Chapter 167: The wound deepens
The trial swallowed them whole, and as it did Clayton could not help but think indignantly. ’Resolving a conflict?’
He gritted his teeth. ’That’s supposed to be the work of Judges’.
’I’m an Awakened!’
’Heck, I’ve never even seen a real life Judge once. During my time, only the rich had the luxury of visiting the court of law’.
’So why?!’
’Just why do I have to resolve a conflict like a Judge?’
The floor dropped.
Stone shattered, light fractured, and alongside the other Rootsite warriors, Clayton plunged headlong into the abyss.
There was no sense of falling, only tearing.
It felt like threads were being pulled loose from a tapestry, whether the tapestry of time or fate, no one knew as their bodies unraveled, scattered into currents of memory not their own.
’Maybe a tapestry of memory?’
This trial reminded Clayton of the very first Verdant Apostate that he met, the one with the Echoes of Ruin Aspect.
As his thoughts wandered, then just as suddenly, they hit ground.
Thud!
Clayton staggered upright, his vision swimming. His boots pressed against cracked soil that steamed with sap and ash.
Above him stretched a sky torn in half, with one side alive with sprawling roots that arched like colossal ribs, while the other jagged with black alloy spires and rivers of molten fire.
It wasn’t a vision anymore.
Now, it was real.
They were inside the trial now as living, witnessing entities. The civil war’s battlefield had become their prison.
Torren spat blood, rising beside him, his Pyreaxe already in his hands. "This... this isn’t illusion. It smells alive."
Kaelin wiped his mouth with the back of his glove, grimacing. "It feels alive too. The ground’s got a pulse."
He wasn’t wrong.
Beneath their boots, the earth throbbed like a heart. Echoterra itself was bleeding, broken between two visions of survival.
The system’s voice whispered faintly through the air.
DING!
~----~
[Phase II: Immersion stage.]
[Resolve the fracture. Act where they failed.]
~----~
They didn’t even have time to regain their bearings when it started.
WHOOM!
A horn blared.
And then from the east, the Preservers advanced, thousands of warriors clad in living armor, roots and vines sprouting from their backs like wings.
Their leader, the bark-robed Verdant Lord raised his staff high, his voice carrying across the battlefield.
"Purity or death!" He bellowed.
And from the west, the Ascendants answered. Theirs was an army of biomechanical hybrids, their limbs twisted into steel weapons, their veins glowing with molten circuits.
Their champion, the steel-hearted Lord, bellowed in reply. "Strength or extinction!"
There was no hesitation.
The armies crashed together in a storm of roots and metal.
BOOM!
Clayton’s heart hammered. The trial hadn’t just asked them to watch, it had thrown them into the wound itself.
"Orders?" Harrick asked, his spear already braced.
Clayton’s mind raced.
He could feel the pull of both armies pressing on them, trying to drag them into their ranks. The Preservers hissed for them to embrace purity, while the Ascendants snarled for them to embrace strength.
If they chose wrong, they’d be swallowed whole.
"We don’t fight for them," Clayton said, his voice steady. "We fight to stop this war, that’s the way to resolve it".
"Stop a war between gods?" Kaelin scoffed, though his eyes never stopped scanning the chaos.
"Not gods," Clayton said as his grip tightened on Regalia. "Verdant Lords. And they bleed just like we do."
The first wave hit.
A Preserver beast, roots twisting into six snapping jaws, lunged at them. Torren roared and met it head-on, his Pyreaxe blazing as his strike split its wooden skull, spraying sap like blood.
An Ascendant warrior followed, arms fused into whirring blades.
In response, Kaelin slid beneath it in a blur of shadow, his knives cutting the tendons still buried beneath alloy.
The thing collapsed in a screech of sparks.
Veyra loosed three arrows in a breath and each one detonated, tearing through advancing hybrids before they reached the group.
Soren’s Emberblade burned white-hot as he carved a gap in the press, his movements raw and furious. "They just keep coming!" he shouted.
"They’re not meant to stop," Mira snapped, her hands glowing as she sealed a wound on Harrick’s leg. "This is endless unless we end the cause."
Clayton’s chest tightened. She was right; this wasn’t about numbers, it was about resolution
Then he saw it.
In the center of the battlefield where roots and steel collided in endless slaughter, a fissure split the earth. Light bled from it, pulsing violently like the exposed heart of Echoterra itself.
The armies fought because of it, drawn to it like moths to fire.
His eyes widened. "The fracture is alive!"
Clayton pointed with his spear. "There, that’s the wound."
Torren’s jaw clenched. "So we seal it."
"Not with roots, not with steel, but with unity," Clayton said. His voice dropped. "I don’t know how we’ll do it, but we have to show it a choice that doesn’t end in war."
The battle pressed tighter around them as more beasts came, some all root, some all machine, and some fused into abominations of both.
But Clayton no longer aimed to cut them all down. Instead, he fought toward the fissure with single-minded focus.
Roots burst from his hands, tangling Preservers into knots before Ascendants could cut them down. Veyra’s arrows didn’t just kill, they pinned attackers to the ground, forcing them to stop fighting.
Torren split enemies apart but pushed their corpses into barricades that bought breathing space for them to move.
Every move wasn’t about destruction, it was about reaching the center.
Kaelin appeared at Clayton’s side, blood on his blades. "You think a speech is going to end this war?"
Clayton’s mouth curved into a grim smile. "Not a speech, proof. I’m going to show them proof".
Then at last, they reached the fissure.
The wound throbbed, light spilling in wild surges that scorched their boots and singed their skin.
The armies converged around them, each side howling, demanding.
Taking a deep breath, Clayton planted Regalia into the ground as his roots surged outward, gripping both sides of the fissure, holding it steady. The glow flared, threatening to consume him whole.
"Listen!" His voice boomed across the battlefield, not his own but carried by the trial itself.
"You fought for purity!"
"You fought for strength!"
"But your actions is bleeding Echoterra dry. Look at this wound, look what you’ve made!"
The Preserver Lord snarled. "Without purity, there is no Echoterra!"
The Ascendant Lord thundered. "Without strength, there is no survival!"
"Without unity," Clayton roared back, "there is nothing!"
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
His team formed a ring around him with their backs to the fissure, defending as both armies surged. Torren’s Pyreaxe blazed like a sun, Veyra’s arrows drew lines of fire across the sky, and Soren’s blade sang as it split alloy and bark alike.
Kaelin’s shadow knives cut down anyone who slipped past. Harrick and Mira held the gaps, spear and roots sealing every breach.
And then, the light of the fissure began to change. From violent, lashing bursts, it softened into flickering and uncertain bursts.
Then came the real test.
The fissure’s glow suddenly burst upward, wrapping each of them in threads of light as visions stabbed into their minds.
Torren saw fire consuming forests, steel smothering roots.
A voice hissed. "Choose purity, or everything burns."
Veyra saw her sister’s death again, only this time with a cruel promise. "Choose strength, and she lives."
Kaelin saw shadows of betrayal, mercenaries turning their blades on him. "Trust no one. Walk alone."
Soren saw himself holding his brother again, alive, unbroken. "Take power, and save him."
As for Harrick, he saw himself failing at the wells, drowning in shame. "Purity absolves you."
Mirra saw herself alone in the defense, failing everyone when it mattered most. "Strength redeems you."
Each vision clawed and dragged, threatening to shatter them apart.
Clayton felt them all pressing, trying to split his circle.
He forced his roots deeper into the fissure, his own vision cutting through but then Korrath’s sneer interrupted, his voice whispering. "You can’t unite them. You’ll fail just like we did."
Clayton’s roar shook the battlefield. "Not this time!"
He looked to his people, one by one, and Clayton made his decision. ’I won’t be a Judge! I’ll be a therapist instead!’
He spoke.
"Torren, fire protects, not destroys. Remember that!"
"Veyra, you don’t need to be stronger to honor her. You’re already enough!"
"Kaelin, you’ve been betrayed, yes. But not by us. We’re here for you!"
"Soren, your brother’s gone. Nothing can change that, but you still fight for him through us. That’s his legacy."
"Harrick, you didn’t fail. You rose, and you’ll keep rising."
"Mirra, you held the line, and we’re still standing because of it. That’s strength enough."
His words sounded desperate, but they had an effect as the visions cracked, splintered, and dissolved into ash.
The fissure flared bright, then folded shut again as roots and alloy began weaving together in a single seal.
The battlefield froze.
Then the two armies halted mid-strike, fading into streams of light.
The Preserver Lord and Ascendant Lord looked at Clayton, their eyes hollow, before dissolving into motes that sank into the wound.
Silence fell, then the ground stopped pulsing. The air cleared.
The system’s voice filled the chamber, heavy as judgment.
~----~
[Phase II Complete.]
[Unity sustained. Fracture stabilized.]
~----~
Clayton exhaled, every muscle trembling. His roots withdrew from the sealed fissure, and Regalia pulsed once in his hand.
He turned to his team.
They were bruised, bleeding, weary, but still standing. Together.
And once again, the chamber walls began to shift, preparing for what came next.