The Clarion of Vision was not something one stumbled into.
It was one of the major Clarions. A power that only a select few ever reached—those whose minds surpassed the average, who sought knowledge not for power but for understanding. It was an ability only the most exceptional intellects could achieve.
The original Heide Atrel had earned it the hard way.
Day by day, page by page, test after test—he had turned himself into a machine that lived to study. So that his stepsister could lean on him. So she could be proud of him. That pure drive had awakened the Clarion within him.
But Heide Decimus—the one trapped against the wall, dripping blood, lips trembling—not once had he done that.
The library he had analyzed? That wasn't from study. That was thanks to the Clarion of Touch.
He hadn't earned this with knowledge. He hadn't trained for it.
So then—why?
Heide couldn't find an answer. His head hurt too much. His body was too heavy.
But the answer was simple.
Had Heide Decimus been Heide Atrel, studying beside his sister—then this would've been the age when his Clarion of Vision naturally awakened.
The body remembered it.
And right now, he didn't care to question it. He didn't need to.
Because this—this was perfect.
"I see it," Heide whispered.
My fist clenched—and the air tightened around it.
I could feel the molecules shift. Sense the bonds between them loosen and strain under his intent.
"That's it," I said.
The moment I kicked off the air again, I felt it—that spike behind my eyes, like someone twisting a screw deeper into my skull.
Solidifying air wasn't easy.
A blade formed at my side constructed.
My vision pulsed, doubled, corrected. The sword wobbled in my grip, too light at the tip. I hadn't compressed it evenly. I didn't fix it. I launched it anyway.
It hit a branch and ricocheted off harmlessly.
Useless.
The next step was angled wrong. I didn't slip but still stumbled a little, slammed my foot down, reshaped it mid-fall. My head screamed. I bit my tongue and kept going.
Above me, Thalos moved—tree tendrils coiling, unfurling, weaving into barriers and weapons. Some stabbed, some swept, some grabbed.
I didn't get a warning. One branch struck from the side—nearly took my arm.
I flung a wedge-shaped blade and deflected it, then used the recoil to rise again, carving footholds as I went—thin slats of air like cracked glass, each one fracturing behind me as soon as I left it.
Branches lashed out.
I ducked, slashed, jumped.
Solidified needles shot from my bloodied palms, breaking apart into sharp, broken edges mid-flight. One skimmed Thalos's shoulder. He didn't stop. Neither did I.
Another tendril curved toward my leg. I didn't have time to dodge.
I made a disk—just one.
Pressed both feet to it.
Launched.
The jolt hit harder than expected. I went up faster than I could track, ears ringing, heartbeat pulsing like thunder.
Thalos's vines twisted into a shield. I didn't care.
I shaped a longsword mid-air—two seconds of agony—and hurled it downward.
He blocked it with both hands.
Branches cracked.
I saw it then: strain.
Good.
My arms were numb. The more I used this Clarion, the more my body rejected it. I felt it in my joints, my fingertips, the back of my neck. My legs moved because I told them to—not because they wanted to.
I could barely keep the thoughts in my head.
But I kept building weapons—short blades, broad tips, serrated edges. Nothing longer than a sword. I couldn't risk bigger. My mind would snap.
They launched like bullets—from left, from above, from angles that shouldn't exist.
He was blocking most.
But not all.
Every time a sword made contact, a branch cracked.
We were climbing higher.
The tree didn't end.
Tendrils came at me like living serpents, thicker now, faster.
I formed a mace and swung. Crushed one.
I used the impact to spin and dash upward, forming another step—then another.
Cracks spread across my vision like spiderwebs.
Just then, as I climbed higher—breath catching, arms sore—I saw it.
A fruit.
Suspended on one of the upper branches, pulsing faintly with a heartbeat-like rhythm. It was still far. At least eighty meters above.
But I could get there—if I could just—
A tendril whistled past my shoulder. I twisted mid-air, barely avoiding it, and landed hard on another foothold I'd formed out of sheer compression. It almost cracked on impact.
My left eye pulsed, flickered—brighter. Pink light cutting through the branch-shadows like a signal flare.
That fruit...
It wasn't random. I could see it now. The density, the cellular structure—hell, even the glow. I recognized it.
"Hey, hey," Thalos's voice came from above. "Are you really aiming for that fruit now? It's not ripe, so I wouldn't suggest it."
What the fuck?
I blinked, breath harsh.
I looked up at the fruit again. Then at Thalos's body. And then down—at the lump of flesh-child still tucked in my coat pocket, squirming faintly.
Three things. One pattern.
The same blood.
No... no, wait. It's more than that.
If I'm right—then that fruit isn't just symbolic. It's a tool. A seed. Something he uses to convert others into whatever he is. Not just immortality. Something worse.
I ducked under another sweeping branch—too close. My hair got caught, yanked. I sliced it off with a short blade, not even pausing. Another tendril lunged. I leapt off the side, caught a platform I barely had the energy to shape, and kept moving.
Back to the thought.
The followers who attacked me earlier—they were already too far gone. But the one that died... Diagung killed him. Not Thalos.
Why?
Because that bastard was probably trying to convert me too. Tried and failed. Diagung likely stopped it before it could take root.
That means...
That fruit—shaped like a heart—might be designed to do the same thing. But in massive numbers. Not individual conversions. Mass scale.
And looking at how wide this damn tree spreads...
His goal is obvious now.
He's trying to grow the tree to the surface. Let the fruit fall. Let it spread. Turn everyone on the surface into that same sick version of immortality.
Too bad for him...
The tree grows slow.
Wait.
No. It doesn't.
I swerved to the right, twisted in mid-air, and watched another branch sprout within seconds. It had grown by a meter in the time it took me to move.
He can control the tree's growth. At will.
"Shit..." I hissed through my teeth, nearly slipping as I bounced off another air-step and forced another sword into form with a single hand gesture.
If I don't get up there before him... if he beats me to that fruit...
"You sure are thinking a lot. Figured it out yet?" Thalos's voice rang again—teasing, almost cheerful.
A tendril stabbed toward me from above. I threw up a shield in reflex—a jagged dome formed from hardened molecules—and it barely held.
The impact rattled through my arm.
But I didn't break.
I pushed off the platform and kept climbing.
"Uh yea, give me enough time to reach higher, will you," I muttered, half to myself, half to the bastard looming just ahead.
My breath stung in my throat. I clenched my palm and shaped the molecules—this time into stone. Not compressed air, not vapor. Rock.
A jagged boulder burst from the space in front of me and launched like a bullet. The air cracked as it tore through the tendrils guarding Thalos. He flinched, dodging just as it stopped inches from his face.
I didn't wait.
"Here goes nothing—HUP!"
I pulled my legs up and kicked off my current foothold, then summoned a dense, glimmering chain. My brain throbbed from the strain of stabilizing the structure mid-air, but I clenched my teeth and hurled it upward. The chain latched onto a branch near the fruit—and in one violent swing, I launched myself like a damn grappling hook.
Momentum carried me up.
The top was close. I could almost feel the heartbeat of that fruit thudding in the air like it was part of me.
He didn't expect it. I could see the moment his eyes widened.
I reached out, fingers brushing the edge of it—only for the tree to react. Tendrils snapped up around it like a cage. Bark grew in real time. Layers, twisting, covering, protecting.
Shit.
I looked up. Only twenty meters of stone and wood remained between me and the ceiling of the temple chamber.
It was my cue.
But the tree was growing again, racing me, blocking my path from below.
I roared and twisted both hands outward. I summoned three massive pieces of stone and launched them upward with everything I had. They punched through the ceiling with deafening cracks. Shards of debris exploded in all directions as I forced platforms into being, scaling higher, foot by foot, before the gap closed again.
And then—I broke through.
The rush of fresh air hit me first. Dust, light, the cold sting of the upper temple space.
I smirked.
I turned back and looked down—and there he was.
Thalos.
Climbing after me, his body woven with the tree, rising with it. He'd kept himself hidden beneath the surface, veiled from the people.
Not anymore.
I shattered the ceiling above me, one more layer, and emerged through the next floor like a beast tearing out of a cage.
Panic hit immediately.
The chamber above was filled. Dozens of priests, their chants breaking mid-verse. Children screamed. Elderly stumbled back. A woman fell to her knees, clutching a little boy. People shouted, prayed, cursed.
"What the—"
"By the Gods—"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" one of the guards bellowed, sword half-drawn, voice shaking.
I didn't answer.
Didn't care.
Didn't stop.
I kept climbing, tearing through the ceiling above that floor too. One, two, three levels smashed apart in seconds as I climbed like a meteor—relentless. I knew what I had to do.
I was going to rise high enough to end him. I was going to launch everything I had at him from above. Massive boulders. Shards sharp enough to tear god-flesh.
I wasn't running.
I was lining up the shot.
But the tree kept up. The roots and branches ripped through the temple from beneath, tossing whole stone blocks aside like parchment. Screams followed us. Dust and splinters of sacred architecture fell from the heavens.
And then I saw him again.
Thalos.
On the tree's top, the highest branch. Still rising. Still climbing.
Still ahead.
Only now, he held something.
The fruit.
In his hand.
My chest clenched. Cold sweat hit my spine.
Was he planning to release it here?
No...
No, he wasn't.
He wasn't chasing me anymore.
He was ascending.
He zoomed past me, his voice echoing through the wreckage. "You can't stop this. At least the people in Menyurl can live an immortal life. Be glad, Heide Decimus."
He wasn't running.
He was preparing to detonate.
All around us, chaos. The priests shrieked. Children cried. Chants turned into screams. Guards tried to climb the rubble. People were crushed by falling stone and dragged to safety by others sobbing in prayer.
We broke through the temple's roof like a storm.
The sky above opened. Sunlight spilled down like judgment.
I followed him.
I chased.
I launched rock after rock, sharp and massive, a barrage of destruction shaped in desperation. One after another, they flew like comets—tearing at his defense, but the tendrils grew faster than I could fire. His trees twisted and hardened mid-air, shielding him in layers.
It wasn't enough.
Shit.
This is bad.
We were high. Too high.
The clouds were practically brushing my skin, and below me—
Menyurl.
All of it.
The vast sprawl of temples and houses, the streets I once walked, the markets that used to buzz in the early morning, the rivers, the towers, the hundreds—no, thousands—of people.
I could see them all.
My chest tightened.
The air was too thin, and my thoughts were slipping, but I forced myself to look at him.
Thalos.
He was floating just above the twisted crown of the tree, its branches woven like a throne beneath him. Calm. Steady. Eyes glowing with something I couldn't understand. And in his hand—
The fruit.
It pulsed, wet and red like it was alive. It glowed now, not just with color, but with purpose.
And then, he looked at me.
His gaze wasn't smug or mocking.
It was final.
"You have lost," he said.
And in one, smooth motion—
He crushed the fruit.
The flesh caved in between his fingers. It burst, spraying high above the world like a blood-drenched firework. A fine mist scattered into the wind, carried by altitude and motion—no, it wasn't mist. It was cells. Spores. Pieces of whatever that fruit was.
They drifted, spiraling down over Menyurl like a red snow.
Oh no…