The silence broke with a splash.
Lin Moyan jerked his head toward the sound, his newly bonded roots flaring golden along his arm. The clearing waters rippled where something had surfaced—something too large to be Jian Luo.
Haiyu moved first. She shoved the newborn seed into her belt pouch and drew her remaining dagger with her good hand. The blade trembled slightly, its edge still slick with black sap from their earlier fight.
Then—
A hand.
Pale fingers broke the water's surface, grasping for purchase on the crumbling platform's edge. The skin looked wrong—too smooth, too perfect, like fresh bark after rain.
Moyan lunged forward, his muscles screaming in protest. He caught the wrist just as it began to slip back under. The moment his fingers made contact, the roots on his arm blazed so bright they cast shadows across the void.
With a heave, he pulled.
The body that emerged was Jian Luo's—but not. His skin had taken on a silvery sheen, his hair now streaked with living vines that twitched like cat's whiskers. Most startling were his eyes—no longer human, but pools of liquid amber that reflected the fading cosmic light.
He coughed up a mouthful of black water, then grinned. "Miss me?"
The First Change
Jian Luo's transformation became more apparent as he dragged himself onto the platform.
His clothes had dissolved, replaced by what looked like living moss that clung to his body in strategic patches. The harvester acid's corruption was gone—in its place, thin roots threaded beneath his skin, pulsing gently with the same golden light as Moyan's arm.
"You look like shit," Moyan said, helping him up.
Jian Luo barked a laugh. "You should see yourself." He raised a hand, watching as tiny vines sprouted from his fingertips. "Huh. That's new."
Haiyu approached cautiously. Her hands shaped slow, deliberate signs: What do you remember?
Jian Luo's smile faded. He touched his temple, where the black veins had once been darkest. "Everything. And nothing." His voice dropped. "I saw them, Moyan. All the versions of me that came before. Hundreds. Maybe thousands."
The platform shuddered beneath them. Above, the last of the black water drained away, revealing a sky that shouldn't exist—a perfect, starless blue, like the first morning after creation.
The World Remade
They climbed.
What remained of the roots formed a rough staircase upward, its steps uneven but sturdy. With each rise, the changes became more apparent:
The air smelled cleaner, sharper, absent the Abyss's constant rot
The vines that brushed against them no longer bore thorns
Distant birdsong echoed where only silence had lived before
At the surface, they found the Verdant Abyss unrecognizable.
The jungle still stood, but the trees had straightened, their spiraled trunks now growing true toward the new sky. Flowers bloomed where only fungi had grown before, their petals unfolding in real time as if witnessing sunlight for the first time.
Most startling was the light—actual sunlight, filtering through the canopy in warm, buttery shafts.
Jian Luo collapsed to his knees, his silvered skin drinking in the rays. "Is that...?"
"The sun," Moyan finished. His roots tingled in response, as if greeting an old friend.
Haiyu didn't celebrate. She was staring at her broken wrist—where the bones had knit themselves back together, wrapped in thin vines that pulsed gently. Her hands moved slowly: This isn't just healing. It's adaptation.
The Gift and the Cost
They found the first proof an hour later.
Near the clearing where their journey had begun, a sapling had sprouted—impossibly fast, already waist-high. Its leaves were silver, its bark patterned with faint glyphs that matched those on Moyan's arm.
At its base lay Kainan's broken gravity staff.
Jian Luo reached for it, then yanked his hand back. "It's warm."
Moyan didn't need to touch it to know. This was no grave marker. It was a seedbed.
Haiyu's hands trembled as she signed: He's in the roots now. Like Nyxara.
The implications settled over them like falling ash. The Wardens didn't die—they became part of the World Will's memory. Guardians woven into the very fabric of the Abyss.
Jian Luo sat heavily against a nearby tree. "So what happens when—" He gestured to Moyan's rooted arm.
Moyan flexed his fingers, watching the golden light respond. "Not today."
The First Night
As dusk fell (real dusk, with actual stars peeking through the canopy), they made camp near the sapling.
Jian Luo had fashioned a crude spear from a fallen branch, its tip hardened in their small fire. "Still can't believe you lost the journal," he muttered, poking at the flames.
Moyan touched his bare forearm where the roots had settled. "Didn't need it anymore."
Haiyu returned from scouting, her steps silent on the new-grown moss. Her hands moved in quick signs: The Sect's outposts are empty. No bodies. Just... gone.
A chill ran down Moyan's spine. He'd expected ruins, remnants—not this eerie absence.
Jian Luo snorted. "Maybe they turned into trees too."
The joke fell flat.
That night, Moyan dreamed of roots.
Not the invasive, grasping tendrils of the old Abyss, but something quieter. Deeper. In the dream, he stood at the center of a vast network, each thread humming with a different voice—Kainan's stern tones, Nyxara's whispering songs, dozens of others he didn't recognize but somehow knew.
One voice stood apart from the rest. Not part of the chorus. Not yet.
The Serpent's.
It didn't speak. It watched.
Morning's Warning
Dawn came with a sound none of them expected—rain.
Not the acidic downpours of the old Abyss, but clean water that washed the remaining ash from the leaves. Moyan stood beneath it, letting it sluice over his rooted arm. The markings glowed brighter where the drops touched them.
Haiyu pointed east, toward the distant mountains. There, barely visible through the rain, a single thread of black smoke curled into the sky.
Jian Luo squinted. "That's not natural."
Moyan knew. Somewhere out there, in this remade world, something had survived the transformation.
Something that still burned.