The jungle held its breath.
Lin Moyan knelt in the ruins of the Oracle's chamber, fingers digging into soil still warm from the great root's retreat. The air tasted different now - less like rotting vegetation, more like the crisp aftermath of lightning. The change unsettled him more than any monster ever could.
Jian Luo groaned beside him, rolling onto his back. Black veins still pulsed beneath his skin, but the corruption had frozen mid-spread. "Did we win?" he croaked, staring at his trembling hands. "Or just piss it off?"
Haiyu said nothing. She crouched over the Oracle's remains, broken wrist cradled against her chest. With her good hand, she brushed aside fragments of ashen mask to reveal what lay beneath - a silver seed no larger than a plum pit, its surface etched with spirals that hurt to look at for too long.
Moyan's journal lay open beside them, pages blank. All his sketches, his notes, years of careful observations - gone. Only Nyxara's name remained, burned into the final page like a brand.
The Rootheart stirred in his spine, its voice thin and frayed. The seed is both lock and key. She carried it in her heart for centuries.
The jungle had gone still.
No wind stirred the canopy. No insects buzzed in the undergrowth. Even their footsteps fell strangely muted against the moss. The Verdant Abyss was holding its breath, waiting to see what they would do next.
Jian Luo limped ahead, movements uncoordinated. Every few steps, his form flickered - solid one moment, translucent the next. "I remember things," he muttered, pressing a hand to his temple. "Not mine. A village by the sea. A woman singing. A child with your eyes, Moyan." His voice broke. "Why do I remember your son?"
Haiyu's hands moved in sharp signs. The Serpent's stories are unraveling. Its lies are becoming truths.
Moyan clutched the silver seed. It pulsed faintly, matching his heartbeat. Visions came unbidden:
A man with Kainan's scars burying something in the black soil of the Maw.
A girl with Haiyu's smile weaving vines into a crown.
A version of himself old and bent, whispering to the roots in a forgotten language.
The path ahead split in three directions, each marked by different horrors:
The Bone Trail - strewn with skeletal remains wearing Moyan's face, their fingers clutching rusted gravity knives.
The Weeping Grove - where trees bore fruit shaped like human hearts, pulsing in sync with Jian Luo's erratic breathing.
The Silent Path - perfectly cleared, perfectly empty, winding toward a distant light that hurt to look upon.
Jian Luo laughed, the sound too loud in the hush. "Choices, choices." He pointed to the bone trail. "That one's got your name on it, Warden."
Haiyu shook her head violently. The silent path is worse. That's where it wants us to go.
The seed burned in Moyan's grip. It wasn't guiding them. It was testing them.
They chose the weeping grove.
The moment they stepped beneath the first blood-fruit tree, Jian Luo collapsed. His scream tore through the unnatural silence as his body arched off the ground, suspended by invisible threads.
"Make it stop!" he begged, clawing at his chest where the harvester's acid had struck. "It's rewriting me again—"
The truth unfolded in terrible clarity:
Jian Luo had never been real. Not truly. A construct of the Serpent, yes - but more than that. He was a possibility. A version of Lin Kainan's first apprentice who might have lived, had the cycles been kinder. A ghost given flesh and purpose.
Now, with the Serpent's hold weakened, he was unraveling.
Haiyu moved first. She pressed her palm against Jian Luo's heaving chest, fingers splayed over his racing heart. Her hands shaped words against his skin: Remember this.
Then she kissed him.
Not like lovers. Like a mother sealing a promise. Like a Warden passing the torch.
Jian Luo gasped as something settled in his bones. The flickering slowed. The screaming stopped. When he opened his eyes, they were wholly, undeniably his again.
"Fuck," he breathed, staring at Haiyu with dawning horror. "You knew. This whole time, you knew what I was."
Haiyu's smile was sad and sharp. I knew what you could be.
The grove ended at a cliff's edge.
Below them stretched the heart of the Verdant Abyss - not the tangled jungle they knew, but a vast, pulsing network of roots radiating from a central nexus. The World Will in its true form: a living mandala etched into the planet's flesh.
And at its center, standing ankle-deep in black water, was Lin Kainan.
Moyan's father looked up as if he'd been waiting. His gravity staff was broken, its halves floating beside him like loyal hounds. His lips shaped a single word:
Late.
The silver seed in Moyan's hand burst into flame. Not the fire of destruction - the clean burn of revelation.
The final choice was upon them.