When the Shadow slipped free of the rippling colors of the jelly-like gateway and stepped into the cave, what it met was a ruin.
The cave, once lit by glowing stones, was now drowning under dust and the smell of burning. The moss on the walls had dried out, the trees and the soil had turned to ash.
The Shadow staggered for a moment.
Where its leg should have been, there was emptiness. A part of its dark body was a hole.
The Shadow was wounded.
These ill-omened Ruined Lands were an enemy to it too…
But it didn't stop. As if there were no hole in its leg, it went on advancing with unshakable resolve.
Its footsteps echoed in the absolute silence of the sealed cave.
Just then, that familiar rustle rose from among the ruins.
Miren's sacrifice hadn't finished the forest; it had only pruned them a little and made them angrier still.
A trunk slid out from beneath the collapsed ceiling. The eight-meter tree in which Yavuz had left his sword was still alive.
The left half of its trunk had been completely destroyed by the explosion, and when the cold ceiling of the cave fell on it, its countless branches had been split into thousands of pieces.
The charred branches that had survived the explosion and the collapse resembled the bones of a skeletal hand.
But it hadn't died.
As the crimson blood flowing from its half-ruined trunk mixed with the ashes on the ground and defiled the soil, the tree lunged at the Shadow with a rasp.
It wasn't alone.
From among the ruins, swimming up through the charred soil, hundreds of trees burst forth. All at once, like hungry parasites, they threw themselves at the Shadow.
Some were small, some were the warped remains of giants left half-destroyed in the explosion; their trunks cracked, their branches charred, their roots still trying to cling to the soil like hungry mouths.
Some had been completely untouched by the explosion—trunks intact, branches alive, roots reaching deeper and more menacing into the soil.
They all moved at once.
The Shadow silently drew the black sword at its waist. As the darkness gathered on the sword, the battle erupted like a storm.
Despite its wounded leg, it spun rapidly, turning dozens of small trees into heaps of dust and splinters with every strike.
But their numbers never ended. The small trees flung themselves onto the Shadow, sacrificing themselves to slow it down.
Claw-like branches scratched the Shadow's dark body, and with every touch black smoke rose.
Just then the great tree brought its charred, enormous branch down like a sledgehammer.
Though the Shadow leapt aside at the last instant, the shockwave of the blow flung it against the wall. Before it could even rise, hundreds of small branches coiled around its legs and arms. Countless trees leapt onto it and imprisoned it.
The Shadow was barely affected.
The small attacks coming one after another couldn't get through the Shadow's dark body.
But the Shadow was as if inside a prison of branches; it couldn't move its arms or legs, its dark body wedged among hundreds of roots and branches.
The trees pressed in. The small ones filled the gaps, the large ones threw in their weight.
Cracking sounds filled the cave. The little prison kept narrowing.
The cracking sounds grew louder; but this time it wasn't the trees, it came from deeper…
In the Shadow's impenetrable armor, first a small crack appeared, then another, and another…
Under the relentless pressure the dark armor couldn't hold and had begun to break. On top of that, the hole in its leg had begun to grow.
"AHHHHH!"
A groan echoed through the cave.
For the first time in centuries the Shadow had made a sound.
Noticing the soft body beneath the armor, the trees thrust their small branches in through the cracks toward the defenseless form.
The small branches seeped in through the cracks. They touched the soft thing beneath the darkness.
And in that moment…
They all stopped at once.
The trees hesitated for the first time.
Because the branches reaching inside… were no longer the same branches.
Something inside the Shadow had rotted the branches.
Countless branches trembled.
Then the small trees fell first, slowly rotting and turning to dust.
The larger and luckier trees, before the rot reached their trunks, resolutely tore off the branches that had entered the Shadow's sweet essence.
The rot stopped a few seconds later.
The trees drew back uneasily for a moment. For the first time they had met a prey whose blood they couldn't consume.
They didn't know what to do.
Realizing the siege had lifted, the Shadow rose furiously, driven by an urge for vengeance.
On its dark armor, the deep marks left by the trees' savage pressure gleamed: terrible cracks had opened across its belly, its right arm, and its left shoulder.
When the old wound it had brought from beyond the gateway was added, the number of cracks in its armor had risen to four.
From every opened fissure, a dark black blood seeped onto the cave's defiled soil like pitch.
The ground had now turned into a heap of mire; the crimson blood the trees spilled, the poisoned wine from Miren's goblet, and the black blood draining from the Shadow's veins combined to corrupt the nature of the once life-filled soil.
The cave's floor trembled as if crying out beneath these opposed and degenerate fluids; reality could no longer bear the weight of this merciless mixture.
The Shadow gripped the hilt of its sword and took its stance. But this time it was different: harder, more merciless, more lethal…
From the Erk-filled core in its belly, an unbelievable energy flowed to its limbs.
The pitch-black blood stopped flowing.
But the wounds were still there; only the blood no longer flowed.
With incredible speed, the sword first traced an arc, then it turned and traced another arc.
Noticing the lethal attacks coming at them, the countless trees leapt onto the Shadow again.
The Shadow's sword shone with a sharpness that could cut even the dust hanging in the air. This attack, tracing two enormous arcs, tore through the damp air of the cave and sliced everything before it like sheets of paper.
The small trees flung in at the front, before they could even understand what was happening against this energy laden with ancient darkness, were split into thousands of splinters.
The crimson blood spurting from the severed trunks sizzled and evaporated the moment it met the ground.
Despite the emptiness in its leg and the cracks in its armor, the Shadow moved with an unshakable balance.
The Erk pumped from its core to its limbs made each strike more destructive than the last.
The black smoke seeping from the crack in its left shoulder left an ill-omened trail behind it as it moved.
With the arcs it traced and the steps it took, the Shadow was all but 'dancing.' A sword dance…
The imposing tree hurled its charred branches forward like spears, aiming to skewer the Shadow.
But the Shadow was no longer prey; it was a machine of destruction risen from the depths of the cave.
Spinning its sword, it pruned the branches coming at it one by one and threw itself like an arrow toward the tree's enormous trunk.
As the cave's floor went on trembling with the mire formed of wine, blood, and pitch, the Shadow squeezed the hilt of its sword one last time with all its strength.
It leapt into the air to bring its own strike down on the very heart of the giant tree, right beside that sword Yavuz had left behind.
When the enormous tree noticed the lethal intent coming at it, it shielded itself with its branches. But it was a futile effort.
The Shadow's all-out attack split the branches into countless pieces and reached the tree's very heart—its inner core.
The tree's movements slowly slowed and stopped. The tree had finally died.
From the place where the sword was driven in, crimson sap began to flow. It went on flowing, making a disgusting vapor wherever it touched.
When the sea of trees realized the enormous tree had died, they paused. Some made sounds like weeping, some groaned, some let out screaming cries.
It was as if they were mourning…
The Shadow tried to pull its sword from the tree, but it wouldn't come. It applied more force, but it wouldn't come.
The Shadow tried one last time.
"CRACK!"
This sound, echoing through the cave's high ceiling, was not only the breaking of cold metal but the herald of a will pushed to its limit.
The worn sword had lost its merciless struggle against the acidic, searing essence inside the enormous tree, snapping in two a few fingers' length from the hilt.
While half the sword stayed lodged in the tree's heart like a marker, the other half turned into a meaningless piece of metal in the Shadow's hand.
The Shadow looked for a moment at the broken hilt in its hand. The cracks in its armor still spewed black smoke, and the emptiness in its leg throbbed with pain from the immense Erk it had spent.
The sea of trees around it still churned with mourning cries; the shock they'd felt at the death of their leader was slowly giving way to a rekindling hatred.
The Shadow flung the broken hilt aside in fury. It no longer had a weapon, but its body was the very embodiment of an inexhaustible desire for destruction. The sea of trees, having thrown off the brief shock of their leader's death, was preparing to fall upon it from every direction for revenge.
Despite the emptiness in its leg, the Shadow swiftly made its first move.
With the Erk it pumped from its core, it clenched its fist like a sledgehammer and pulverized the trunk of the first tree thrown at it with a single blow.
The cave's foul air shook with the sounds of splintering wood and spurting crimson essence.
The Shadow was no longer just a warrior but a pure focus of violence; with its bare hands it tore branches up by the root and, with hard blows, buried the small trees trying to climb it beside their comrades on the ground.
But the number of trees never ended.
While shattering everything before it with its fists, the Shadow also sensed the inevitable: its bare hands wouldn't be enough to stop this endless army of forest entirely.
In the very midst of the merciless struggle, the Shadow's foot caught on a piece of metal. Its eyes picked out that rusty metal gleaming among the ashes and the clotted crimson essence.
Yavuz's rusty sword…
The Shadow broke the enormous branch coming at it with its elbow, sprang aside, and bent to the ground.
The instant the Shadow's fingers grasped Yavuz's rusty hilt, time in the cave seemed to stop.
In that moment, an ancient, freezing shiver radiating from the metal spread through the whole cave like a shockwave. This was not just cold; this was the breath of an ancient will that had lived for hundreds of years.
Until a few seconds ago, the sword had been in a pitiful state. Part of it gleamed like a faded silver, while most of it lay dying under the orange stain of rust. But with the Shadow's touch, everything changed.
The darkness swallowed the metal like a hunger.
The rough texture of the rust began to melt, fusing with the pitch-like energy seeping from the Shadow.
The orange rust stains gave way to an absolute blackness that swallowed even light. Every scratch, every flaw on the sword was reforged with the concentrated energy of the darkness.
The sword was no longer a piece of metal. It was now the embodiment of the Shadow's will.
The noise made by the branches and roots cut off for a moment. The trees had felt once more that the thing before them was no longer merely a wounded creature.
When the Shadow raised its new weapon into the air, the tip of the sword tore through the air like paper.
When the black smoke pouring from the sword met the crimson blood on the cave floor, it burned the soil with a sizzle.
As the Shadow's crack-riddled armor and black sword lit up in the cave's dim light, a few thoughts crossed its mind.
For its task, it had to survive. No matter what.