The sunlight burned in ways Lin Moyan had forgotten possible. After years beneath the Verdant Abyss's emerald canopy, this unfiltered golden light felt like a brand against his skin. He raised his transformed arm instinctively, watching the roots woven through his flesh recoil from the brightness. The movement sent fresh pain radiating through his shoulder - a reminder that whatever healing had occurred during his time in the darkness, it hadn't been complete.
Haiyu crouched beside him, her vine-threaded fingers tracing unfamiliar patterns in the dirt. The roots that had fused her broken wrist now spread in delicate fractals up her forearm, pulsing faintly in time with his own. When she lifted her gaze, the brown of her eyes had fractured, revealing flecks of gold like sunlight through forest leaves.
"Alive?" she signed, the motion smoother than it should have been with her altered hand.
Moyan flexed his ruined arm. The flesh had knitted back together, but the roots beneath remained visible - raised ridges of gold weaving through muscle and bone like the veins in a leaf. "Mostly," he rasped. His throat felt raw, as if he'd been screaming. Maybe he had.
Jian Luo's shadow fell across them before his voice did. "You seeing this?"
The transformation had stabilized in him - his talons retracted slightly, the webbing between his fingers receding to only a thin membrane between the first two knuckles. But his amber eyes held no white anymore, just pools of liquid gold tracking something in the distance.
Moyan followed his gaze.
The field stretched before them, endless rows of silver saplings swaying in a wind that carried no scent of rot or decay. Where the Celestial Vine Sect's ruins should have stood, the earth rose in gentle mounds, each crowned with a young tree no taller than a man. Their bark shimmered like liquid metal in the sunlight, leaves edged with gold catching the light.
Moyan pushed to his feet. His body ached in ways that had nothing to do with physical wounds. "This isn't right."
Haiyu stood beside him, her head tilted like a hunter tracking distant prey. The roots in her arm extended slightly, trembling toward the nearest sapling as if drawn by some invisible force.
The ground shifted beneath them.
Not an earthquake - something subtler, more deliberate. The soil rippled like water disturbed by a falling stone, waves radiating outward in perfect concentric circles. From between the saplings, figures emerged.
Not Wardens. Not harvesters.
People.
Their skin bore the same root patterns as Moyan's arm, their eyes reflecting gold where the light hit just right. They moved with unnatural synchronicity, their bare feet leaving no prints in the soft earth. At their center walked a child - black-haired, brown-eyed, familiar yet profoundly wrong.
This child had no roots. No glowing veins. Just a simple wooden pendant carved in the shape of a coiled serpent resting against their chest.
Jian Luo's talons extended with a wet crack. "Oh, this just keeps getting better."
The child stopped an arm's length away. Their voice, when it came, was startlingly ordinary. Human. "You broke the cycle."
Moyan's roots burned beneath his skin. "Who are you?"
The child smiled. It didn't reach their eyes. "The first one who refused."
Haiyu stepped forward, her altered hand hovering near the child's pendant. Her fingers trembled with something that might have been recognition.
The child let her touch the carved serpent. "They tried to make me part of the tree. I said no."
The field fell silent. Even the wind stilled, leaves freezing mid-tremble as if the world itself held its breath.
Moyan exhaled slowly. The roots in his arm pulsed once, hard, as if in warning.
The child's smile widened.
And the first sapling bloomed.
The flower unfolded with unnatural speed, petals of living silver spreading wide to reveal a center of pulsing gold. As it opened, the ground trembled again - not in fear, but in recognition.
One by one, the other saplings followed suit, their blossoms bursting forth in a wave that spread across the field. The air filled with a scent like crushed mint and burning metal, so potent it made Moyan's eyes water.
Jian Luo coughed, covering his nose with his webbed hand. "That's... not ominous at all."
The child reached up, plucking the first bloom from its stem with careful fingers. "The Gardener slept for centuries," they said, turning the flower over in their palm. "You woke it."
Moyan's stomach dropped. "That's impossible. We stopped-"
"You changed the story," the child interrupted. "Not the ending."
Haiyu's hands moved sharply. "Explain."
The child's gaze slid past them, focusing on something in the distance. "The Verdant Abyss was never just a place. It was a story. A cycle. The Gardener wrote it, the Wardens maintained it, and the roots..." They opened their hand, letting the flower fall to the ground. "The roots remembered all of it."
The bloom hit the soil and dissolved, its silver petals sinking into the earth like rain into parched ground. Where it vanished, a single word formed in the dirt, written in root-script:
*Remember.*
Moyan's breath caught. He'd seen that word before - carved into the walls of the Floating Tomb, whispered by the ghost emperor, written in the pollen-vines of his old village.
The child knelt, tracing the letters with one finger. "Every cycle starts the same way. With a choice. With a refusal." They looked up, their brown eyes suddenly ancient. "You refused to play your part. Now the story has to change."
Jian Luo shifted uneasily. "And these people?" He gestured to the root-marked figures still standing motionless between the trees.
"The ones who came before," the child said simply. "The ones who said yes."
A chill ran down Moyan's spine. He looked closer at the nearest figure - a woman with bark-like skin and golden eyes. Her features were blurred, as if seen through running water, but something about the set of her jaw reminded him of Haiyu.
Haiyu saw it too. Her hands formed a sign Moyan didn't recognize - something old, something personal. The figure didn't react.
"They're empty now," the child said. "The roots remember, but the people... they're gone."
The field fell silent again as the weight of those words settled over them. The blooms continued to open, their metallic scent growing stronger with each passing moment.
Moyan rubbed his arm absently, feeling the roots shift beneath his skin. "What happens now?"
The child smiled again, and this time, Moyan saw the truth in it - not malice, but resignation. "Now you choose," they said. "Again."
They reached up and removed the serpent pendant, offering it to Moyan. "Take it. Or don't. But know this - the Gardener is awake. And it's hungry."
As if in response, the ground trembled once more, this time with enough force to knock Jian Luo off balance. In the distance, the silver trees swayed violently, their blossoms snapping shut with a sound like breaking glass.
The child's expression didn't change. "The first dawn only lasts so long."
Moyan stared at the pendant, his roots burning hotter with every passing second. Somewhere beneath his feet, something vast and ancient stirred.
The choice, as always, was his.