The ancient hollow of the Chandelier Tree held its breath.
A palpable tension, thick with the dust of history and the faint, bitter tang of unabsolved guilt, filled the space. Elios couldn't tear his gaze from the old man; his eyes, usually so guarded, now burned with an unquenchable thirst for the rest of the tale.
He wasn't merely a listener anymore; he was a participant, watching the missing prologue to his own very existence unfold.
Flexo stirred, the emerald healing leaves draped over him rustling like a memory. He slowly, painstakingly, opened his eyes, a faint moan escaping his lips. Gracia followed suit a moment later, her breathing deepening into a steady rhythm.
Skylara offered a small, knowing smile, relieved that the initial danger had passed, but a deeper, more profound unease still clung to the air.
THE WEIGHT OF THE TREE
Titan, however, was not one for lingering pleasantries or quiet contemplation. His frustration with the enigmatic healer, a man of such immense, life-giving power who seemed content to simply exist within this arboreal sanctuary, hardened his voice.
"If you're such a great man," Titan challenged, his gaze unwavering, "then why, pray tell, are you wasting away, hiding yourself inside this oversized chandelier? Why does Mynthara even tolerate a living ghost when it so desperately needs a living legend?"
Eliosa didn't flinch. His gaze, ancient and heavy with sorrow, drifted past Titan, settling on Flexo, who was now struggling to sit upright, clutching his side.
A sigh, like sand sifting through time, escaped Eliosa's lips.
"Because of his father," he uttered, the words barely audible, yet they resonated with the weight of an epoch.
The answer hung in the air, a silent, stunning blow. Everyone present instinctively recoiled, their minds scrambling to grasp the implication. The full, agonizing truth, however, remained a sacred, painful burden, known only to Flexo and Eliosa.
Eliosa understood. He owed them the unvarnished, brutal history—the account of the singular man who had shown more raw courage than Eliosa himself had ever mustered on any battlefield.
He resumed his fragmented narrative, plunging them back into the unholy chaos of the Myntharan Rebellion.
RUBBLE RUBBERON'S PART: THE UNBROKEN SHIELD
"We were winning," Eliosa began, his voice rasping, a whisper against the roaring silence of the past. "We were almost there, at the very gates of Savior's dominion, our hearts unified by a fragile thread of hope and an inferno of rage. And then, without warning, the sky… it simply opened."
Eliosa painted a stark, vivid image of the attack's onset. It was a deluge of unseen, toxic energy falling from above—an unseen horror against which no defense could offer solace.
"The radiation attack unleashed by Savior struck suddenly, a monstrous, chemical and spiritual violation," Eliosa recounted, the memory still fresh, a raw wound. "It wasn't a fight anymore; it was a desperate, panicked retreat. Everyone scattered, their formations breaking like glass."
"They left Tyber Rubberon's body, cooling in the contaminated dirt, right in the middle of my abandoned treatment circle… and yes, that included me."
He paused again, letting the bitter taste of that confession linger. It was the failure of my own moral fortitude, he thought, the same weakness that haunted me forty years earlier.
Rubble Rubberon, amidst the terror and the desperate scramble, saw it all. He saw the flight, the crushing retreat of hope. And then, he saw his own son, Tyber, the future chief, lying utterly lifeless.
Rubble's heart, in that moment, undoubtedly shattered. Yet, his indomitable will remained miraculously intact, a defiant spark.
He realized that resurrecting the dead was an impossibility. But saving the living—that was still profoundly within his grasp.
We need time, Rubble's mind screamed, a terrifying, desperate clarity cutting through the chaos. We need a mere two hours, just two hours, for the atmospheric contaminants to disperse. I will buy them those two hours. Whatever it costs.
He had no prepared strategy, no arcane spell for this unprecedented horror. But he was driven by a singular, monstrous idea: a final, existential sacrifice that no one had ever dared to conceive. He decided to channel the full, utmost power of the Rubberon Clan Ring—not to attack, but to protect.
THE AGONY OF ABSORPTION
He stretched his body, not with muscle, but with his very will. His consciousness, channeled through the shimmering energies of the ancient Ring, began to extend, a vast, invisible membrane reaching across every corner of the contaminated zone of Mynthara.
It was an act of pure, agonizing will.
The true horror began when he started to absorb the incoming toxic particles—the airborne radiation, the silent venom falling from the sky. He was creating a massive, living shield, drawing the venom into the singular, burning point of his own body.
Eliosa's voice conveyed the sheer, impossible duration: No one affected by the radiation could withstand its touch for more than ten minutes.
"But Rubble survived for nearly two hours," Eliosa stated, his voice now imbued with a profound, almost religious awe. "He held the anti-life force within himself, enduring pain that would have incinerated a thousand normal men, pain that defies mortal comprehension, until the chemical fallout finally faded away."
Meanwhile, back at their home, Flexo Rubberon—a child of tender sensitivities, a soul so unlike his warrior father—cowered. He witnessed everything: the unnatural red glow staining the sky, the distant, echoing screams of the dying, and the agonizing, silent struggle of his father.
Mama Rubberon, driven by primal maternal grief, emerged from the precarious shelter, intent on retrieving her son Tyber's body. Her eyes, clouded with an overflow of tears, rendered her tragically oblivious to the deadly contaminants.
But Rubble, though his body was a furnace of radiating agony, saw her. Through the molecular destruction, a flicker of his mighty will flared.
He shouted, his voice a ragged, desperate plea, tearing through the contaminated air. "Don't come outside! I need you to take care of our child till the end! You are Mynthara's future, Mama! You are the continuation!"
Mama cried, the sound a keening wail. "I want you! I can't imagine a life without you… Please come back!"
Rubble screamed back, his mind already fracturing under the radiation's heat. "No! I must save Mynthara! I am its shield! Whoever did this—whoever you are—you will perish!"
He raised his head toward the silent, burning sky. With a voice that contained the cumulative rage, the suffering, the unyielding defiance of his dying world, he roared— "SAVIOR!!!!!!!!!"
Moments later, the towering figure fell. His sacrifice was complete and absolute.
THE BITTER FRUIT OF INGRATITUDE
The aftermath was immediate, brutal, and profoundly cruel. Rubble's body was a biological hazard, too saturated with the anti-life radiation to be viewed, to be touched.
From inside their shattered home, Flexo and Mama wept, locked in their domestic tomb, watching, helpless, as the two lifeless forms lay still.
Days blurred into a week. Finally, the bodies were properly buried. A grand statue, a testament to unyielding heroism, was erected in memory of Rubble Rubberon—the undisputed savior of Mynthara.
But the pervasive fear, the creeping paranoia, was already setting in. The survivors, battered and broken, needed someone to blame for the inexplicable chaos.
"They turned on me," Eliosa recalled, a raw, bitter edge finally cracking his voice. "I had just healed over fifty people with minor radiation exposure, pouring my own dwindling lifespan into their ravaged bodies."
He had sacrificed years of his life. Yet, they saw only the strange man who had seemingly fled when their hero fell, the outsider who possessed a terrifying, incomprehensible healing power they didn't understand.
People from the smaller, fear-stricken clans grew angry. They accused Eliosa of hoarding his power. They demanded he leave the region, to vanish. He had risked everything, only to be rewarded with societal paranoia and an undeserved exile.
Only the great leader of the Emberion (Fire) Clan witnessed the truth. His Aetheric sight allowed him to perceive the true energetic exchange.
He offered Eliosa the only protection he could: shelter within the sanctuary of the Chandelier Tree—a living refuge where Eliosa could live out his days, healing his own perpetually aging body without further interference.
ABSOLUTION: A GRANDFATHER'S EMBRACE
Eliosa swallowed, the final words of his grueling tale catching in his throat. "And that is why I am here. That is why I could not save them. When—"
But Elios could wait no longer. The deluge of history, the crushing weight of his paternal lineage's sacrifice, and the sudden, undeniable understanding of his own bloodline broke his composure.
He stepped forward, not with a question, but with an answer. He moved with a primal certainty and hugged the old man tightly.
The stories his father used to tell him—whispers of their brave grandfather, his tragic brother, and the endless quest—had been mythical. Now, they solidified into a tangible, overwhelming truth.
Elios was absolutely certain: this broken, guilt-ridden, immortal healer was his long-lost grandfather. The forty-year chasm of separation collapsed in a single moment of cathartic release.
Eliosa's ancient eyes softened, and he returned the fierce hug, the physical contact shocking his system after years of profound isolation. He felt the familiar shape of his own bloodline.
"Long time no see, Grandson," Eliosa whispered, his voice trembling not from the physical toll of age, but from the sudden, overwhelming wave of absolution.
Tears, hot and sharp, glittered in both their eyes. They held each other—one man who had lived too long, and one boy who was finally ready to understand his own destiny.
Flexo and Gracia, now fully recovered and clear-headed, watched the profound scene unfold. Their hearts began to fill with a warmth they hadn't felt in days, igniting the first genuine spark of hope Mynthara had seen in decades.