes at the ornately inscribed robes.

"Let's go," Joe turned and started to walk toward the World Tree. Devotion was immediately at his side, walking in stride. As the pair approached the grass and Joe stepped forward, Devotion was forced to stop as the aura of the tree prevented him from approaching. Joe returned to his side and held out his arm.

"Sorry, forgot about that. Just hold my arm, and you'll be able to approach." Devotion pulled out a pair of black gloves and pulled them onto his hands before he lightly held Joe's arm. Joe sighed as the pair continued forward and walked into the trees surrounding the World Tree.

"Progenitor," Devotion began.

"Have you ever considered your faith?"

"Not particularly," Joe said, sensing he was about to receive an unwarranted lecture of some sort.

"You really should consider attending our mass on Sundays. You would find it very spiritually stimulating. I can assure you…" Joe closed his eyes as Devotion started to talk endlessly about his religion.

"So as you see. Religion is really the key to true enlightenment and has helped all who bask in the light attain…" Devotion's mumblings came to an abrupt end as they stepped into the small clearing around the tree. Devotion fell to his knees and bowed his head. Unfortunately, he also let go of Joe's arm, so he soon began to shudder as the aura of the tree weighed down on him. Joe quickly touched the man's shoulder and relieved him of the overwhelming pressure.

"Tha… you," Devotion stammered as he climbed to his feet. Joe shook his head as he escorted the man the rest of the way. As they reached the tree, Joe was a little unsure how to pass his role to Devotion.

"Erm, maybe just try touching it?" he guessed. Devotion took a deep breath before he extended his hand and touched the World Tree. Nothing amazing happened. No fanfare, no fireworks. But Joe felt his small connection with the tree vanish, replaced by a growing push against his mind. The tree was telling him to leave, so he did. He glanced at Devotion, who was transfixed on the tree and didn't even notice as Joe stepped back and vanished.

He reappeared back just outside the grassy area and lightly stepped onto the paved stones.

"Progenitor. Where is the saint?" Three men asked as they ran up to him. Joe waved a hand toward the tree.

"He's fine. He's still in there with the tree," Joe quickly made his way back toward his boat.

"My job here is done. I'll be taking my leave now." With that done, Joe didn't waste any time, as he boarded his skyboat and flew his way out of Rarohenga, heading back… As he did, he paused, bringing his skyboat to a halt high up in the sky. He felt something north, far to the north, deep into the frozen tundra. Something had recently appeared there. He felt it, a sense of something filled with mana and something else. He didn't know what it was, so he changed course and started to fly north. Looking for answers.

__ Maggie raised a hand as she crawled through the snow, pushing against the tremendous winds buffeting her. She was wrapped from head to toe in thick winter wear, her face covered in a large visor, with a long scarf wrapped around her hair.

"Are you sure we're getting close?" A voice crackled over the communicator in her ear. Her husband, Morgan, was crawling beside her.

"It should be right over this last hill," she replied through the mouthpiece stuck to her cheek. She hoped she was right, but since they lost their vehicle and its sensors, she had no idea how far they actually were from the location they had been searching for. She also had no idea where they were at all. The pair crawled forward, slowly pulling themselves through the snow drifts until, after a very very long time they crested the hill Maggie had mentioned.

As if passing through an invisible barrier, the pair felt the winds vanish. They were suddenly surrounded by total calm and silent air.

"Wha?" Morgan groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. He turned around to see a wall of clouds right behind him and his wife.

"Whoa. Look at that!" he pointed at the clouds in awe.

"This is unbelievable," Maggie said as she pulled her visor off and gazed at their surroundings. It looked like they were inside a huge circle of roiling stormy clouds that formed a wall all around them.

"Is this the eye of the storm?" she asked in wonder.

"Oh. That might be it. Does that mean we made it?" Morgan asked, pulling off his own visor. With no more winds slamming against them the temperature was now much more manageable. It no longer felt like he might lose a finger at any moment. As he turned to look upon the area before them he caught his breath at the sight. He frantically pulled at his wife's arm, trying to get her to see what he was seeing.

"What is it?" Maggie complained as she finally saw what he saw. They stood on the edge of an expansive field of frozen fauna. As far as the eye could see was an ocean of ice crystals in the shape of different flowers and plants.

"Are… Are these real?" she muttered as she knelt down and reached a gloved hand out to touch the nearest ice sculpture. It was solid beneath her touch and it moved like a plant would. She blinked in confusion at the weird sight. It was covered in ice and looked frozen, but it felt like it wasn't. She could even bend the stem without it shattering. She pulled off her glove to get a better feel of the plant.

"Darling. This is amazing," She said in awe.

"They feel so soft and warm. You have to touch them. Look!" she gently rolled one of the petals in her hand and an almost intoxicating aroma washed over her. She immediately passed out as her husband caught her falling body.

"Maggie! Maggie! What happened?!?" Morgan exclaimed as he pulled her body back and gently laid her on the snow. He checked the pulse at her neck, which was still beating strong and breathed out in relief. It took about five minutes before Maggie blinked awake holding her head.

"What happened?" she asked in a slurred tone.

"You passed out when you smelled the flower. Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?" Morgan waved his hand before her as he gently rubbed her back.

"Three. I'm fine," Maggie assured him as she took a deep breath.

"I remember now. The smell was just a little overwhelming. Come here." She pulled her husband's face closer to hers and kissed him. It took her a moment to understand what she was doing as she quickly pushed him off, her eyes widening.

"Why did I do that?" she gasped as she stared down at the flowers that swayed gently nearby.

"Erm. Are you sure you're okay? I can't remember that last time you kissed me that passionately," Morgan said in surprise.

"No. I mean yes. I mean. Oh I don't know. I think it was the flower," she said.

"The flower?" Morgan moved closer to examine the flower.

"Don't smell it!" Maggie warned. Morgan waved her off.

"I know what I'm doing," he said, leaning closer. He did not know what he was doing, as a strange overwhelming smell assaulted his senses and he slumped unconscious to the ground.

"Idiot!" It took Morgan almost ten minutes before he woke up to an unimpressed stare from his wife. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"What?" he drawled.

"I barely smelt the damn thing." Maggie tutted at him as she stood up and raised a hand. A couple gardening tools appeared in her palm and she crouched down to begin inspecting the strange fauna. She was soon joined by her husband, as they pulled out gas masks and began collecting samples. The duo worked for the next few hours at the edge of the field, collecting twenty different samples before Maggie stood up, staring at the centre of the eye of the storm.

She saw a cloud forming, that shimmered with an oppressive aura.

"Morgan. What is that?" she asked. Her husband got up and the pair gazed at the cloud forming about half a mile from their position. After a couple minutes, the cloud started to condense and a strange wraith-like figure began to form. This brought alarm bells blaring inside Maggie's head as her danger sense skill blasted at her to run. She turned frantically to warn her husband, but he was already moving. He scooped her up and began to run toward the cloud wall.

Thankfully, they had only ventured a few hundred metres into the field of fauna, but with the alarms ringing in her head she couldn't help but feel a sense of dread at how far the cloud wall was.

"Faster!" she screamed as her husband ran as fast as he could. But before they reached the edge, the cloud wall shimmered and a tall cloak covered man walked out of the wall before them. She activated Identify, but only two question marks came back.

"Monster!!!" She screamed as the unidentifiable being before her turned its gaze upon them. __ Joe stared at the man running toward him with a screaming woman in his arms. This was not what he expected to find in the middle of a storm. But his gaze quickly left the terrified pair and focused on the thing that gave off no aura at all at the centre of the field. It looked like a frozen ghost, floating slowly toward him.

Even though he felt no aura from it, he could see massive amounts of mana pouring from it like a mini storm. Its clouded eyes focused on the pair running in the field and it seemed to not have noticed him yet. He cursed as the man switched direction and started to run eastward away from him and the ghost. The ghost continued to follow at a strangely slow pace.

"Wait! Stop running!" Joe shouted. The man, shocked by his words, skidded to a halt and stared at him while shaking with fear. Joe pulled off the large hooded jacket he wore and quickly removed his crown. He noticed that as soon as the man stopped moving, the ghost also stopped.

"Identify me now!" The man's eyes widened, and the woman finally stopped screaming as they identified him.

"Progenitor!" The man shouted, turning to move toward Joe.

"Stop!!! Don't move!" he warned as the ghost shifted. It wasn't close to them, but he had the unsettling feeling that it could strike at them even from where it floated.

"Whatever you do. Do not move!" he warned once more as he approached the field of… ice flowers? As he neared the edge, he knelt and, without taking his eye from the ghost, he touched one of the flowers. The ghost ever so subtly looked his way before turning back to the pair. Shit! He took a deep breath. Trying to think. Using his Farmer's Sight, he could see three thick threads of mana connecting the ghost to the flower field and the storm around them.

He also saw a much smaller thread of mana connecting the pair to the ghost. This was why he told them to stop. He didn't know what they had done to connect them to the ghost, but it didn't seem to be completely sentient. He saw no anger in its dead eyes. He felt no aura. So maybe it wasn't alive, but something else? He started walking around the edge of the field, approaching the pair. He sent them a party invite, which they accepted almost immediately. [First of all, don't panic. I don't think you are in immediate danger, as long as you don't move. Are you both okay? Do you feel anything strange right now?] - Joe. It took the man a little while to figure out how to reply while Joe examined the area around them. [Erm. We are fine. What is going on? Can you help us? Will that thing attack if we move?] - Morgan. [I'm not sure. Can you tell me everything that happened and how you got here?] - Joe.

Morgan exchanged a look with the woman in his arms before he told Joe everything that had happened that led them to their current predicament. They were both survivors from New Eden, a Botanist and an Ecologist. He explained that since the fall of New Eden, they had set out to explore this new world and build a new home for themselves. [Then my wife felt a calling. Her botany skill activated, and she felt a massive emergence, here, in the storm. Unfortunately, we crashed our vehicle and were stranded here for three days. We only just made it to the eye of the storm and found this.] - Morgan. Joe nodded. So it was similar to the reason he was here, which made sense. [Okay. I've been examining the mana in the air, and I think I have an idea of what is going on. I think it's because of the samples you took. I don't think that thing will let you leave with them.] - Joe. Joe pointed at the icy wraith. [But these samples are important. The plants here are amazingly dense with healing energy and other types of mana. Just being here, I've already levelled up once. We can't just leave the samples.] - Maggie. Maggie was the botanist, which explained her trepidation. Joe continued to point at the wraith. [That thing won't let you leave. It's connected to your shoulder. Unless you have a way to remove its mark on you both, you have no choice.] - Joe. He added the mark bit, but he spoke honestly.

The wraith was only targeting them; it completely ignored him as long as he stayed out of the field. [Can't you kill it?] - Maggie. Joe sighed. [Why should I? It has done nothing except guard this field. You are the ones stealing from it.] - Joe. He watched as the pair started to argue. Morgan agreed with Joe and wanted to return the samples and just leave. But Maggie did not. While they discussed whether or not to return the stolen plants, Joe focused completely on the wraith.

He wondered how cognizant it was about what was going on. Maybe he should just kill it. But for some reason, he was hesitant. He wasn't wrong in thinking that this creature had done nothing wrong; it simply existed here, and they were the invaders to its territory. So he felt a little bad for it. [We will return the samples.] - Morgan. Well, the decision was made now. Maybe they could talk to it or bargain with it. Or…

As Morgan pulled out a container filled with samples, the wraith suddenly screamed in rage as an unbelievable aura erupted, and it charged toward the pair. The explosion of aura was so sudden, so all encompassing, that even with his absurd stats, even with his razor sharp reaction speed. Joe barely had time to twitch as Morgan's body was sliced in half by a frozen swipe from the wraith. Maggie didn't even have time to scream as she was knocked into the air, as her husband's body exploded and covered her in blood.

In the next moment, Joe's arms wrapped around her as his barding sprang up around them. But it was too slow. A second swipe slammed into the still-forming skill, which exploded from the force as the massive spectral claw slammed into Joe's back. Somehow the claws didn't pierce his skin, but the pair were sent hurtling through the air and crashed into the ground at the centre of the field. Joe rolled his shoulder, and they bounced up into the air. His Mana Stream pulsing out and wrapping around Maggie.

As he blinked, the wraith was suddenly right in front of his face. He felt the warm breath hit his cheek as it reached out and tried to snap the woman's neck. Joe's Mana Stream reacted, pulsing a bubble of purple which streamed out, reinforcing the area around Maggie's neck as the wraith's claws wrapped around her. It was too late to Space-Jump away. He would only drag the thing along with them, so Joe punched out with a mana-coated fist.

His punch slammed into an almost immovable object as the wraith ignored him entirely, its claws digging into the mana bubble and pressing closer to Maggie's neck. Joe roared as his aura exploded out, forcing the wraith to recoil and finally look up at him, as if only noticing him for the first time. With its claw knocked free, Joe vanished, reappearing a short distance away. The wraith didn't immediately attack, so he quickly wrapped himself and the puking woman to his chest with his barding.

He used a bubble from his Mana Stream to send the puke away before he turned his attention to the mana thread connecting her and the Wraith. But before he could try to remove it the wraith unexpectedly spoke.

"It took from me. Give me back," The wraith's voice echoed out eerily.

"Okay. We will return the plants. Just don't attack!" Joe replied. [Maggie. I know you're in pain and in shock. But can you take out the samples you took? Please.] - Joe. He begged the sobbing woman to act, but she just wrapped herself up into a ball and cried. Fuck!

"No!" the wraith yelled.

"Life for life! No return. Give it!" Its claw pointed at the bundle where Maggie clung to him. Shit.

"Can we trade? I can help restore the life of your plants. I have the ability," Joe tried to bargain, tried desperately to buy time. He could fight it… but not while shielding her. Not like this. The wraith hovered, trembling with rage, mana pouring off it in thick waves. The feeling that negotiation might not be possible began to sink in.

"Life for life!" the wraith repeated. The words echoed through Joe's mind, heavy and final. A sinking certainty settled in his chest, this thing wasn't going to let them both leave alive. He carefully tried to shift Maggie onto his back, but that was the wrong move. The wraith shrieked and lunged. Joe Space-Jumped on instinct, vanishing in a puff of snow as frozen claws ripped past him. The wraith wasn't deterred as it gave chase as soon as Joe reappeared. It was fast, too fast.

His barding was shredded in seconds, torn apart like paper, and the wraith reached for Maggie again.

"Wait!! Take me!!" Joe shouted, kicking desperately at the grasping claws. To his shock, the wraith stopped. Joe didn't dare hesitate a moment. He surged to the edge of the field and a little roughly, set Maggie down, placing her beyond the frozen flora. She collapsed, still sobbing, barely aware of what was happening.

"Life for Life!!!" The wraith screamed the instant Joe released Maggie, and it attacked. The battle erupted in a blur of motion. At first, Joe was forced entirely onto the defensive. The wraith's speed was overwhelming, every movement a flicker of frozen death. None of its attacks pierced his skin, which was a small mercy, but every unblocked blow still sent jolts of agony through him. It hit like a siege engine wrapped in ice. If this continued, he would lose.

Not immediately, but eventually it would wear him down. So he stopped holding back. He pulled out his quarterstaff, the wood humming as his swing carved a vicious arc through the air, forcing the wraith to leap back for the first time. Seizing the opening, Joe tried to plant seeds beneath it… Nothing happened. His skill failed. The shock stole a fraction of a second from him, and the wraith capitalized. A spectral claw slammed into his shoulder, sending him tumbling across the frozen ground.

As he rolled, Joe forced himself to look, not with his eyes, but with his sight. What he saw made his stomach tighten. The ground inside the field was dead, no mana, nothing. As if the land itself had been drained dry of all life. That explained why he couldn't plant any seeds. There was no connection to nature here. Joe shifted his weight and came to a stop, planting his staff against the ice as he pushed himself upright. His grip tightened. Looks like he'd have to do this the hard way.

With his quarterstaff skill flowing at full strength, Joe began to find his footing in the fight and was no longer forced into constant defense, but he still couldn't land a single clean strike. The wraith moved in a way that defied prediction, its motion unreadable, making the fight feel like battling a fish underwater where every swing passed through empty space. Mana blasts missed their mark, mana waves were ignored, and his staff struck nothing but air.

He would have started to believe he was fighting a corporeal vision if not for the fact that its attacks carried undeniable weight and pain. At least he was no longer being overwhelmed, but he realized grimly that he might be forced to sustain this battle for longer than he had imagined. Though the thought of such a prolonged struggle filled him with frustration. He did not want endurance, he needed a way to hit it.

He began resorting to every dirty trick he could think of, kicking up gouts of snow, deliberately targeting the surrounding plants to provoke the wraith's anger, an act he hated even as he did it, and weaving in as many feints as his footwork allowed. None of it worked. The wraith remained elusive, untouchable, and relentless. So he made the only choice left to him. He dropped his guard completely and let a massive spectral claw slam into his unprotected chest, absorbing the impact as pain ripped through him.

As it struck, he seized the wraith's arm with both hands and finally forced an opening. The cost was brutal, as the claw pierced his skin and white blood splashed from the gouges across his chest, though the wounds were mercifully shallow. Clinging to the wraith, he unleashed everything he had, blasting it at point-blank range with a combined mana wave and aura shout.

The force of the attack was overwhelming, washing his vision in white as the air itself detonated around him and hurled him backward into the roiling storm clouds beyond the field.