The first time was a warning. I disregarded it, attacked the forest and now it is attacking me.
Do I have enough energy to fight with it?
How powerful is this forest even? So far, nothing has managed to deter it, never mind actually inflicting any damage.
Thousands of spears are aimed at me. And before I can even blink, they’re dispatched toward me.
Run!My mind screams at me.Give up!
But it’s too late even for running away. The speed with which the spears are thrown at me is too much for my level-three-borrowed-strength.
I squeeze my eyes, awaiting the impact.
Except it never comes.
I slowly open my eyes. The spears are right next to me, the sharp tips about to enter my body. But they don’t. They’re frozen all around me, caging me.
What’s happening?
And then I see it. There is one spear that’s closer to my body than any other; so close it’s almost piercing the skin of my abdomen. The tip is a bright red, and right above it is the large gash caused by the ice shards.
The redness of the blood seeps into the branch, traveling from its tip to the faraway trunk. An ecosystem of its own, the trees communicate with one another because in the next moment, all the spears are retracted; all the trees are stained red.
I watch the entire thing with wide, disbelieving eyes.
The spears disappear. The trees regain their initial appearance. But something else happens. Instead of ejecting me, or even crowding me like before, the trees sway away.
One by one, they clear a path for me directly to the building in the distance. The tree crowns bend inwards, as if they’re bowing to me.
If the events from before were strange, this one is straight up bizarre.
But I can’t scoff at such a fortuitous chance. I walk down the cleared path as fast as I can—which isn’t much in my state.
The one-thousand-five-hundred steps to the square construction feel like an eternity. But eventually I make it there.
The door of the square structure slides open, welcoming me.
Odd.
But I don’t question it too much. I’m one step closer to finishing this job and getting the bonus too.
Stepping into the single room of the construction, I look around, baffled. There is nothing inside. No furniture, no items, nothing. Only four black bare walls.
Frowning, I pull out my map again. I’m at the right location. This is where the book should be, but why…
As I try to think if I did something wrong, a loud noise startles me. I jump back just as something falls to the ground, seemingly out of nowhere.
“What the—” I mutter in disbelief.
It’s a book. But I don’t know whether it’sthebook I’m supposed to retrieve. When it dropped from the ceiling—really, there’s no other explanation—it did so already open to the middle so I cannot ascertain whether the cover matches the description.
With slow, apprehensive steps, I move closer to the book on the floor. I first wipe my hands on my pants to remove all residual blood. Then, with careful movements, I lift it off the ground.
Before I can close it to look at the cover, my eyes zero in on the chapter heading.
The Doom of Urteos.
“Urteos?” I whisper, the name familiar. “Urteos?” My eyes widen in realization.
