CHAPTER 493: MEMORIES (5)

The wind howled across the valley, carrying whispers of storms that hadn’t yet formed. The land itself seemed tense, as if the world were bracing for something it couldn’t name.

Lindarion stood on the ridge, cloak drawn tight around him, white hair whipping in the restless gale. Below stretched the scar of an old battlefield: blackened earth, broken weapons, the skeletal remains of war long past. Yet the mana here was new, alive, thrumming faintly with corruption.

Ashwing circled above, wings glittering faintly in the cloudlight. "He’s been here," the dragon muttered. "Not the echo. Him."

Lindarion’s jaw set. "I know."

He didn’t need to see Dythrael to feel him anymore. The god’s mana wasn’t a presence, it was a pressure, a pulse that lived beneath the skin of the world. Ever since his awakening months ago, that pulse had been growing stronger, syncing with the rhythm of Lindarion’s own core like two notes vibrating on the same string.

And now, standing in the shadow of that resonance, the connection burned.

Nysha approached from behind, her crimson eyes narrowed. "We’re too close to the southern leyline. The flow’s destabilizing again."

"The Tree warned me it would," Lindarion said quietly. "The seals are unraveling faster than anyone realized."

Nysha’s voice lowered. "Because of him."

"Because of me," Lindarion corrected.

They both knew it was true. The World Tree’s blessing, his bloodline, his awakening, all of it had become a beacon. Wherever he went, Dythrael’s essence stirred, feeding on the same energy that strengthened Lindarion. A cruel symmetry, as if the universe itself had decided that one could not rise without the other.

Ashwing landed beside them, claws crunching against the gravel. "If we keep going south, you’re going to meet him face to face."

"I intend to," Lindarion said.

The dragon’s tail lashed. "You don’t get it. He’s not like the things we’ve fought. He doesn’t even exist in one place. He’s everywhere, half in the world, half in whatever’s left of the void. You can’t kill something that never really died."

Lindarion turned to face him, golden eyes calm. "I don’t need to kill him. I need to understand him."

Nysha frowned. "Understand?"

He nodded slowly. "Every god, every demihuman, every fragment of ancient blood left in this world, they all speak of Dythrael as ruin. But what if ruin wasn’t his purpose? What if the destruction was the price of something else?"

Nysha crossed her arms. "You’re starting to sound like him."

Lindarion smiled faintly. "Maybe I need to."

The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable. The wind stirred the ashes of the battlefield below, scattering fragments of bone like dust. For a brief moment, the air shimmered, and Lindarion saw flickers of the past. Soldiers in bronze armor, demi-humans with scales of silver, elves of Lorienya casting their last spells as the sky burned red.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Ashwing made a low sound. "You saw it too, huh."

Lindarion’s voice was distant. "Echoes. The land remembers."

They descended the ridge, the ruins stretching before them. Each step felt heavier, as if the ground itself resented their passage. In the center of the desolation stood what had once been a citadel, its spires shattered, its gates collapsed inward. A massive crater marked its heart, filled with black glass and threads of golden light.

The dragon sniffed the air. "Divine residue. Strong, too. It’s like he burned half the leyline just to leave this behind."

Lindarion knelt by the glass, touching the surface. The mana thrummed at his touch, rippling like liquid.

"Dythrael’s flame," he murmured. "Still alive."

The system flickered in his mind’s eye.

[Warning: Ambient divine energy detected.]

[Origin: Dythrael.]

[Recommendation: Immediate retreat.]

Lindarion ignored it. "He’s marking his path," he said softly. "Every place he touches becomes part of his domain. A kingdom without borders."

Nysha’s expression darkened. "Then every step we take south brings us deeper into him."

"That’s what he wants." Lindarion rose, eyes fixed on the horizon. "He’s drawing me closer. Testing how far I’ll follow."

Ashwing’s voice dropped. "You’re not seriously playing along, right?"

But Lindarion didn’t answer immediately. The wind carried faint whispers again, like voices layered over the rustle of the grass. A thousand souls murmuring, all bound to the same source.

"Sometimes," he said at last, "the only way to break a god’s game... is to play it better than he does."

Nysha looked at him sharply. "You’re risking everything for that theory."

Lindarion’s golden gaze met hers. "Everything’s already at risk."

They walked on.

As the night fell, the crater behind them glowed faintly, gold lines crawling across its surface, forming a sigil so vast it could only be seen from above. The mark pulsed once, then vanished into the dark, its energy sinking into the bones of the land.

Lindarion paused for a moment, glancing back. He felt it then, a flicker, faint but familiar. The same presence from the Depth, from the echo that had touched his core.

And beneath it, a whisper.

"Come further, little heir."

He closed his eyes. The sound wasn’t words, it was pressure, warmth, like someone standing too close. His mana flared instinctively in answer.

Ashwing glanced up. "He’s calling again, isn’t he?"

"Yes," Lindarion said. "And I’ll answer soon enough."

He tightened his cloak and kept walking, the glow of his eyes fading into the night.

Far to the south, in the heart of the wastelands, Dythrael stirred. His form, half light, half shadow, unfolded like the birth of a new sun. His lips curved, not in malice, but in inevitability.

"So you’ve finally begun to listen."

The continent itself trembled.

And in that trembling, destiny shifted a little closer to its breaking point.

The southern lands were nothing like the realms of the lightborn.

Where the forests of Lorienya shimmered with dawn-hued mist and golden sap, the woods beyond the border grew beneath a perpetual twilight, neither night nor day, but something between. The trees stood taller here, their bark black as obsidian, their roots glimmering faintly with veins of silver-blue luminescence that pulsed in rhythm with the earth’s quiet breath.

Ashwing hovered uneasily as they crossed the last ridge. "I don’t like this. The ground’s humming like a living thing."

"It is," Nysha murmured. "Tirnaeth soil remembers everything that dies on it."

Lindarion slowed his stride, senses stretched outward. The mana here was older, denser, not corrupted, but weighty with the residue of a civilization that had learned to live in shadow rather than defy it. His golden eyes faintly reflected the shifting glow beneath the surface as he knelt, brushing his fingertips against the ashen soil.

Warm. Breathing. Alive.

Then the forest moved.