Chapter 1498: The Tree

"Huh... they finally decided to show themselves." Eccar casually rolled his shoulders as a grin spread across his face. There wasn’t the slightest hint of tension in his expression. If anything, he looked excited instead.

The others remained just as composed as him. Although they could hear movement surrounding them from every direction, none of the four Dragonborn reacted with alarm.

There were a lot of branches creaked beneath heavy footsteps, low growls echoed through the dark forest, and countless pairs of glowing eyes watched them from behind the trees.

But their instincts remained silent. The creatures hiding within those shadows simply weren’t dangerous enough to threaten them.

"I think I should ask the plants here," Sylven suddenly said.

His gaze moved away from the approaching monsters and settled on the surrounding trees. There was something close to sympathy in his eyes as he looked at the corrupted forest.

Aesa glanced at him. "Talk to the plants?"

Sylven nodded. He looked toward an enormous tree standing deeper within the forest.

"Yes. I’m a Plant Dragon. Every living plant carries traces of the life surrounding it. These trees have survived for centuries and remember many things. Perhaps they’ll tell me what happened here."

Aesa silently nodded.

Erend considered the idea for a moment before speaking.

"Hmm. I think that’s worth trying. There’s a chance this territory is connected to the Sky Tyrant’s attack thousands of years ago."

Now that he mentioned it, the others found the possibility to make sense.

"If that’s the case," Eccar said, "the forest itself might know more than anyone alive."

"Meanwhile, we’ll deal with the monsters," Erend continued.

Sylven simply nodded. His attention never left the towering tree in the distance. Without another word, he began walking toward it.

Almost at the same time, the monsters finally emerged.

They burst from behind the trees, crawled out of dense bushes, and even jumped out from beneath the dark earth.

They resembled the animals roaming the forest but had evolved into something far more grotesque.

There were massive wolves twice the size of horses revealed rows of jagged fangs that protruded far beyond their jaws, also giant birds that have wings made almost entirely of exposed black bones connected by strips of decaying flesh.

Lizard-like beasts dragged long claws to carve trenches into solid stone while thick streams of sizzling saliva dripped constantly from their mouths, burning holes into the ground wherever they landed.

Nearly twenty monsters surrounded them.

Erend, Eccar, and Aesa instinctively shifted into fighting stances.

The monsters lunged.

At the same moment, Erend charged forward without hesitation.

Eccar laughed loudly before following close behind, while Aesa disappeared in a blur of white streaks.

Sylven did the exact opposite.

He calmly walked between the charging monsters while their attention remained completely fixed on the other three Dragonborn.

One enormous beast swung a claw toward him, only to miss as Sylven effortlessly stepped aside without even slowing down.

Within seconds, he had slipped through the battlefield.

Behind him, the forest erupted into chaos. Explosions shook the earth. Roars and screams echoed. Trees splintered as monsters were hurled through the forest, while flashes of Magic illuminated the perpetual darkness.

Despite their overwhelming advantage, Erend, Eccar, and Aesa never lowered their guard. These creatures felt far weaker than they were. But weakness did not mean harmlessness.

They knew nothing about the monsters’ abilities or the extent of the corruption affecting them. Their instincts said these enemies posed little real danger, but their experience had taught them never to underestimate unfamiliar opponents.

Meanwhile, Sylven paid no attention to the battle behind him. He wasn’t worried about them, not even slightly. He knew his friends would be perfectly fine.

The thunderous sounds of combat became nothing more than distant background noise as he approached the largest tree in the surrounding forest.

It towered high above every other plant in the area.

Its trunk was so enormous that dozens of people joining hands still wouldn’t have been able to encircle it. Even though corruption covered much of its bark, the tree still stood proudly, its ancient roots stretching deep beneath the poisoned earth.

"It must have lived here for an incredibly long time," Sylven murmured.

Trees didn’t become this large within mere centuries. This one had witnessed ages.

Slowly, he placed his palm against the rough blackened bark.

"Tell me what you’ve seen." His voice barely rose above a whisper.

The moment his Magic flowed into the ancient tree, the world around him changed. The deafening clash of battle faded away, the monsters’ roars disappeared, even the wind became silent.

Instead, countless faint voices began whispering inside his mind. They were not words but memories.

Just as Sylven had expected, the ancient tree indeed had witnessed more than any living beings in this forest ever could.

He saw the forest as it had once been. Long before corruption had touched the land, sunlight poured freely through green leaves while countless species lived peacefully beneath an endless blue sky. Ancient beasts roamed alongside creatures that no longer existed in the present, and rivers flowed with crystal-clear water across a thriving wilderness.

Then came war. Again, and again, century after century, war keeps happening.

Different races entered the forest carrying their own banners. Kingdoms fought over the land, winged warriors battled monstrous beasts beneath the skies, Magic shook the earth and left scars that remained visible even thousands of years later.

The memories continued flowing.

He witnessed violent storms unlike ordinary weather descend without warning. It looks like the sky tore open as unnatural tempests engulfed entire regions of the forest.

Within those storms, strange creatures appeared out of nowhere. Beasts that didn’t look like anything native to Elyndor emerged from the distorted skies, rampaging across the land before eventually disappearing just as mysteriously as they had arrived when the strange storm left.

The tree had remembered every one of them.

Then came another age.

Human settlements expanded toward the frontier.

Generations of soldiers, adventurers, knights, and powerful mages marched confidently into the forest, believing they could finally reclaim the cursed land.

But none of them succeeded.

Sylven watched countless warriors perish beneath the canopy. Entire expeditions disappeared without leaving behind a single survivor. Some were overwhelmed by endless waves of monsters or fell victim to the corruption itself, their bodies slowly twisting into the very creatures they had once come to destroy.

The tree remembered every death, every battle, every scream, and every century of suffering endured by the cursed forest.

But none of it seems to tell Sylven much about the Sky Tyrant.

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