God's Tree-Chapter 148: The Spirit That Endures

The path ended.

Not in cliffs, not in trees, not even in distance—but in stillness.

The forest, once shifting and breathing around them, grew utterly still. No leaves rustled. No birds flew. Even the silver-glowing canopy above had dulled, as though it, too, had gone quiet in anticipation.

At the end of the path was a circle of stones—twelve in all, arranged with uncanny precision around a hollow depression in the earth. The soil there was black, not from rot, but from age. Whatever had grown there once had long since withered away.

In the center of the circle was a single stone altar. Upon it sat the seed Argolaith had taken from the memory pool.

But the seed was no longer dormant.

It pulsed with a deep inner light—slow, steady, breathing.

Argolaith stopped just short of the ring.

Thae'Zirak exhaled through his nose. "This is it."

Kaelred frowned. "I was hoping for more… structure. Maybe some creepy tower, or a glowing cave."

Malakar's eyes glowed faintly. "This is spirit. It needs no shape. It borrows yours."

Argolaith stepped forward.

The moment his boots crossed the edge of the circle, the air shifted.

Heat surged through the clearing—though no fire burned. The trees surrounding the grove vanished. Not in smoke or wind, but in inversion. One moment they were there, the next, they weren't. The forest pulled away like peeling back a page in a book.

And suddenly—

Argolaith stood alone.

No sky above. No earth below. Only void.

The stone altar remained, suspended in nothingness, the seed still glowing faintly.

But everything else—Kaelred, Malakar, Thae'Zirak, even the weight of his weapons—was gone. His sword was not at his side. His cloak did not move. He could not even feel the ground beneath his feet.

Then the light dimmed, and he saw someone standing across from him.

Himself.

But not a mirror image.

This Argolaith wore no armor. No scars. No weapon. His eyes were dull—not blue, but gray. His posture was slouched, uncertain. He looked like a man lost.

"You made it further than I thought," the reflection said.

Argolaith didn't speak.

The reflection tilted its head. "What now? You take the seed? Find the tree? Walk your grand, glowing path to destiny?"

Silence.

The reflection stepped forward. "You think the trees chose you because you're strong? Because you're good? You stole from your own people. You left your family behind. You're driven by fear, not honor."

Argolaith clenched his fists. "I know what I've done."

"Do you?" the reflection asked. "Or do you lie about it just well enough to keep walking?"

Behind the reflection, shapes began to emerge in the darkness. Faces. People from Seminah. Familiar. Distant. Disappointed.

Kaelred. Malakar. Even Thae'Zirak. Watching. Silent. Judgment in their eyes.

"You lead them like you know where you're going," the reflection said. "But you're just following a pull you don't understand. What happens when it leads you to ruin?"

Argolaith turned his gaze back to the seed on the altar. It had begun to fracture—hairline cracks spreading like veins across its surface. Light seeped through.

But the light wasn't steady.

It flickered.

Like it was unsure.

"What is the cost of spirit?" the reflection asked. "Of becoming what the trees want you to be?"

Argolaith took a breath. His chest ached. His thoughts felt heavy.

He wasn't fighting a creature this time.

He was fighting doubt.

His own.

And it was just beginning.

Malakar knelt just outside the ring of stones, one skeletal hand pressed to the ground. The soil pulsed faintly.

"He's inside it now."

Kaelred stood nearby, arms crossed. "What's he seeing?"

"Only he can say," Malakar murmured. "The trial of spirit shows you what you are—before the world told you who to be."

Thae'Zirak paced slowly around the clearing. "And if he fails?"

Malakar looked up, violet fire glowing in his sockets. "Then the third tree will never call again."

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Kaelred muttered under his breath, "He won't fail."

But his eyes lingered on the motionless figure of Argolaith—standing alone inside the circle—arms limp at his sides, his breath shallow.

Inside, the fight was just beginning.

The void held its shape like a thought unwilling to fade.

Argolaith stood alone in that endless black, surrounded by false stars and the echo of his own breath. Across from him, his reflection waited—eyes dull, voice sharp, a perfect mimicry of every doubt he had tried to bury.

"You don't even know who you are," the reflection said.

"I know enough," Argolaith answered.

"Do you?" it asked, stepping closer. "You tell yourself your strength comes from your struggle. That you earned everything with blood and grit. But you forget what it really was, don't you?"

And then—

The void shifted.

Not with noise, but with memory.

The reflection vanished, and the darkness melted into light—soft, amber, filtered through trees and rising smoke from distant hearths. A village took shape around him, not grand or busy, but quiet, calm, and enduring.

Argolaith turned slowly, recognizing the path beneath his feet.

Seminah.

His home.

It was as he remembered. The cobbled paths winding between low, stone cottages. The air filled with the gentle hum of distant voices, the scent of baked rootbread, the way the wind always carried the smell of the forest even when the sun was high.

And in the center of town, sat the little library—modest in size, but built with care.

Its windows were open. Books lay stacked in neat rows on the ledge. And sitting beside the doorway, tea cup in hand and eyes closed in thought, was a familiar man with silver-streaked hair and a weathered coat.

Athos.

Argolaith stepped closer. "You…"

Athos looked up with a small smile. "About time."

"I thought—this is part of the trial," Argolaith muttered, glancing around. "You're not real."

Athos gave a quiet chuckle. "I wasn't ever real enough to begin with, boy. Just a tired old man in a room full of books, trying to raise a quiet child who never stopped asking about what was out there."

Argolaith's throat tightened. "You said the ring didn't matter. That it wasn't worth anything to you anymore."

Athos nodded. "Because it wasn't. Not after I'd spent a life reading about worlds I never had the strength to chase. But you… you were different. You left. You walked into the forest with nothing but a ring and a hunger."

Argolaith looked away. "I didn't even say goodbye."

"You were never supposed to," Athos said gently. "This place wasn't meant to hold you."

The scene shifted again.

Seminah faded, and Argolaith found himself at the edge of the Forsaken Forest. His cabin sat nestled beneath frost-covered pines—his true home, though few ever came near it. The roof was crooked. The hearth inside barely stayed lit in winter. But it was his.

He stood at the doorway now, peering in.

He saw himself—young, maybe ten—sitting near a flickering fire, poring over a cracked book filled with faded ink. A bowl of thin stew sat untouched on the table.

No parents. No family. Just the wind beyond the windows and the rustle of branches.

The image didn't speak, but Argolaith felt it. That gnawing isolation. The cold that crept through even when the fire burned bright. The sound of silence that could only be filled by thought and longing.

"You think your power came from your struggle," the same voice said behind him.

The reflection again.

"But it didn't. It came from your choice to keep walking."

Argolaith turned slowly. The reflection no longer looked hostile. It looked… tired.

"You could've stopped. Could've stayed. Waited for fate to pass you by like it does for most."

Argolaith said nothing.

"But you didn't," the reflection said. "You left the comfort of a cabin, the familiarity of loneliness, the protection of ignorance—and you chose to suffer. You chose to risk everything."

Argolaith stepped forward. "Because I believed there was more."

"Then prove it."

The reflection reached forward and pressed a hand to his chest.

And suddenly—the void split.

The darkness peeled away like a cracked eggshell, and light poured through. Not blinding. Not warm.

True.

Argolaith stood once again in the clearing of the trial grove. The ring of stones surrounded him, still and silent.

But the seed on the altar had changed.

It glowed brightly now—whole, awakened.

Kaelred rushed to the edge of the circle, eyes wide. "He's back!"

Malakar didn't speak. But his eyes—burning violet—watched Argolaith carefully.

Argolaith stepped forward, lifted the seed from the altar.

The moment his hand touched it, the forest exhaled. Trees bent. Leaves shivered. A ripple of power moved through the grove like thunder too deep to be heard.

Far away, in some hidden corner of the world, the third tree stirred fully.

Its roots shifted. Its limbs creaked.

And it began to call.