~The Tree of Despair~
From the mouth of the tunnel, silence bled into the world.
A crack in the air — sharp, brittle, like glass giving in to pressure — split the stillness, and through it stepped a figure cloaked in blue light.
Prince Lu had returned.
The Tree of Eruanga stretched before him — massive, impossible, and ancient beyond reckoning. Its trunk was a citadel of its own, wide enough to swallow entire palaces without protest. Towering branches crowned its upper half, spreading out in a sweeping dome of thick, jade-green leaves, an umbrella large enough to cast shade over a whole kingdom. The air under its canopy was warm. Alive.
The roots below curled like serpents beneath the earth, thick as rivers, and pulsing faintly with veins of violet light. Metal pods, grown directly from the roots, pulsed with life — some flickering, some still. Each one connected to a different branch, like fruits from an old, godless myth.
As Lu walked, the form he'd worn in the human world — the skin, the robes, the beeds — began to break away, fragmenting piece by piece, as if that body had only ever been a mask. What remained was a shimmering storm of silver essence, swirling and formless, flickering like dying stars in a storm cloud.
He floated forward.
And waiting for him — unsurprised — was a woman.
She stood beside a pod, one unlike the others. Sleek. Dark. Quietly humming, as if it had been anticipating this reunion.
Her skin was white, almost porcelain, like the bleached bone of a creature long dead. She wore a sharply tailored brown uniform — tight at the waist, practical at the joints. One that said form follows function and made it clear her function wasn't ceremonial.
She was folding a robe. His robe. Frayed, scorched, with faint red traces like dried blood at the hem. Yet she handled it with the casualness of someone folding laundry.
She didn't look up when he arrived.
"Back already?" she said, as if commenting on the weather.
Prince Lu's essence paused in the air for a beat, as if amused. Then it drifted into the pod.
A low chime echoed — one only the Tree could recognize — as it sealed him in.
"Early," she repeated, more deliberate now. "I assume that means something went wrong."
"No," came the voice from inside — cool, smooth, and irritatingly calm. "The trip was... insightful."
She raised an eyebrow, folding the garment without missing a beat.
Translation: he found something he liked.
"The boy shows promise," Lu added.
Of course he does, she thought. You've always had a soft spot for broken things.
She let the silence hang for a moment. "So you never intended to capture him, did you?"
It wasn't a question. She already knew the answer.
But she asked anyway — partly to provoke, partly to confirm her own theory.
Prince Lu didn't respond immediately.
Naturally.
He was the kind of person who enjoyed letting silence do the heavy lifting. She imagined him smirking in that pod.
"There's no need to be hasty in such matters," he said at last. "I prefer to watch things unfold... naturally."
She clicked her tongue.
"The boy's a phenomenon," he continued. "The first of his kind. If he is what I suspect... then every faction on the board is in danger. Including us."
She glanced at the pod.
"You sound... excited, my Prince."
"Excitement is healthy," he replied. "This whole situation shows promising potential. Like an Unshaped clay waiting to harden. But to become anything worthwhile... it must be given time"
She tilted her head, a bit of sarcasm bleeding into her expression. "And what if your siblings find out you let the clay walk away?"
He laughed softly.
"They can bark, whine, or spiral into one of their usual tantrums. This is my play. Their interventions are neither wanted nor tolerated."
She finally folded the robe and set it down on the stone table. No point in pushing further.
But there was still one matter to address.
"And the Major?" she asked. "He interfered."
Prince Lu made a sound of annoyance.
"Him? No. The Major was just... passionate. It was the monk with the stick who interfered. That one's more trouble than he looks."
"The monk..." she murmured, the words lingering on her tongue like a fragment of doubt. Then she nodded slowly. "That explains it."
She had been suspicious of the monk's role in all this for some time now, but it was becoming clearer by the day.
"Then what now?" she asked, her voice low, almost testing.
There was a pause. Not the kind born of hesitation — no, Lu's pauses were intentional. He liked choosing when the air was allowed to move again.
"I'll make my next move," he said finally. "But before that... I need to see what the monk's strategy is in all of this."
A small, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
Of course.