As he knelt beside the slain creature, Elijah’s shoulders slumped. It was just a rat, common in every way except its size and level. Even then, the rodent’s death should not have affected him. And yet, when he looked upon it, all he saw was a missed opportunity. All he felt was guilt. He should have been faster. He should have gotten to New York sooner. Perhaps if he’d gone through with his original plan and helped Rakhan when he’d first arrived, things would have turned out differently.

But he’d made his choices, and now, he was surrounded by the consequences.

“We did all we could,” Rakhan said. The hunter was covered in gore, bits of fur and flesh embedded between the links of his chainmail coat. The head of his spear was chipped, and a tuft of his beard had been sheered away by an errant claw. The wound had been healed, but the facial hair would take weeks – or months, given the magnificent thickness of the man’s beard – to grow back.

For his part, Elijah was no better off. Because he’d been forced to maintain focus on his Mantle of Authority, he’d had little concentration to devote to his own safety. Indeed, he’d let Rakhan do most of the fighting while he confined his participation to healing and cleansing.

The mantle was both more powerful and more limited than he ever could have expected. Where he walked, the corruption was torn free. The surge of vitality healed much of the damage as well. Not all, though. Especially in the fauna, many of which had become so corrupted that the cleansing had driven them even more insane. Like rabid animals, they’d lashed out, not stopping until they were slain.

And that pattern had persisted throughout the entire process of cleansing the park, which had taken far longer than Elijah had expected. After all, it was much bigger than it had been back before the World Tree extended its branches into Earth, and he could only affect an area about twenty feet wide. So, he’d been walking a constant grid for almost a week without rest.

Physically, it hadn’t been draining. Mentally – and more importantly, ethereally – the process was absolutely exhausting. Part of that was because he could only move so fast, owing to the fact that the cleansing was not instant. However, the primary issue was that the corruption pushed back. It resisted. And in pockets where the infected beasts had congregated – like the nests of rats – it was so thick that Elijah had been forced to remain in place for hours just to make any headway at all.

The lesson was clear – the personalized version of his Mantle of Authority was extremely strong. There was no doubting that. But it was far from all-powerful. Just keeping it active for so long left Elijah feeling wrung out, his soul burning from the consistent effort.

If he’d kept going for any longer, or if he’d been forced to push against stronger opposition, he’d have had some serious trouble.

“You have done well,” Rakhan stated. “Without you, this place would remain a den of corruption. I was not powerful enough to complete the task on my own.”

Elijah sighed, still staring at the singular rat. It was such a sad sight, with patchy fur and dead eyes that somehow still bulged from its skull. Diseased as it was, the thing still held a vestige of vitality – a thread that Elijah knew was little more than a mirage. It faded slowly until, at last, the creature became a lifeless husk.

It was one of very, very many.

“We need to burn the corpses,” he said.

“I will ensure that it is done. You must rest.”

“Not until the job’s finished.”

With that, Elijah shifted into the Shape of Thorn and began gathering the slain rats. It didn’t take long before he’d taken hold of the entire nest – three-dozen or so rats, each one more pitiful than the last. With the vines snaking out from his shoulders as well as his long arms, the task was not difficult, and it allowed Elijah’s mind to wander.

It went nowhere good.

He considered the state of Central Park, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many other places had been so affected. Once, he’d, by necessity, wandered the world on foot. Because of that, he’d dealt with many rifts or spontaneous Voxx manifestations along the way. More than he could count, in fact.

But now, he habitually traveled by Conclave Spires. There was something lost, there. A connection to his world that he’d taken for granted, perhaps. But it also meant that many incursions had been left untended. As bad as things had gotten in Central Park, they were assuredly worse elsewhere. After all, the park was in the center of a major city, and there were parts of the world that hadn’t seen human passage since Earth’s transformation.

Assuredly, there were plenty of corrupted areas out there, and no one to combat them.

Those thoughts and many more like it, mostly rooted in Elijah’s guilt, flitted through his mind as he labored to complete the park’s cleansing. The corruption was gone, but many, many bodies remained. Eventually, Rakhan gathered some locals to assist, and they came with carts that made the process much easier. Even so, it took the better part of three days before they’d completed the task.

Elijah watched as Rakhan lit the pyre upon which thousands of beasts had been laid. It caught quickly, but it took a few minutes before the flames met the corpses, filling the air with the smell of burning fur and roasting flesh. It was anything but pleasant, but Elijah remained in place, forcing himself to watch every passing moment as the pyre consumed the gathered carcasses.

It was another week before the last of the corpses had turned to ash.

Elijah stood vigil the entire time, with Rakhan standing by his side.

Of course, he didn’t literally stand. Much of the time, he spent in deep meditation. His eyes were open. He saw everything. But his focus remained inward, specifically on the facets of his mind dedicated to pain and trauma.

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And he did not like what he saw.

The corruption was different than what he’d felt for the past couple of weeks. Less raw. Less hungry. However, it felt somehow related, and in a way that Elijah didn’t really understand. But one thing he knew was that he couldn’t advance the cultivation of his mind until he figured out a way to deal with the accumulated trauma.

And so far, his attempts had proven ineffective. He’d tried sinking into that pool of negativity, immersing himself in an effort to confront his trauma. But all that did was cause more pain.

He’d also tried talking it out with Rakhan, who, despite only knowing him for a short while, had proven quite a receptive sounding board. He wasn’t a trained therapist, but his demeanor was oddly soothing. And due to his faith, he clearly felt a driving need to help, be it by lending a sympathetic ear or by hunting down a powerful beast that was killing locals.

That helped a little, but most of that was only psychological, which was an entirely different thing than the build-up in the facets of his mind.

Elijah had no illusions about how well-adjusted he was. Like most people who’d survived the world’s transformation, he had his issues. But as influential as those were on his personality – and he had no doubts about that – they weren’t the source of the build-up in his mind.

It was metaphysical in nature.

Only as the last vestiges of the pyre dissipated did Elijah come upon a realization. The problem wasn’t the trauma itself. Rather, the issue was the visualization of his facets. Up until that point, he’d seen them as crystals. That worked, largely because they were strong and durable. But their static nature was an issue, at least for him.

Perhaps that was the problem.

Like his Mantle of Authority – or his core, which he’d begun to visualize as a seed – personalization was the key. But it went deeper than just picking a color or a shape. It needed to be a representation of who he was, of his power. And for some reason, Elijah kept coming back to the idea that it needed to tie into the rest of his cultivation.

Each system was separate. Body. Mind. Soul. Core. They all had their own purview. But they also worked together and combined into a functional whole. Separate, but part of something bigger.

Like nature.

Or a tree.

The idea hit Elijah so hard that he actually gasped, prompting a raised eyebrow from Rakhan. “Is something amiss?” asked the hunter, who’d remained by his side through his mostly silent vigil.

“I just realized something that should have been obvious.”

“Such is the way with most revelations. We only understand the obvious with the benefit of hindsight.”

That much was true, but still, Elijah felt a little embarrassed that it had taken him so long to grasp the notion. If his core was the seed from which everything stemmed, and his soul represented the branches, then the facets of his mind would be the leaves. The only odd one out was his body.

But after only a little more thought, Elijah made a correction to the image in his thoughts. His core was the seed – for now – but it would eventually become the root system. That would make his body the trunk of his tree.

The image crystalized in his mind.

After only a moment, his heart fell. He still hadn’t solved the trauma problem. Effectively, he’d put the cart before the horse. He couldn’t implement the tree visualization until he dealt with the problem at hand.

But then again, weren’t leaves renewable? They could be discarded and replaced as necessary. Sometimes, due to changing weather, but also due to fungal diseases and other infections. Drought or other negative factors could cause it as well.

The short explanation was that if it benefited the tree, it would drop its leaves.

And that was enough for Elijah to establish the image in his thoughts, though he knew that implementing it would take more than a few days’ thought. And certainly, trying to attempt that in his current situation wasn’t ideal, so he filed those ideas in the back of his mind so he could ruminate on the topic when he was in a more favorable environment.

Once the park was entirely cleansed, there was nothing keeping him in New York. He invited Rakhan back to the grove, but once again, the hunter declined, saying, “I am needed elsewhere, but I will visit if Waheguru sends me to the area.”

That was the best Elijah was likely to get, but he didn’t want to return home just yet. After what he’d just endured, he needed a palate cleanser. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, he also felt an obligation to plunge into the local wilderness and search for other signs of corruption.

Did he truly expect to find any?

Not really. However, logic didn’t really come into his considerations. Rather, he was driven by emotions and guilt, neither of which cared about reason.

But first, he needed to get some proper rest. With that in mind, he left Central Park behind and headed deeper into the city. He barely paid attention to his surroundings, instead dwelling on the problem of his mind cultivation.

Which was probably why he never really saw the woman coming.

Certainly, he’d absent-mindedly catalogued any potential threats in the area. That was normal. But the woman – a girl, really – didn’t raise a single alarm in his mind. She was waifish, with deeply set eyes and a button nose that made her look even more child-like. More importantly, her ethereal signature was weak enough that Elijah knew she was far shy of ascendence. If she was more than level fifty, he would have been incredibly surprised.

But that didn’t matter when she planted herself directly in his path. He slowed, ready to avoid her entirely. Then she spoke in a voice that cut right through to his soul.

“Elijah Hart. I have a message for you.”

Elijah frowned, frozen in place for only a second before he felt capable of movement. He wasn’t sure if it was his own power or the trait associated with the Antlers of the Wild Revenant, but it wasn’t long before he was free.

Before he could admonish the woman, she reached out and laid a hand on his chest. Ethera swirled around her, more powerful than he would have thought possible from someone so weak. “You are hunted. Be wary, for the situation is more than it seems.”

“What? Why? Who’s hunting me?”

She blinked, then looked around, her shoulders wilting. “Where am I?” she asked in a breathless whisper. “Who are you?”

“You…you approached me. What’s going on?” Elijah asked, entirely off-guard.

“Oh. It…it happened again.”

“What do you mean?”

Then, she explained that she’d taken a Prophet class and that, periodically, she would go into trances. Often, she found herself in entirely unfamiliar locations and having spoken to people she didn’t know.

“It’s a prophecy? How?”

She shrugged. “I…I don’t know how it works. I don’t know anyone else who’s gotten this class,” she responded. “It’s a curse, but it has saved lives in the past. I warned a family just before the war reached them. They fled their farm just in time.”

“The war?”

“The elves. They have killed so many…and they never seem satisfied.”

Elijah frowned. That was the war hinted at by the council of guild leaders – the one he’d basically told them to deal with on their own. Now, he was confronted with yet more consequences of his actions. Certainly, it wasn’t his responsibility to police the world, but he couldn’t afford to ignore an unprovoked war when it was staring him in the face. If he did, innocent people would die.

So, he resolved to at least investigate it before he made a decision how to respond.

“I must…I must go…”

“Can I help you in any way? Maybe some money? Or something else?”

She shook her head. “Heed my warnings. They are always accurate. That’s all I ask.”

With that, she turned and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Elijah confused and concerned.