Chapter 315: What the Ancients Did

For several seconds, nobody moved.

The underground city stretched out around them in every direction, its broken roads disappearing beneath enormous roots and its ancient buildings standing like the remains of a civilization frozen in time.

Arthur looked at the bodies they had found.

Some had fallen where they died, but others were half covered by the roots, as though the World Tree had grown around them instead of simply growing through the city.

Athena slowly closed her notebook. "An entire civilization..." Her voice was quieter than usual.

One of the students swallowed. "These people actually lived here?"

"They didn’t just live here," Athena said. "They built this place."

Another student looked around at the ruins. "But I thought nobody knew who built the ancient structures in the Everglades."

"They don’t," Athena said. "At least, not completely. Most historical records only mention ruins. Nobody knows who built them, when they were built, or why they disappeared."

A boy near the back raised his hand slightly, and everyone looked at him. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"My mother studies ancient civilizations. She’s an archaeologist, and I’ve heard her talk about the Everglades before. She said there were signs that whoever lived here wasn’t some primitive Beast-worshipping tribe, like some of the old historians believed." He pointed at one of the buildings. "They had organized cities, roads, storage systems, and religious structures. Some of the ruins even had channels designed to redirect mana."

Athena’s eyes sharpened immediately. "Mana channels?"

"That’s what she told me."

Athena looked at the ruins, then at the roots. "So they understood the Secret Realm’s mana circulation."

"Maybe," the boy said. "My mother always said that was one of the biggest mysteries."

A second student spoke up. "My father works at the Historical Archive in the capital." He pointed at the wall. "He once showed me pictures of carvings found near the Everglades, with symbols that looked like circles surrounding a tree."

Athena turned. "Can you remember what they looked like?"

The student thought for a moment. "Five circles."

"The same as the statue Kong found," Athena said.

Luna stepped forward, her expression growing distant as she looked across the ruined city. "My grandfather said the people who lived here believed the World Tree’s roots reached farther than anyone could imagine. They connected the land, the rivers, the forests, and every place where mana gathered."

She looked up at the enormous root above them. "And he said the Beasts were connected to it too."

Athena nodded slowly. "That matches everything we’ve seen, the strange Beast evolutions, the abnormal mana, the way the land changes around the roots." She looked at the underground city. "And these people built their entire civilization around that same network."

"Wait," another student said, and everyone looked at him. "My older brother studies Beast evolution."

He pointed at one of the ancient carvings. "He told me once that some of the oldest Beast species don’t follow normal evolution patterns anymore. Their descendants have changed too much over the centuries."

Arthur looked at the carving. "So you’re saying their evolution changed because the World Tree changed?"

"I’m not saying that," the student said quickly. "I’m saying my brother thought something happened to the ecosystem a long time ago."

Athy’s eyes widened. "That’s another piece."

"Exactly," Athena said.

Luna stepped closer. "My grandfather said something similar. He said the Secret Realm used to be different, that the Beasts were stronger, the forests were larger, and the rivers carried more mana."

Sun frowned. "Then what happened?"

Luna looked at the roots. "Something happened to the World Tree."

Arthur thought of the memory he had seen, the people running and the voices shouting to separate the Mirrors. He had only seen fragments, but now the students were filling in pieces he hadn’t known were missing.

Athena walked to one of the walls and brushed away the dirt. "There."

A faded carving appeared beneath her hand, showing the same scenes as the mural in the temple above.

Five Mirrors surrounded a massive tree whose roots spread across rivers, forests, mountains, Beasts, and people.

The next carving showed the tree turned black, its roots covered in strange markings, while Beasts and people fled.

"They recorded it down here too," Athena said, her eyes moving quickly across the carvings. "And this confirms what the vision showed you. The corruption wasn’t the end of their story. It was the beginning."

A student frowned. "But if the tree was the problem, why didn’t they just destroy it?"

"Because the World Tree wasn’t just a powerful Beast or some enormous plant," Athena said. "It was part of the foundation of the Secret Realm. The land, the rivers, the mana, and the Beasts all depended on it."

The student’s eyes widened. "So if they destroyed it..."

"The entire Secret Realm would have collapsed with it," Athena said.

One of the students looked at the five Mirror symbols. "Then that’s why they separated the Mirrors. If the Mirrors controlled the barriers, keeping them apart meant no one could remove all five barriers at once."

Athena smiled faintly. "Exactly."

"They weren’t protecting the Mirrors," Arthur said, looking at the symbols. "They were protecting the Secret Realm from the Mirrors ever being reunited."

The students slowly took that in, and one girl shook her head. "Then all this time, the barriers weren’t keeping people out."

"They were keeping the World Tree contained," Athena said.

Luna looked around the ruined city. "And they did it for centuries."

Athy’s expression turned serious. "Which means the disaster didn’t start today."

For a moment, nobody said anything. The corrupted Beasts, the Miasma, the ancient ruins, the weakening barriers, and the World Tree weren’t separate events. They were all parts of the same disaster. The ancient civilization had stopped it, but they hadn’t solved it. They had only bought time.

A student slowly lowered his weapon. "Then why did the barriers weaken?"

"Time," Athena said.

Luna nodded. "My grandfather said the barriers got weaker with every generation."

"My father mentioned that too," another student said. "He said the Everglades have been changing for decades. Some ruins disappeared, some areas became impossible to enter, and the historical expeditions kept getting smaller because the Beasts were becoming more aggressive."

A different student nodded and pulled a small notebook from his bag. "I’ve read about that. I’ve been researching the Everglades since before the Academy."

Arthur glanced at him. "You brought research notes into a Secret Realm?"

The student looked embarrassed. "I like history."

Arthur nodded seriously. "Fair."

Mithra smiled.

The student opened the notebook. "There were reports of unstable mana zones showing up more often over the last hundred years. Researchers thought it was natural deterioration."

"It wasn’t," Athena said.

The student shook his head. "No. The barriers were failing, and nobody knew."

"They didn’t know what they were looking at," Athena said, closing her notebook.

Athy looked at the bodies. "But the people who built this place did."

"They understood exactly what was happening," Athena said.

Then one of the students asked the question everyone had been thinking. "Then why would anyone want to wake it up?"

Athena’s expression hardened. "Because they believed waking it would restore its original power. They saw the World Tree’s corruption as something that could be controlled."

Luna nodded. "My grandfather believed the people searching for the Mirrors wanted to use its power."

Arthur stared at the root, thinking of Ronin, the purple Miasma, and the World Tree turning black as its branches spread across the sky.

"They wanted the tree back. And they weren’t completely wrong."

Everyone looked at him, and he slowly raised his head. "The World Tree really was powerful before, and the Secret Realm really did depend on it." He tightened his grip on Dusk. "They were just wrong about what would happen afterward."

Athena understood immediately. "If the World Tree wakes up while it’s still corrupted..."

"The corruption spreads through everything connected to it," Arthur said.

Somewhere outside the underground city, something enormous moved. The roots trembled, and dust fell from the ceiling, and then a deep pulse rolled through the entire chamber.

BOOM.

Everyone looked up as the ancient carvings began to glow faintly, the five Mirrors and, beneath them, the image of the World Tree.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. The ancient civilization had spent centuries keeping the World Tree contained.

They had separated the Mirrors, built the barriers, and sacrificed everything to keep the Secret Realm alive, and in a single day, Arthur and the others had undone all of it.

He looked up toward the surface. "Then we need to finish what they couldn’t."

The roots pulsed again, and this time, something answered from deep within the World Tree.

A roar.