With every single step Max took, the whispers grew louder.
They did not speak clearly at first. They moved through the leaves like wind, slipping between the ancient trunks, brushing against the glowing grass beneath his feet, sotis rising near his ears before fading again as if the forest itself was breathing around him. The deeper he walked, the more the colors beneath his feet reacted, soft blue, gold, violet, and silver lights pulsing through the greenery with each step.
But when one of the elves decided to play hero and lead Max astray, the whispers began to weaken.
At first, it was subtle, almost easy to miss. The soft voices thinned out. The glowing grass beneath his feet dimd slightly. Even the mana in the air, that sweet and pure mana that flowed through this ancient forest like fresh spring water, beca a little colder, a little more distant.
Max stopped.
The elf leading him froze.
A void blade manifested in Max’s hand, silent and sharp, and before the elf could even turn his head, his life had already ended. His body fell to the shining forest floor, fresh blood spilling across the glowing grass and staining the multicolored light beneath him.
Nobody said anything.
But everybody understood.
Max was not playing around.
The other elves stood there, pale and stiff, waiting for their deaths as well, yet Max only looked at them for a mont before the void blade vanished from his hand.
"Keep an eye on them. I’ll proceed alone from here," he said softly, without waiting for confirmation, as if his word was already an unquestionable rule.
And the dragons knew it.
They surrounded the surviving elves at once, their wings folding as so of them sat down among the roots and pulled out their dried als, replenishing their strength beneath the towering trees. The shaken elves remained standing among them, unsure whether they would still be alive when Max returned, or whether this ancient forest would beco the place where their bloodline finally ended.
The mont Max stepped away alone, the whispers grew louder again.
Whenever he took a wrong path, they quieted down, fading into the leaves until only the normal sounds of the forest remained. Whenever he moved correctly, they rose around him once more, soft and gentle, guiding him deeper into the lands no outsider had likely reached in ages.
And so, Max spent six days inside the forest, slowly going deeper and deeper.
Here, the trees beca even larger, their roots twisting over the earth like sleeping serpents, thick enough for a grown man to walk across them like bridges. The air was always damp and sweet, filled with the scent of leaves, old bark, flowers he had never seen before, and mana so pure it almost tasted like honey on his tongue. Almost no ground could be seen beneath the endless greenery. Moss, grass, vines, glowing flowers, and strange plants covered everything, and when night ca, all of it began to shine, turning the forest into a sacred sea of color.
It no longer felt like a place that belonged to elves.
It did not feel like it belonged to dragons either.
The deeper Max went, the more this forest felt like sothing alive, sothing ancient, sothing that had simply allowed races to live inside it for a while, while it waited for whatever the whispers were now leading him toward.
Eventually, Max stopped as the whispers suddenly vanished.
"What happened?" he muttered, looking around himself.
In this area, there was nothing.
No trees. No moss. No glowing flowers. No thick roots crawling over the ground. It was a large empty circle in the middle of the forest, as if sothing had carved out a wound and left it there to dry. Compared to the lush life surrounding it, this place felt wrong, almost dead, and the silence here was far heavier than the quiet he had felt anywhere else in the forest.
"Mana here is sparse..." Max narrowed his eyes, slowly taking in the dry soil beneath his feet. "Unlike the forest surrounding this area, I can barely feel any mana in the air."
He squatted down and pressed his fingers into the ground.
The soil was dry. Extrely so. It crumbled between his fingers like old ash, carrying no freshness, no moisture, and none of that sweet mana taste that filled the rest of the forest. It was as if the land itself had been drained until even the smallest traces of life had given up trying to remain here.
Max rose back to his feet, dusting off his hands before letting out a slow sigh.
"Is that the reason you called here?"
He understood what the spirits wanted. His ability to release mana into the world could restore this place, maybe even heal whatever wound had been left behind in the forest. But Max was not the kind of man who did favors out of pure kindness, not even for spirits who had guided him for six days.
"But what do I gain if I fill this place with mana?" Max asked, his eyes scanning the empty circle as if the spirits were hiding sowhere in the air. "I’m a greedy human, not so noble Dragon King who does good deeds for free. If you want a favor from , then I need sothing in exchange."
The wind died down even more.
The faint movent in the trees around him stilled, and the forest beca so quiet it almost felt like the spirits had run away completely.
Max did not rush them.
He only stood there patiently, his arms hanging loose at his sides while his black eyes continued watching the empty clearing. He had already made the long journey here, deep into an unknown part of the forest, and with the whispers gone, even he was not certain how easily he would find his way back to his army.
So he waited.
If the spirits wanted him badly enough to lead him here, then sooner or later, they would have to answer.
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