Despite Leon’s offer to talk, the tree sprites didn’t utter a word—hardly surprising, given none of them had mouths, but he was hoping for some kind of reaction anyway, or at least an attempt to communicate with him mentally. Instead, they just stared at him for a long moment before anything else happened.

For his part, he remained patient, forcing himself to relax his posture and appear non-threatening.

Behind him, he could see everyone starting to wake up as the healing spells did their magic, and he smiled and waved at Valeria and Maia as they awoke, while at almost the same time had to raise a hand to stop Anzu from running right for him.

The emerald ball of light that Apati had conjured was quietly corralling them, and Leon felt relatively confident that they’d reach the research facility unscathed.

Assuming, of course, that the violence was over. With twelve eighth-tier tree sprites in front of him, each one controlling a massive ethereal tree, he wasn’t quite so confident that he wasn’t wracked with worry and desire to simply grab everyone in his magic and try to run.

His attention was pulled back to the tree sprites when, in unison, they turned around and faced the massive central tree, showing him their backs in the process. Aside from a brief predatory instinct to hit them now while they weren’t looking, Leon didn’t think to strike, for at the base of the central tree at the point closest to them, the tree’s black bark was splitting open and bright golden light came spilling through.

The tree sprites then pointed at the rapidly-widening crack, and Leon got the impression that they were telling him to go over there.

“I’ll head on over…” he said hesitantly as he glanced once more over his shoulder at his people. “Will they be all right? Any peace talks will be off the table if any of them are harmed any further…”

As one, all twelve tree sprites looked over their shoulders at him, and their auras fluttered. That, combined with a complete lack of killing intent, told Leon that they weren’t planning on attacking his people any more.

So, with a great deal of trepidation, Leon said, “All right…” and began to walk toward the central tree, passing right between the two tree sprites in the middle of their formation. None of them moved, nor even so much as acknowledged him as he passed, simply continuing to point at the crack, now as wide as a large city’s main gates.

The light that poured from the tree grew more intense as Leon neared, and even his eighth-tier eyesight was starting to strain as he approached.

[What is this?] he asked his soul realm passengers. [Am I going to be teleported once I touch this light?]

[Not exactly…] Nestor said, his tone contemplative. [I don’t really know what this is…]

[It’s a portal to the tree’s soul realm,] Xaphan explained. [Or, at least, the equivalent of a soul realm. Being non-sapient, trees don’t have soul realms, of course, but this one is inhabited by a tree sprite of great power, and it’s inviting you into its most vulnerable and sacred of places. It’s also a place of immense power, so be careful Leon. Don’t debase yourself, but don’t let it catch you off-guard.]

[I’ll keep that in mind,] Leon said. As they spoke, he’d reached about as close to the base of the tree as he could while on foot. He’d walked through a few streets of the goat man village, seeing neither hide nor hair of the strange horned beings the entire way, but finally came to a tree root that blocked his passage. So, he lifted himself into the air and slowly flew toward the crack.

He kept his magic not quite battle-ready, but certainly more active than it would otherwise be under peaceful circumstances. Despite Apati’s urging, he didn’t want to head in there radiating killing intent, he just wanted the freedom to poke around the research facility at his leisure without worrying about being attacked.

When he reached the edge of the crack, the light shining from within was so bright that he had to squint to see anything. The light shimmered and waved almost like a curtain that caught the wind, and Leon tentatively reached out to touch it, trusting in the strength of his magic and his armor to keep him safe. As soon as his fingers brushed against the light, it suddenly surged, washing over him and completely overwhelming his senses.

He was rendered blind, deaf, and unable to feel any tactile sensations, and when he tried to project his magic senses, his magic power refused to leave his body.

For a moment, he thought that maybe he was dead, but that possibility faded as quickly as it entered his mind—he couldn’t touch anything, but he could still himself. He then wondered if he’d just been captured, but it still seemed like he had full range of movement and his power wasn’t being suppressed—at least, not by the tree.

Slowly, the light faded, as did his panic. When it grew dim enough that he was able to see again, he found himself in a bright field of grass floating in a misty void. It took him a moment, but he realized that he stood within the Mists of Chaos, upon an island much like his own.

This island was much smaller than the land he’d built within his soul realm, but as his magic senses spread through the area, he found that they didn’t even cover ten percent of the volume within this space. The Mists of Chaos were still more than visible in the distance, but they were so much farther away from this island than they were from his soul realm that he knew he was dealing with something that dwarfed him in power. If he had to guess, he was dealing with something well into the ninth-tier.

As he was doing this, he took in what else the island had to offer. It wasn’t much, with little else other than some of the greenest grass he’d ever seen, and a single tree in the very center of the island. By appearances, it appeared to be an oak tree, and an extremely old one at that. Its trunk was thick and sturdy, and from root to highest leaf, it was about ten stories tall. From its thick trunk, Leon counted twelve large branches that gently swayed despite a lack of wind. There were more branches, but they were all much smaller and mostly devoid of leaves.

Beneath the island, reaching downward into the space between the island and the Mists of Chaos were the tree’s roots. They didn’t reach far from the rocky bottom of the island, perhaps only twenty or thirty feet, but what Leon found quite startling was that thin streams of the Mists of Chaos were being drawn in from the clouds thousands of miles away, looking like silver threads filling the air—or, he supposed, like silver roots filling this cavernous empty space. These threads terminated at the ends of the roots, showing that the tree was absorbing the Mists of Chaos. To what end, Leon couldn’t say, but he guessed that the purpose was similar to the enchantment Xaphan had gotten him to build during his decade running around for the Director, and that the demon had used to reach the eighth-tier all the way back in Ariminium: powering up by absorbing the mist.

With nothing else to do, and no curtain of light to take him back to the physical world, Leon started walking toward the enormous oak tree, feeling far less confident than his purposeful strides suggested. He kept an eye open for anything unexpected, but he reached the tree without trouble.

When he got within a dozen paces, the tree shuddered, and he stopped. From the trunk emerged the familiar figure of a tree sprite, though larger than any he’d ever seen, even bigger than even the twelve waiting outside. It stood at nearly double Leon’s height, but otherwise had the same rather slight build, bark skin, and almost featureless face that all other tree sprites had.

It stepped out of its tree and stood before Leon, not saying a word. It radiated ninth-tier power at the very least, though Leon noted that it wasn’t exerting any power to try and suppress him. If anything, from the way the sprite’s aura trembled, he’d almost say that it seemed more scared than anything.

“Hi… there…” Leon awkwardly said as their mutual silence stretched to an uncomfortable length. “Nice place… you have here… I like what you did with the roots, lends this place quite the… ambiance…”

The tree sprite’s aura slightly flexed, and though it remained physically motionless, Leon felt it reach for him with its magic. He didn’t sense any killing intent, and the magic felt quite gentle, but he still had to force himself to remain calm and not to try and defend himself as the magic reached him.

He’d taken off his helmet, so when the magic finally touched him, his vision was overtaken by flashes of light, interspersed with extremely brief and confusing scenes of what appeared to be men cutting down trees, setting fire to forests, and slaughtering any tree sprites they found. The images were jumbled and hard to parse with how quickly they came and went, but as his mind reached for an explanation, he felt the power flex, and he suddenly understood: these were lumberjacks of his Clan, clearing land for some purpose.

He saw them pull several particularly large tree sprites out of their trees, and then drag them away. He only ever saw one sprite after that. He watched as best as he could as images of the sprite was brought to the research facility and subjected to every kind of magical experimentation that the researchers could come up with. He didn’t feel any of it, but the magic conjuring these images whispered to him of existential pain.

The images soon slowed, and he watched as the tree sprite realized the researchers were gone and the wards were being powered down. It released its power into the air, and the nearby slaves fell into its control. From there, it spread its influence, shutting down wards and tearing the facility apart. Its anger burned hot, but even hotter was its terror and desperation to escape.

Eventually, the tree sprite forced its way out of the research facility and fled, soon finding a large tree and hiding within.

The power spoke to Leon, not using words, but telling him that the tree sprite never left that tree, and it was that very tree that they now stood in, having grown strong and powerful under the care of the ancient tree sprite.

With that, the images receded, and Leon was left almost speechless. He’d seen the experimentation done upon the tree sprite, and had known its fear. It wasn’t a violent being, and though powerful, it barely knew how to defend itself.

As his eyes refocused on the ninth-tier tree sprite in front of him, he saw that little about it had changed in these intervening eighty-thousand years other than its pure magical strength. It still seemed to shake with fear as it met his gaze.

Leon couldn’t help but feel some kind of pity for the sprite. It was powerful and ancient, but it had no idea how to fight, and seemed to lack taste for killing.

“Is this… why we were never attacked in large enough numbers to drive us off?” Leon wondered aloud. “You… didn’t want to kill us? Or were too afraid to try?”

The tree sprite’s power reached out towards him again, though it didn’t submerge him in images of the past again. Instead, it flexed and bowed, and fed to him understanding. The tree sprite didn’t use words, but Leon felt what it wanted to say, anyway.

He felt compassion, a desire to grow, and a yearning for light. He felt great loss and sadness at the loss of old kin, and great happiness and joy in the sprouting of new buds. He felt the loneliness at being one of the last remaining tree sprites of the Prota Forest, and great determination to ensure that its buds remained strong and alive.

Most of all, he felt deep, primal fear. The tree sprite’s power spoke to him of a great aversion to violence, only surmounted on rare occasions when it felt threatened. And it felt great sadness when it sent plant giants and goat men and all the rest to attack those they couldn’t possibly hope to defeat. He felt a sense of helplessness as it watched humans constantly encroach upon its territory and great relief when they were warded away. He felt revulsion and regret when it came down to violence to ensure the humans were driven off—and it often came to such measures. He felt a profound sense of helplessness as the tree showed him his own expedition pushing deeper and deeper into the forest, ignoring all signs trying to get them to turn back, and being forced to choose between allowing his expedition to continue, or to send denizens of the forest to their deaths in an attempt to get his expedition to turn around and leave.

The tree sprite’s power pulled back, and Leon felt a growing sense of shame burn within him as he realized that these attacks, though dangerous, were the tree sprite’s attempt to get him to leave, not kill him.

After a moment of awkwardness as Leon realized he’d forced himself into someone else’s house without even asking first, the tree sprite cocked its head and flexed its power again. This time, Leon felt curiosity, laced with a deep undercurrent of fear. As far as he could interpret the question, the tree sprite was wondering why he came here, and if its subjugation and torture were his goal.

As a part of this question, Leon felt powerful emotions, and for a moment, he saw himself restrained, several human figures above him, cutting away at the natural growths that came from his bark-like skin. Every growth that was taken came with indescribable pain, and an even more painful sense of loss, as these growths were the buds that were supposed to, one day, turn into new tree sprites. Instead, they were taken from him—from the tree sprite before him, he was forced to remind himself—and used for some purpose he couldn’t know.

As soon as these visions came, they went, but Leon remembered them vividly enough to know that they weren’t simply a hallucination—the way the tree sprite communicated had somehow shown him some of its memories, and he’d felt some of its pain. He’d felt its fear, too, and remembered the face of the one it had feared the most: a tall, handsome man by Leon’s standards, with a chiseled jawline and piercing blue eyes. His hair was short and professional, and every time he’d come to the tree sprite, the sprite had experienced the cruelest pain it could remember.

It took a moment for Leon to refocus on the tree sprite’s question, and when he did, he said, “I was… looking for anything left behind by my Clan. I wasn’t looking to restart any projects, I simply wanted to find anything that might have been left behind. My Clan has been fallen, and I’m the only one left.”

The tree sprite didn’t immediately respond, but stared at him for a long time.

As it stared, Leon turned his attention inward. Nestor and Xaphan were paying attention, and he asked Nestor about the face of the lead researcher that the tree sprite remembered.

[That sounds like one of the top researchers assigned here,] Nestor responded. [I can’t quite remember his name, but he was one of the men who pushed hard for establishing the local research facility.]

[I see…] Leon whispered back.

He glanced back at the tree sprite, and it was still staring at him. So, deciding he’d waited for it to speak long enough, he said, “I mean you and your people no harm. I just want what remains in the research facility, if anything. Once I’ve salvaged what can be salvaged, I will be leaving this forest. You have nothing to fear from me.”

The tree sprite’s power roiled and churned, and Leon thought that meant a great deal of indecision. Regardless, despite their gulf in power, he could still feel a great deal of fear from the sprite.

It didn’t get a chance to respond, as a moment later, Leon heard Apati’s voice from behind him saying, “What? ‘No harm’?”

Leon turned and saw the floating ball of green light appearing about twenty feet behind him. At the same time, the tree sprite leaped backward, vanishing into its tree. A great well of power opened, and Leon’s vision was drowned out in light. He felt power sweeping over him, and then he felt weightless. Something squeezed his body, and he felt great heat, and when his vision returned to him, he found himself once again out in the physical world, standing on the roots before the great crack in the central tree. He barely had time to register where he was, though, before the crack slammed shut.

Beside him hovered the green ball of light that Apati was presumably using to hear, see, and project his voice.

“My Lord!” he shouted before Leon could get a word in edgewise. “What is the meaning of this?! That creature must die! It killed so many of our people, so many of my people! You can’t possibly be thinking of letting it go!”

“What I’m thinking is my own business!” Leon imperiously retorted, furious that the dead man’s interruption had caused the tree sprite to kick them both out. “I was trying to make peace!”

“What ‘peace’?” Apati shouted back, all deference in his tone gone. “There can be no peace with monsters such as these! They are fit only to serve as test subjects, to showcase the wonders of the universe for the Clan to learn from! Aside from that, they are animals, and the most violent and dangerous of animals must be put down!”

“That’s not your decision to make!” Leon responded as fire began to burn through his body. He still remembered the sensation of black fire, and he emulated it as best as he could. To his surprise, as fire began to burn in his off-hand, every so often within the licks of orange, he could see a hint of black.

Seemingly oblivious to Leon’s current state, Apati angrily growled, “Oh, but it is my decision, my ‘Lord’. You see, everything you just said you’d come here for is in my possession! All remaining research notes and paused experiments are mine!”

“Are you threatening me?” Leon coldly asked, his eyes narrowing as a furious smile spread across his face.

“I’m doing what must be done!” Apati bellowed. “Kill that tree sprite! Burn this tree to the ground! If you do not, you will never leave this forest! Your retainers will never leave this forest! And you will never find what you came here for!”