The smell of flesh still lingered in the air.
A heavy stench with a faint sweetness that clung to the back of the throat. Lusian cut another piece from the S-Omega's corpse. The blade of his weapon met dense, almost fibrous resistance before giving way with a muffled snap. He brought it to his mouth without hurry.
He chewed slowly, forcing his body to process every gram of nutrients. He had survived. Barely... but the question continued gnawing at him from within: he still didn't understand what had actually happened during the climax of the battle. That ravenous darkness that had completely engulfed him... what the hell was it?
Back at the settlement, calm had superficially returned, but the atmosphere remained uneasy. No one knew for certain whether the real danger had passed or whether they were merely standing in the calm before the storm.
As long as the Mother Tree continued to grow, it would keep attracting all kinds of creatures from the wasteland: some eager to take a bite from its life-giving bark, others drawn simply by the comfort of the dense mana it naturally released. Lusian understood it with cold clarity: the danger would only increase from this point onward. The real question was how to avoid extinction.
In a world where the law of the strongest was the only divine commandment, being weak became a sin in itself.
"The more the Mother Tree grows... the more will come."
Selvryn's voice was quiet, but there was no concern in it.
There was something different.
A restrained emotion.
Lusian could barely turn his neck. His body was still aching, but when he recognized the elf's presence, he let out a heavy breath.
"Monsters can sense mana currents," she continued as she approached. "They follow them instinctively. Some come because they need to feed on it. Others because... they simply sense its presence."
Selvryn raised her gaze toward the Mother Tree.
And then something strange happened.
Her expression changed.
The tension vanished from her face, and her eyes began to shine with an emotion Lusian had rarely seen in her.
"Do you know what this means?"
Lusian raised an eyebrow slightly.
"That we'll have to keep killing monsters?"
Selvryn let out a small laugh.
"No."
For the first time since he had known her, she seemed genuinely excited.
"It means we're witnessing something my ancestors never got to see in their lifetimes."
She moved a little closer to the Mother Tree, almost forgetting for a moment that Lusian was standing beside her.
"The stories say that when a Mother Tree reached maturity, the land around it changed completely. Mana stopped being that harsh, wild energy found in nature and began to become... purer. Easier to absorb."
Her hands moved as she spoke, unable to contain her excitement.
"The roots could spread for kilometers. Trees grew enormous. Rivers filled with life. Fungi, flowers, insects, animals... everything began to appear around them."
She smiled.
A sincere smile, almost childlike.
"Our elders used to say that you could walk for hours beneath one of those forests without finding two identical trees."
Lusian watched her in silence.
Selvryn spoke as though she had been there herself.
But she hadn't.
Everything she knew came from stories passed down through generations.
And yet she told them with the excitement of someone who had just witnessed it firsthand.
"Did you ever see one?" Lusian asked.
Selvryn's smile faded slightly.
She shook her head.
"No."
Her fingers absently brushed the string of her bow.
"The previous Mother Tree died a long time ago."
She looked at the Mother Tree again.
"We only heard the stories."
She fell silent for a few seconds.
"My grandmother used to say that when the last Mother Tree on this continent was destroyed, the forests began to die little by little. She said the elves almost died with it."
Her expression softened.
"I always thought she was exaggerating."
A small laugh escaped her lips.
"Elders have a habit of doing that. They talk about ancient times as if everything was ten times larger, ten times more beautiful, and ten times more dangerous."
She looked at the tree again.
This time, she didn't smile.
"But now..."
Her eyes traveled over the young trunk, the roots beginning to spread beneath the mountain, and the first signs of life appearing around it.
"Now I think they understated it."
Lusian said nothing. He simply watched her with a certain bewilderment.
There was something about the way Selvryn spoke, about that emotion she could barely contain, that felt familiar to him.
It reminded him of an old friend whenever he started talking about something he was truly passionate about.
For a moment, he could almost imagine him doing exactly the same thing.
Selvryn continued looking at the tree for a few more seconds before remembering that Lusian was still leaning against her shoulder.
"In time," she continued, slowly regaining her composure, "an ancient forest should form around it."
Her voice once again carried that restrained passion.
"A forest like the ones described in our stories."
Then she looked at him.
"Our forest?"
The question left her lips so naturally that even she seemed surprised by it.
But she didn't correct herself.
"And if we want to see it grow, we'll have to keep it alive."
She paused.
"So..."
She adjusted her arm more securely around Lusian's waist.
"Recover quickly."
Lusian let out a weak laugh, but his muscles suddenly spasmed violently and his body failed to respond. The aftermath of the mana overload and the battle was painfully obvious.
"Can you help me?" he admitted, swallowing his pride.
Selvryn nodded without hesitation.
Lusian leaned against Selvryn's shoulders, feeling the elf's firmness and softness, accompanied by her natural scent of foliage and wet earth. At such close proximity and contact, Selvryn's pointed ears strangely turned a faint shade of red.
She wrapped one arm tightly around his waist and, barely managing to keep their balance, they began the slow journey back toward the settlement.
As they walked with awkward, uneven steps, something in the elf's posture grew more rigid.
"I don't understand..." she murmured, breaking the rhythm of their footsteps. "With wounds like those and not a single drop of mana... how did you survive?"
Lusian let out a thin breath, a bitter laugh completely devoid of amusement.
"I don't fully understand it either."
Selvryn watched him from the corner of her eye for several more seconds. His answer clearly hadn't satisfied her at all, but she decided not to press him. There was something anomalous about him, a latent shadow she couldn't decipher, but that was undoubtedly there.
"Things are going to get worse every day," she said, hardening her voice to drive away the discomfort. "More predators will come, and once the forest ecosystem begins to spread, herbivorous demi-humans will come as well. They'll move in large herds looking for shelter."
Her fingers tightened involuntarily around Lusian's shoulder, as if trying to grasp an invisible threat in the air.
"And if the Tree falls before it establishes its domain... none of this will have been worth anything. The massacre will have been for nothing."
Caught up in the tension of the thought, she squeezed Lusian's wounded torso too tightly. The warrior grunted through clenched teeth; in his current condition, even the slightest touch felt like a red-hot needle driven into his flesh.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out, immediately loosening her grip, though she avoided meeting his eyes.
"Careful," Lusian told her, studying the restrained blush in her features.
Selvryn raised her eyes, surprised by his tone.
Lusian held her gaze without moving an inch, letting the weight of his words settle between them. In the middle of their journey through the ruins of the settlement, silence settled between them once again.
Then they heard uneven footsteps.
Lusian felt an immediate sense of relief when he saw her emerge from the shadows of the settlement.
Kara approached them covered in bandages, holding herself upright more through sheer force of will than through the cooperation of her own muscles. She tried to maintain a firm, straight posture, but the stiffness of her movements fooled no one.
Lusian looked her over for a moment. Despite his exhaustion, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
"Still in one piece."
Kara frowned and, without slowing down, delivered a sharp smack to his unbandaged arm.
"Don't start."
Lusian grimaced in genuine pain, hissing through his teeth.
"Does it hurt?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course it hurts."
Kara stopped directly in front of him, regulating her own labored breathing so as not to show weakness.
"You need to be more careful, idiot."
Lusian tilted his head slightly, watching her in silence. He wanted to complain, throw a sarcastic remark at her, and ask whether she had really had any other choice in the middle of that chaos, but he decided to remain silent.
"You threw yourself in without considering the consequences," Kara continued, turning her gaze toward the ruins of the settlement. "That's not like you."
She hesitated for a second, clenching her jaw to keep the suffocating concern that had constricted her chest throughout the battle from showing. Without saying anything else, she draped Lusian's good arm over her own shoulder, sharing his weight with Selvryn.
She avoided looking him in the eyes as she adjusted his position.
Lusian let out a low, raspy laugh, appreciating the awkward gesture of camaraderie.
On his other side, Selvryn slowly clenched her fingers into a tense fist. The elf gripped the fabric of Lusian's clothes as though she wanted to strike him herself... unable to fully understand the sudden stab of anger that had just settled in her chest.