The ride was not smooth at all.

The capital's clean ended, turning into a rough dirt path. Jonah sat inside a heavily armored transport vehicle, feeling every single jolt and bump.

Across from him sat two Temple Knights, their silver armor immaculate and their faces showed no emotions. They hadn't blinked in twenty minutes. It was deeply unsettling.

Next to Jonah, Vanessa was barely holding on. "I've had more comfortable rides on a runaway Mole-Hound," she whispered, gripping a strap as the vehicle jolted hard. "And the company was better. At least the Mole-Hound looked happy to be on the ride."

Seraph, sitting on Jonah's other side, didn't even glance at her. Her eyes were fixed on the two knights, a silent war being waged in the tight space.

The convoy was a strange mix: half were Seraph's Academy soldiers in their practical combat gear, and the other half were the Cardinal's Temple Knights. The two groups watched each other with open suspicion, as if expecting the other side to pull a fast one at any moment.

"They're just trying to intimidate us," Seraph murmured, her voice too low for the knights to hear over the vehicle's rumble. "Don't let them."

"Too late," Vanessa muttered, "I'm thoroughly intimidated."

As they traveled, the world outside their reinforced window began to die. The green hills of the heartland slowly faded to a sickly yellow-brown. The vibrant trees thinned out, replaced by gnarled, leafless husks that looked like skeletal hands clawing at the sky. The air itself, visible through the thick glass, seemed to grow heavy.

After another hour of travel, the convoy slowed. RUMBLE... SQUEAL... HISS. The vehicle came to a halt.

"We're here," Seraph announced, her voice tight.

The heavy door hissed open, revealing a sight that made the vehicle feel like a cozy home. They had stopped at a checkpoint, a grim blockhouse of stained concrete and rusted metal barricades. It was the last safe place before the Withered Scar.

The handful of soldiers stationed here looked exhausted, their faces pale and their eyes haunted. They moved with a weary slowness, as if the air was draining the life from them.

Jonah stepped out onto the dusty ground and felt a wave of cold wash over him. It wasn't just the temperature. The air was thin and smelled of dust and decay.

Before them, the world ended.

The ground was a grey-black expanse of cracked earth. Not a single blade of grass, not one lonely weed, broke the desolate surface. The trees were black and twisted like skeletons. A sickly grey mist hung in the air, refusing to be moved by the wind.

Inside Jonah's mind, a whimper of pain echoed from Sylva. It wasn't his feeling, but he felt it as if it were. Through his link with his Progeny, he could feel the land's agony. It wasn't just dead; it was a place trapped in an endless nightmare. It was pure despair.

Cardinal Evangeline stepped out of her own luxurious transport, her ornate robes looking absurdly out of place against the grim backdrop. She seemed unaffected by the oppressive atmosphere.

"We will make camp here," she announced, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. "The trial will begin at dawn."

As the soldiers began to set up a perimeter, dusk began to settle. The fading light made the grey mist of the Scar seem to deepen. And out of that mist, they came.

At first, they were just shambling shapes in the distance. But as they drew closer, drawn to the vibrant life of the convoy like moths to a flame, their forms became horrifyingly clear.

They were beasts, but horribly wrong. A wolf with too many legs dragged itself forward, its mouth hanging open in a silent howl. A large bird flopped through the air on uneven wings, its eyes nothing but weeping sores. Dozens of them, all malformed, all twisted, all moving in a jerky way.

The Temple Knights and Academy soldiers immediately raised their weapons, falling into defensive formations.

CLICK. CLACK. SHING.

"Hold your fire!" Seraph commanded her troops.

The creatures didn't attack. They didn't even seem to notice the soldiers. They just shuffled forward, stopping at the edge of the healthy ground, their strange eyes fixed on the convoy. They were in a state of endless pain and the weak warmth of life was the only thing they could feel.

"What are they?" Vanessa whispered, her face pale.

The Cardinal stood at the edge of the checkpoint, gazing at the wretched creatures with a look that was almost pitying. "They are the Sorrow-Walkers," she explained, her voice showing a historian's quiet grief. "Beasts who wandered into the Scar over the last fifty years. The blight did not kill them. It... changed them into something worse. Their souls are so corrupted that they feel nothing but pain, forever."

As if to prove her point, one of the Sorrow-Walkers, the one that looked like a wolf, let out a wretched whine. It was a sound of pure misery that it made Jonah's heart ache.

One of the Temple Knights silently nocked an arrow. The arrowhead glowed with a silver light. He drew his bow, aimed, and let it fly.

FWOOSH!

The arrow struck the wolf creature in the chest. There was no blood. The creature just stopped, its pained expression seeming to soften for a brief moment. Then, with a soft pffft, its entire body dissolved into a cloud of black dust, which was quickly swept away by the wind.

A mercy killing.

Jonah stared at the spot where the creature had been, then at the dozens of others still shuffling in the gloom. The Cardinal turned to him, her expression now back to its usual political sharpness.

"This is the task, boy," she said, her voice clear. "This is the unholy ground our holy magic could not cleanse. This is the failure you must now overcome."

The stage was set. His trial wasn't just about making grass grow. It was about bringing peace to the damned. And as he looked out at the miles of dead earth and its tormented inhabitants, Jonah understood the true weight of the Cardinal's gambit.