Morning arrived beneath a sky shrouded in dark gray clouds. Darkness had just vanished.
The sun was nowhere to be seen. Thick layers of clouds rolled slowly overhead, heavy and unmoving, as if pressing down on the land itself.
A cold wind swept through the air, carrying the scent of damp earth and ash, whispering through trees and over empty ground.
Far away from the demon base. Far from fire, blood, and the chaos that had broken out at night.
Sowhere, the ground suddenly rippled.
It was subtle at first, like water disturbed by a falling drop. Then the soil itself warped, shadows twisting unnaturally as darkness pooled in a single spot.
The black shadow thickened, deepened, spreading outward in a perfect circle.
From that darkness, sothing began to rise. A human body erged. It was a young man. Beside him were two weapons.
His black hair was ssy, slightly longer than normal, strands falling over his face. His body was covered in wounds. Deep gashes, torn flesh, bruises dark and ugly. Cuts marked his arms, chest, and legs. So wounds were so severe that bones should have been visible.
Yet there was no blood. Not a single drop leaked from any wound. His body still had blood on it from the last fight, but the wounds were no longer bleeding.
It was as if sothing unseen was holding everything in place, sealing flesh temporarily, suppressing pain and bleeding by force alone.
The young man lay still on the cold ground, half-shadowed, half-exposed to the gray light filtering through the clouds. His chest barely rose and fell, shallow breaths proving that he was still alive.
Minutes passed. The wind brushed against his torn clothes. The clouds drifted slowly above.
After God knows how much ti passed, his fingers twitched. A faint tremor ran through his body.
After a long mont, his eyes suddenly flipped open. His heavy eyelids parted, revealing his black eyes.
His dark eyes stared up at the clouded sky, unfocused and dull at first. His pupils trembled, struggling to adjust. Pain crashed into him all at once, but his body did not scream. It could not.
He breathed in sharply. And Amon Vale regained consciousness once more. But his condition did not look good.
’I-I am... alive,’ he thought while staring up at the sky, not moving an inch.
His throat was dry. He didn’t know when the last ti was that he had drunk water. The fasting pills might have been a replacent for food and water, but it seed the effect of those pills had worn out.
He was hungry. He was thirsty.
’Water... I need water.’ Amon’s eyes started to tremble. His body moved slightly.
"Arggh!" A painful groan escaped his mouth.
He looked into his storage ring. Thankfully, there was a water bottle in it. The sa one that had been with him since the ti he had co to this island.
But he didn’t pull out the bottle. Instead, he took out two healing potions, one high-grade and the other basic.
He brought his other hand to them and opened the lid of the tube.
Gulp~ Gulp~
He drank the potion. The mont it flowed down his throat, a warm sensation spread throughout his body.
His deep wounds started to heal. Smaller cuts began nding as well.
But his body was beyond damage. It was not able to heal him completely. Still, he was in better condition than before.
He then got up, remaining in a sitting position. He leaned against a black surface that looked like a huge horizontal boulder.
Taking out the water bottle, he drank the water inside it.
Gulp~ Gulp~
For so reason, drinking water felt more divine than anything else. As if it gave him more warmth and energy than all the healing potions combined.
His eyes closed while drinking. "Haah... finally... I feel better." He leaned his head against the black surface.
And finally, his eyes locked onto the thing in front of him.
"What the fuck?!" His eyes widened in shock and disbelief. Because of his bad condition, he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings.
But now that he was slightly better and could breathe in relief, he was struck by another shock.
In front of him stood a humongous tree. No. Calling it humongous might be wrong.
More than half a kiloter away from Amon, there was a tree that stood like an ancient god anchored to the world.
Its trunk was colossal beyond reason, so wide that a thousand n walking hand in hand would struggle to encircle it.
Stretching nearly a full kiloter across, the bark was dark and rough, layered like hardened obsidian scarred by ti itself.
Deep grooves ran along its surface, wide enough to swallow houses, each one telling the silent history of centuries long forgotten.
The trunk rose endlessly upward, piercing the land and climbing into the gray, cloud-choked sky. Its peak was lost far above, hidden where the gray clouds began.
From that towering height, vast black branches spread outward, thick and twisted like the arms of a sleeping titan.
They vanished into the heavy gray clouds, yet their lower edges remained visible. Dark silhouettes looming through the mist, giving the sky an oppressive, watchful presence.
Jet-black leaves clung to the branches, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. They barely rustled, as if the tree breathed slowly, deliberately, listening to the world below.
At its base, enormous roots burst from the earth in every direction, carving deep trenches across the ground.
They twisted and overlapped, cracking stone and soil alike, stretching so far that it was impossible to tell where the tree truly began or ended.
Amon was nestled among them. The thing he had been leaning against was also one of the roots of the tree.
Amon understood what that tree was. There was no doubt about it. The thing in front of him was none other than the Celestial Tree.
But not quite.
"It’s... the Grave of the Celestial Tree," he muttered while staring at the tree with wide eyes. His heart beat faster with nervousness and excitent.
Despite standing so tall, despite having leaves, the tree looked dead.
Finally, sohow, Amon had reached the center of the island. The place where resided sothing that was once called divine, celestial.
But now, it looked anything but divine.
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