The following autumn, the ancient oak, dormant for months, suddenly awoke.
It was midnight, with a light rain falling. Most had retired for the night, leaving only those nocturnal creatures and those who needed no sleep still awake. Tashar swung her blade one last time in the training grounds. Flapping her wings, she landed and gazed into the distance, sensing something.
"Good evening, Lord of the Dungeon," the ancient tree said gently. "Please rouse the druids for me. My time has come."
Lights flickered on in the treehouses, and figures leapt down vines. One man sprang from a sleeping herd of deer; his spirit beast, sensing something, swiftly followed. A black panther leapt from a branch, snatched garments from a hollow, and dashed off—four legs outpacing two. Druid healers in the underground city roused, while night-shift craftsmen encountered them en route, swiftly spreading the news among the artisan dwarves. Meanwhile, the dragon descended by Lake Rebe, carrying the city's druids and apprentices aboard.
Mr. Dragon rarely offered his aid, and the young apprentices clung to him nervously, as if riding a ship through the skies. The dragon's shadow swept across the heavens while torches lit the ground below. Points of light gathered from all directions, converging at the forest's heart. The dungeon passage led directly to the oak tree. Thoughtful craftsmen distributed lanterns, their light illuminating half the forest as the crowd encircled the great tree, forming ring upon ring.
A light drizzle fell. Most of the hurriedly arriving people had come unprepared for rain. Fortunately, the ancient oak was vast enough that when it spread its branches, its canopy formed a giant umbrella, shielding heads from the dripping rain. All the druids and apprentices were gathered here, the entire artisan dwarf clan assembled, and even the dragon riders who had served as drivers earlier had gathered at this spot. Despite the sheer number of people, an almost unnatural quiet hung over the scene.
"Ah, there are so many," the Old Oak sighed. "I never intended to cause such a commotion."
"If we hadn't come, we'd regret it for the rest of our lives!" declared Hogan, chieftain of the Artisan Dwarves. "You've cared for us all these years! For our parents, our grandparents, and our great-grandparents!"
The Artisan Dwarves nodded in agreement, and the Old Oak laughed. He surveyed the crowd beneath his canopy, taking in faces that were solemn, sorrowful, or bewildered. The Druids' ranks were nearly as large as a century ago, and the apprentices were even more numerous—humans from the towns, Amazonians, even orcs. To witness such a scene in the end, he felt profoundly content.
"Children," the Old Oak addressed the Druids, "Come now. The time has come!"
The young apprentices still wore bewildered expressions (a few seven- or eight-year-olds hadn't fully woken up yet), but the Druids knew exactly what to do, as surely as pigeons know the way home. The other onlookers stepped back, yielding the space closest to the oak to them. Each official Druid took the hand of the one beside them, forming a circle encircling the Old Oak's thick trunk.
The circle began to turn.
The scene resembled the apprentices' rain dance, only more... how to put it? More awe-inspiring, impossible to look away. Every step of countless feet fell on the same beat, like a meticulously woven pattern, or a primal rhythm from the wilderness. The druids chanted prayers in the Woodspeak, and to the drumbeat of their feet, the oak tree began to glow.
Countless shades of green—deep, light, and in between—flickered across the canopy. You could see the first tender buds of spring unfurling in willow yellow, the summer leaves forming a canopy of vibrant green, the resilient maples swaying in autumn's golden-red robes, and the evergreens standing tall in winter's pine-green hue. In an instant, all four seasons unfolded. This radiance slowly ignited from the oak's depths, flowing through branches and veins to every corner. The glow illuminated the oak leaves so transparently that each seemed to harbor a firefly beneath. Leaves swayed in the rain. From afar, their uneven contours resembled gears or palms, fluttering in the wind, murmuring ceaselessly.
It is difficult to translate the language of the Druids and the oak trees. So much lies beyond human society, beyond human comprehension. Who can decipher a gust of wind, a shower of rain? The onlookers remain speechless, yet the song grows louder. Countless voices join in, taking up the chorus—the forest accompanies this a cappella.
Who sings?
You cannot find a mouth upon the earth or the trees. This song comes from all directions, its singers nowhere to be found, yet inescapable. Nature's breath binds the entire forest together, like paint spreading through water, its influence growing ever wider. Alone, a blade of grass is merely grass, a tree merely a tree. But when this invisible force binds them, a primal consciousness awakens, transforming into a power that neither mountain collapse nor sea surge can destroy. This sound is the infant's babble, the beast's roar; it is whisper and shout, endless and boundless.
Several druids released their hands, grasping their staffs. Oak bells clinked against the wood as their steps quickened. The drumbeat surged! The chanting erupted! Though the volume in their ears remained unchanged, onlookers somehow felt the sound deafening. It resonated on their eardrums, echoed within their minds, reverberated in their chests—its rhythm matching their heartbeats exactly.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The mighty oak tree was still growing. People could hear the sound of its branches stretching, like a strong man waking from deep sleep, stretching lazily, every bone in his body cracking. The light intensified, a pillar rising through the darkness like a giant torch, illuminating the entire forest. Yet the glow was not blinding; the onlookers gazed at the canopy in wonder, as if seeing the sun directly for the first time in their lives.
Tasha felt as though she were watching a firework. The radiant oak rose to its zenith and suddenly blossomed.
The Old Oak exhaled, smiled, and closed its eyes.
Whoosh! Every leaf shot skyward in that instant. The translucent, ethereal, luminous foliage dissolved completely into nothingness, like a swarm of startled butterflies. Shades of green scattered—the verdant hues of spring, summer, autumn, and winter all vanished at once. The light scattered, leaving the oak tree rapidly withering, like a matchstick after its flame has burned out. People immersed in the beauty began to cry out in shock. Young apprentices let out hurried cries, only now realizing what had happened.
The time had come. The moment had arrived. The Old Oak had passed away.
The oak torch had been extinguished, yet the Druids' dance grew ever more fervent. They leaped and sang, as if this were not a farewell to death but a celebration. The most skilled among them rushed forward, pressing their palms against the withered trunk. Like slow-motion shattering of porcelain, a crack appeared with a popping sound, splitting the oak from bottom to top.
The majestic oak split open, its warm green glow illuminating every face within the fissure. A beating heart pulsed within the hollow of the dead wood, the forest sharing a single heartbeat.
The Heart of Nature did not resemble a heart; it appeared as a crystal shaped like an acorn.
"It is yours!" Victor urged eagerly.
After my death, you shall receive the Heart of Nature—so the Old Oak had promised in the pact. Tasha could sense it now. Deprived of its guardian, the Heart of Nature opened its powers to her like a tempting feast, exuding a sweet fragrance.
"Yes, it is mine," Tasha said.
She stood rooted to the spot, watching the druids step forward.
No Archdruid was present. Instead, several druids of the highest ranks worked together, carefully prying the Heart of Nature from the decaying trunk. The mighty oak collapsed the instant the Heart departed, yet the rotting wood shattered into fragments before hitting the ground—a gentle, woody drizzle. The druids dug into the oak's former site and buried the Heart of Nature within.
"What are you waiting for?" Victor urged impatiently. "Dig it out now! Have the gnomes excavate from below! The Heart of Nature grows faster than slime. If you wait much longer, it'll suddenly sprout into a tree. Do you want to wait another thousand years?"
"It's mine," Tashar said. "So I can do whatever I want with it. "
"Including doing nothing."
The singing had ceased, the dancing had stopped. Now that the dust had settled, some began to weep. The Old Oak had guarded the Wanderers' Camp for centuries; generations of artisan dwarves had regarded him as a beloved elder who would never leave. Marion sniffled. Beneath the Old Oak's shade, she had found her first refuge after her home was destroyed and her family lost. The Old Oak was a gentle, loving elder. Apprentices who had been guided and cared for by him over the years rubbed their eyes and whispered, "Grandfather won't be coming back?"
"Yes," the druid said.
"Then why doesn't everyone look sad?" the apprentice asked, voicing what many felt.
The craftsman dwarf wept, clutching his head. Marion's eyes were red-rimmed. Many apprentices began wiping away tears. Even the dragon riders, who had often seen the Old Oak, wore a touch of melancholy. Yet the druids—those who had received his teachings and legacy—not one shed a tear. Their expressions were serene. Prima, the apprentice's mentor and beast-speaker, gently stroked the apprentice's head and said, "Because such is the way of nature."
The cycle of decay and renewal, birth, aging, sickness, and death—circulation and balance are the laws of nature. The Druid Sacred Tree's seed undergoes a thousand-year cycle of decay and renewal. The Oak Guardian ends its duty here, the heart of nature begins anew, and the guardian's death marks the beginning of its rebirth. The Sacred Tree shall grow anew where its seed is sown. After centuries of turmoil, the Druids shall find a new sanctuary.
The Old Oak has rested. His legacy lives on through countless Druids who carry his teachings forward. Where the oak's remains lie buried, future Archdruids shall inter their own remains. New saplings shall sprout from their graves. Where the Sacred Tree stands, there lies the sacred ground—the Druids' home, their final resting place, their end and beginning. All shall reunite in the earth, their bodies nourishing the soil, their souls returning to the will of nature. Through shifting seas and changing skies, the will of nature burns eternally.
"We shall all go to the same place; death is but a brief parting," Prima said. "Perhaps when you understand this, you may become a true druid."
The ground trembled softly.
People stepped back, watching as a tender yellow sapling broke through the freshly covered earth. Within mere breaths, it grew into a sapling as thick as an arm. The newborn sacred tree stood barely taller than a man, yet it was destined to thrive in the days ahead, growing into an oak towering over the ancient oak elder.
This was death, and also rebirth.
"Truly incredible," murmured Dragon Rider Douglas from the edge of the crowd. "Such a vast, ancient creature, gone in an instant."
"Nothing lasts forever," his dragon replied. "Not sacred trees, nor dragons."
Douglas had finally mastered the dragon tongue; conversation was no longer a barrier. Patting the dragon's wing tip, he chuckled, "But for short-lived creatures like us, your end lies in a distant future."
"Not necessarily," the dragon countered.
"What?"
"I was once the lingering spirit of a primordial dragon. Now I am both reborn and a continuation—young and old at the same time," the dragon explained.
"Does that mean your time is short?" Douglas asked, his voice tinged with anxiety.
"By our standards, yes," the dragon replied, watching the sudden pallor spread across the dragon rider's face. "Perhaps only a year or two beyond your natural passing, but I too must journey to the Dragon's Rest."
"...Oh." Douglas murmured blankly. After a minute of silence, he scratched his face with a peculiar expression. "This is still awful. I always felt dragons should just stay forever. How terrible would the world be without you? I'm sorry for you, but it's not like I only feel sorrow... um, not exactly joy either? I mean, I won't lie—I'm not entirely without a sense of schadenfreude... I'm a bit smug about it, and I'm terribly sorry... How to explain it? Human nature, you know?"
The dragon chuckled heartily, draping its wing over Douglas's shoulder and nearly crushing the dragonrider beneath its weight.
Ravens flew in from the distance.
The ancient druid discerned the direction of their journey from the wind. The ravens knew where the Heart of Nature must be planted. For centuries, it had been safeguarded by the Old Oak. The Sacred Tree had vanished from sight during those long years—countless generations of ravens had never witnessed its radiance. Yet they found their way here instinctively, just as every dragon instinctively knows the path to the Dragon's Rest.
—After years of restoration, aided by the druids, the Angathos Forest stood tall once more upon the earth. Green grass covered the ground, and diverse trees took root, their leaves sprouting in uneven clusters. Rodents and rabbits were the first to return. Birds rebuilt their nests here in a certain season. Plump herds of deer attracted wolves and other solitary predators. Unearthed streams connected the upper channels to the lower seas. During the late summer and early autumn flood season, the red-spotted trout, vanished for years, swam upstream once more, leaping from the waves toward their birthplace. New wetlands began to take shape, attracting fledgling waterfowl from afar, while brown bears left their tracks in the soil.
Now, these returning inhabitants stirred restlessly, as if sensing something.
The Heart of Nature rapidly shifted form, its countless roots twisting and growing underground. Tashan could feel the forest's pulse, the heartbeat of nature itself. The Heart of Nature belonged to her. Even without devouring it through the Dungeon Core, its influence still bound her.
[Oak Guardian]This card has turned gray. The card face has faded to gray, with all text except the name now vanished.
The dungeon's attributes column showed slight changes. While "Affinity with Nature's Breath" remained unchanged, the subsequent description shifted from "The keeper of the Heart of Nature has bound you in a pact. The will of nature once cast a glance your way" to "The will of nature once cast a glance your way. Through the pact, you gained ownership of the Heart of Nature (control diminishes as the Heart grows)."
"Look at this!" " Victor fumed. Ever since Tasha rejected his proposal to devour the Heart of Nature, he'd been harping on it like a broken record. "Merging it would've been perfect! Once the Heart of Nature grows into a complete Sacred Tree, it'll be a natural Oak Sage! Then it'll break free from control and stab you in the back—see where you'll cry then!"
"You told me before, how many years does a Sacred Tree need to mature?" Tasha asked.
"Two or three hundred years, maybe..." Victor replied reluctantly. "What's the big deal? It'll be over in the blink of an eye!"
"If I could still be brought down by this then, wouldn't humans have dealt with me long before those two or three centuries were up?" Tasha countered.
She shouldn't have mentioned it. The moment she did, Victor's anger flared even hotter. " So you know humans will eliminate you?!"
Victor had already poured all his energy into condemning Tasha's foolishness. He repeatedly emphasized that the rebirth of a Druid Sacred Tree would cause an enormous commotion—Tasha's earlier "Summon Druid Fireworks" display was utterly incomparable. "Every millennium, the Druids prepare for battle. They summon all allies, gather every member, and ready themselves to fight those who seek to sever the Druidic legacy. We call this the 'Millennial Rivalry,'" Victor explained. "It happens every thousand years because the commotion is impossible to conceal!"
The forest trembled. Those with the natural bloodline awoke in the night, gazing blankly toward the southeast corner of the sky. The half-finished mechanical imitations of the Red Hounds, crafted by the dungeon, hummed incessantly. This time, luck might not hold. Humans would discover this place and react.
"I know," Tasha said. "But even without this incident, how much longer do you think we could have hidden?"
If only a small squad knew the truth, they could be silenced. If only one or two villages and towns were aware, they could secretly collude, using puppets to deceive their superiors. But what if the one aware of the southeast corner's anomaly was a thriving metropolis? Or even a province of Erian?
Keeping it completely hidden was impossible. In fact, the very act of trying to conceal it would likely draw suspicion.
The old approach—enforcing isolation—might buy more time. Tashan could indeed house all its inhabitants underground, using magic to produce food, toiling in fields while praying the surface world never discovered her. But Tashan wasn't a traditional underground city.
Half-breeds—or, in another sense, half-human—couldn't live underground forever. Psychologically, they still craved surface space and sunlight. Even if the city could cover their needs, it couldn't instantly transform surface-dwelling races into subterranean beings. The city was Tashar's foundation for survival, but not its source of flourishing growth. Whether aiming to cultivate its inhabitants or apply Tashar's knowledge, expanding and fortifying their stronghold inevitably required interaction with humans.
When Tasha chose the path of sheltering and contracting rather than devouring, these trade-offs were already predetermined.
She requires human wealth, knowledge, technology, and labor. She needs humans to encounter and accept the creatures of the underground city—goals that inherently conflict with "concealment." Tasha must strike a balance between these two imperatives, carefully controlling the spread of information while enabling the underground city's rapid growth. Opportunity always coexists with risk.
At this point, she had reached her limit. According to Tarsha's estimates, even without the Natural Heart, the discovery of the Governor's replacement would occur within the next year or two—otherwise, humanity would be too foolish. How could such foolish humans have built the dominant Erian Empire?
"So because it can't be hidden forever, revealing it is fine?!" Victor waved his pages, looking as if he wanted to knock on Tashu's skull to see what was inside. "Two options: one with only benefits, the other with more drawbacks than advantages. Even if you think the latter's impact isn't huge, any normal creature would choose the former when presented with both. What's wrong with you? Is it that damn sympathy?"
"Who said the first option has no downsides?" Tasha retorted. "Besides, are you waving those pages around because you don't want them anymore?"
Victor slammed the pages shut in fury, making a loud thud.
The reason for not fully merging the Heart of Nature was only half out of consideration for the druid.
While the dungeon core could indeed fuse with the Heart of Nature, the latter's history and weight far surpassed the former. Once fully merged, the dungeon's attributes would undergo massive changes—it might even be completely overtaken by the Heart of Nature. Her innate affinity for dragon and nature attributes already granted her a natural inclination toward both. What would happen if the Heart of Nature were fully integrated?
The Old Oak had likely considered this when signing the contract: a dungeon fused with the Heart of Nature would genuinely and wholeheartedly protect the Children of Nature, just as druids guarded the wild.
A newly born, untamed Nest Mother might accept such terms. An unformed, highly malleable personality might not matter much—it would be insignificant compared to the power gained. But Tasha was different. For her, her "self" superseded everything else. No amount of power could ever be exchanged for her soul.
Tasha had died once. Here, she possessed countless bodies, each disposable at any moment. So, if even her personality were affected, would she still be herself?
Tasha possessed a cold-hearted streak deep within her. On one hand, she would protect and nurture diverse races within her power, sacrificing her own interests for others. On the other, when cornered, she would sever ties without hesitation to escape. She could abandon any resident of the dungeon—Marion, Victor, Yellow—all without a second thought. She would flee, lie low, wait for her chance to rise again, and then plot her revenge and recovery.
She had rejected the Abyss as a natural ally and was still attempting to sever her ties with the dungeon. Under these circumstances, how could Tasha possibly allow herself to be ensnared by Nature's noose?
The benefits the Heart of Nature had already granted her were sufficient.
[Heart of Nature](Passive): The breath of nature protects you, its energies washing over the bodies and souls of the dungeon's inhabitants. This effect remains active until the Oak Sage awakens.
The Oak Guardian card vanished, yet the [Heart of Nature] ability remained—no, the skill stripped of its "pseudo" designation had become something entirely different.
The infusion of natural energy was silent. The most attentive druids sensed the forest's breath, the earth as familiar as home. Only when they formally cast spells in the future would they understand what had occurred. Marion had not yet recovered from the earlier ritual. Under the moonlight, the change in her fur color was subtle, almost imperceptible. Mavis awoke suddenly, staring blankly at the ceiling before deciding to rise and prepare something to eat. Jacob tumbled from his bed after dreaming of fierce combat, his throat scratchy and bones burning, waking only to fall back into fitful sleep.
The transformation occurred in all dungeon dwellers bearing natural attributes, though temporarily. Aside from Tashar, who could perceive their altered properties, no one else understood the changes.
The drizzle had ceased, and the horizon glowed with the first light of dawn. People lifted their heads in the morning glow. After a night of light rain, a vibrant rainbow arched across the sky.
Another day had begun.