Chapter 324: The Darkness Beneath

Once the last of the roots fell back into the earth, the Darkness Region went quiet again, and it was nothing like the others.

Fire had spread across the land like a living furnace, Water had flooded the ruins and turned whole sections of the Secret Realm into rivers and lakes, and Earth had risen from beneath the forest, dragging ancient structures up with it. But Darkness didn’t spread across the land. It spread through it.

Arthur walked slowly beneath the twisted trees with Dusk resting on his shoulder, studying the strange landscape around them, and the farther they went, the less sure he was that they were still walking in the same direction.

A tree stood beside the path, and Arthur glanced at it, then stopped. It was growing upside down, its roots hanging from the sky and its branches reaching toward the ground.

Arthur stared. "...Interesting."

Vedas looked at the tree, then at Arthur. "Don’t."

Arthur glanced at him. "Don’t what?"

"Whatever you’re thinking."

Arthur smiled. "I wasn’t thinking anything."

Vedas snorted. "That’s exactly what you say right before you do something insane."

Luna covered a small laugh, and Eden floated beside Arthur, her golden wings moving gently as she looked around. "I think he’s curious."

Arthur looked at her. "You think?"

Eden nodded seriously. "Very."

Arthur sighed. "Even you?"

Eden giggled.

Star bounced against Arthur’s shoulder.

Boing.

Arthur looked down. Star had stretched itself into a small arrow pointing straight at the upside-down tree, and Arthur’s eyes brightened. "See? Star agrees with me."

Vedas shook his head. "That isn’t agreement. That’s Star telling you to go look at it."

Arthur paused. "...That’s even better."

Vedas groaned, and Luna smiled as they went deeper.

The darkness grew thicker, but it wasn’t only darker. It was wrong. The ground sometimes appeared above them, trees stretched sideways through empty air, and rocks floated upside down beneath their feet. At one point, Arthur spotted a massive stone archway in the distance, and when he blinked, it was suddenly beneath them.

He stopped walking. "What?"

Luna nearly walked into him. "What happened?"

Arthur pointed down. "The ruins."

Luna looked, and her expression changed, because there was nothing there, only black soil. Then the archway appeared again, this time directly above them.

Luna stared. "...The Darkness Region is distorting space."

Arthur’s eyes slowly widened as he looked around. "It’s not just darkness. The whole area is being turned inside out."

Eden’s expression turned serious. "I can feel something beneath us."

Arthur turned to her immediately. "Beneath us?"

She nodded. "Very far down."

Vedas looked at the ground. "How far?"

Eden closed her eyes and let her perception spread through the darkness. For several seconds, she said nothing, and then her eyes opened. "...The roots."

Arthur’s expression sharpened. "What about them?"

"They’re not spreading outward." Eden looked down. "They’re going down."

Arthur crouched and pressed a hand against the soil, and for the first time since they had entered the region, his curiosity gave way to focus. "Then they’re going somewhere."

Luna stepped closer. "Where?"

Arthur looked beneath them. "The World Tree."

Even Vedas stopped joking.

Luna slowly looked around at the darkness. "If these roots are connected to the World Tree..."

"Then the Darkness Region is connected to its deepest parts," Arthur said.

Eden nodded. "And something is pulling them downward."

Arthur stood. "Then that’s where we’re going."

Luna looked at him. "Down?"

Arthur smiled faintly. "Unless you know another way to find the bottom of the World Tree."

Luna shook her head. "No."

"Then down."

The deeper they went, the stranger the region became, until the darkness swallowed even the distorted landscape around them. There was no sky and no horizon anymore, no clear direction at all, only blackness and the occasional fragment of ancient stone appearing in impossible places.

Luna suddenly stopped. "Wait. There."

She pointed at a wall half buried in the darkness, and Arthur walked over. Ancient symbols covered the stone, and when Luna brushed the dust away, her eyes widened. "I recognize these."

Vedas leaned closer. "From your grandfather’s records?"

Luna nodded and traced one of the symbols. "This one represents the roots beneath the World Tree."

Arthur looked at another. "And this one?"

Luna’s expression turned uneasy. "Depth."

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Depth?"

"My grandfather described it as the symbol for something that exists beneath the foundation of the tree."

Arthur’s curiosity came right back. "Beneath the World Tree?"

Luna hesitated. "That’s what it means."

Arthur smiled. "Then we’re definitely going the right way."

Vedas laughed. "You really enjoy finding things you’re probably not supposed to find."

Arthur looked at him. "That’s how you discover things."

"That’s how you die."

"Sometimes both happen."

Eden laughed, Luna smiled in spite of herself, and even Star bounced twice against Arthur’s shoulder.

Then the ground beneath them trembled, and everyone went silent. A deep sound traveled through the darkness. It wasn’t a roar or an explosion. It sounded like something enormous moving beneath the earth.

Arthur’s grip tightened on Dusk. "Everyone stay close."

Vedas moved to his side at once. Eden floated lower, Luna stepped between them, and Star flattened itself against Arthur’s shoulder, going unusually still.

Another tremor hit, and the ground split as a massive black root pushed up through the stone. It was far larger than any root they had seen on the surface, with black veins pulsing across it, but beneath them ran faint golden lines.

Arthur stared. "The World Tree."

"Part of it," Luna whispered.

Arthur approached carefully, and Vedas caught his shoulder. "Arthur. Don’t touch it."

Arthur glanced at the root, then back at Vedas. "...Why?"

"Because every time you call something interesting, something terrible happens."

Arthur considered that. "That’s not entirely true." Vedas stared at him, and Arthur smiled. "Sometimes something amazing happens."

Eden burst out laughing, and Luna covered her mouth to hide her smile.

Vedas shook his head. "You’re getting worse."

Arthur looked at the root again, and then he noticed something moving beneath its surface. It wasn’t physical movement. It was images, faces, buildings, people. Memories.

His expression changed. "It’s holding memories."

Luna stepped closer. "How can you tell?"

"Look."

The surface of the root flickered, and a city appeared beneath it, with ancient people running through its streets. Arthur slowly reached toward the root.

Vedas sighed. "Of course."

Arthur’s fingers touched the black surface, and the world disappeared.

It was the same burning city he had seen before, but this time, the memory went further. People were running through the streets while the golden World Tree towered over them, its branches stretching across the sky and black veins crawling across its trunk with purple Miasma between them.

"Separate the roots!" someone screamed.

"We can’t!" another voice shouted back. "The corruption has reached the heart!"

Several ancient figures surrounded the tree, and one of them was holding what looked like a Mirror while another wept. "It’s inside the tree!"

Arthur’s eyes widened. Inside?

The memory shifted. The ancient people were trying to cut something away from the World Tree. They weren’t trying to destroy the tree. They were trying to separate something from it.

"If we destroy the tree, the entire Secret Realm will die!" a figure screamed.

"Then we need another way!" another answered.

The memory shook violently, and the World Tree pulsed, and for a single instant, Arthur saw something inside its trunk. It wasn’t a root, a Beast, or a person. It was something vast, buried deep within the golden structure.

Then the memory shattered, and Arthur stumbled back into Vedas’s arms.

"Arthur!"

Arthur was breathing hard, and Eden flew to him immediately. "What happened?"

Arthur stared at the root, and Luna’s face had gone pale. "What did you see?"

Arthur slowly looked at them. "The same memory as before, but more of it. The ancients weren’t only trying to cut the tree off from the regions."

"Then what were they trying to do?" Luna asked.

"Separate something from it," Arthur said. "Something that was inside it."

Vedas’s expression hardened. "And they failed."

Arthur nodded. "The corruption had already reached the heart."

Eden looked at the enormous root, her voice quiet. "Arthur... I can feel something."

Arthur turned to her. "What?"

Eden looked deeper into the darkness. "Something is moving."

The ground trembled, and Star suddenly leaped from Arthur’s shoulder, stretching its body into a long, trembling shape that pointed straight down.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. "Star senses it too."

Luna slowly stepped back. "What’s down there?"

Arthur looked into the endless darkness beneath them. "I don’t know."

Then a voice echoed through the chamber, quiet and weak, almost impossible to hear.

"...Help..."

Everyone froze. Vedas raised King Maker, Eden’s eyes went wide, and Luna went completely still as Arthur stared into the darkness.

"...Help..."

It wasn’t Ronin, and it wasn’t the World Tree. It didn’t sound like any of the corrupted Beasts, either. It sounded old, older than the ruins around them, and older than the Mirrors.

Arthur’s curiosity vanished completely, and for once, he didn’t move toward the mystery. He simply listened.

"Did you hear that?" Luna whispered.

Arthur nodded. "Yes."

Vedas looked at him. "Arthur..."

Arthur didn’t answer. The enormous black root pulsed once, then twice, and the whole underground chamber shook.

Far above them, the World Tree answered with a golden pulse through its roots, then another, and deep beneath the Darkness Region, something answered from inside the tree.

Arthur slowly raised Dusk, his eyes fixed on the darkness below. "...Someone is still in there."