1273 The Weird Trees
“What’s going on?” I didn’t like this. But Stephen wasn’t in any shape to answer any of my questions. He arched his body, roared faintly and hoarsly as if he was in torture and immense pain.
As I watched these clouds, I felt something echoing there. It was like thunder and lightning happening out there. And then rain started to fall.
Wind came abruptly and the entire world around changed. It was like something grand was going to happen.
When I extended my hand towards that rain, I was shocked to see that the drops falling weren’t like water. They passed through my hand as if they were in illusion form or something.
But that didn’t make any sense. The clouds were there, the rain looked real, and the ground was getting soaked by the falling rain.
What was going on?
I couldn’t tell exactly what was wrong. I tried to move my chariot around and feel the falling rain, but failed.
“Don’t try,” just as I was puzzled, Stephen spoke up while gritting his teeth, “this is a holo rain coming from this seal.”
“Do you know what’s happening?” I turned to him and he couldn’t speak properly for the next minute. All he did was to faintly roar, like a wounded beast.
“I got a message recorded by my race’s ancestorsā¦” he took another long pause before adding, “my race isn’t stored inside any world, they are stored up in my genes!”
“Genes?! What does that even mean?!!” I didn’t get exactly what he meant, but had my guesses.
“The seal, it’s the seal,” the more he spoke, the weaker his sound became, “the seal modified my genes and attached coded genes of my race entirely inside my body! And that rain is releasing what’s insideā¦”
He couldn’t keep talking, and I didn’t need to listen to more to know what was going on.
His ancestors found a way to code the genes of his race inside that seal. Once the seal found a host, the genes would be coded on his genes and allow the genes of their race to survive.
When the host died, the seal would wrap the genes again and move to another host. In other words, it was like a parasite working over a host body.
I looked up at the rain and got what was going on here. That seal was now using the rich environment of my world to grow up the seven stars race like plants.
I saw small green sprouts growing up from the ground that was touched by that rain. It was weird as these sprouts looked exactly like real plants!
I didn’t know if there was some sort of trick inside, or these plants would change when grown up and change to what a race would properly be.
I looked back at Stephen. He was in immense pain, not allowing me to ask him anything. I realised that I didn’t know what his race looked like.
If that race was plant based or resembling plants in shape, then all this would make quite sense.
I had to wait and watch in silence, while that red cloud up there kept expanding and raining nonstop for long hours.
After the first hour passed, Stephen couldn’t endure it anymore. His body looked loose and he seemed a bit like he lost his consciousness.
Yet under the effect of the seal force, his body arched and kept releasing the energy out of it.
I turned my focus entirely after that over what was happening to the world around me. I didn’t try to jump or move around in a large area or else if what was happening here was limited to this region then I’d spread such a phenomenon over other regions.
After a few hours, a new change happened at last.
The plants kept growing like what normal plants did, yet at a very rapid pace. In just these few hours, the small and tiny sprouts grew up to be towering trees.
Each tree had a thick trunk that needed at least five men to surround it. At the same time, all the trees looked quite similar in their outer shape and growth, expanding for almost twenty metres high in the air.
They got a thick and rich crown of branches and green leaves. And after all this had grown, and from the central part of the tree, a slightly thicker branch grew up and rose high in the air for five more metres.
Then something like a diamond shaped fruit was formed. It had a faint red colour and thin lines that gave it an irregular surface.
Then that fruit started to grow darker red in colour, while a faint glowing appeared in silver white colour.
Something was growing in there, and I couldn’t help but think about that race. Was all this dedicated to growing such fruits? What would come out from these?
Each fruit was around five metres in length at least, with three metres in breadth at its thickest point.
A crazy thought appeared in my mind, one that I couldn’t easily believe.
If that race had their genes stored up inside the bodies of their guardians like Stephen, then these fruits should yield their people at the end.
I looked around, and there were an endless number of these trees. I got tempted and went down there to touch these trees, but I couldn’t.
Something stood in between me and these trees. I tried to touch many, yet my hands stopped just a metre away, touching something soft and cosy, yet it was sturdy enough to stop my hands from passing through.
“Interesting,” I got that something was protecting these trees. But I didn’t stop there. I took out my heavy glaive and used it to slash against one tree shield.
*Clang!*
All that happened was a loud clanging sound, as if my glaive hit something made out of metal. I even saw sparks of fire coming out from such a clash, and I felt a strong rebound force that pained my arm.