Dusk began to settle over the swamp, painting the stagnant air in shades of deep orange and purple.
Leaning back against the gnarled trunk of a tree, Aurelion looked perfectly at ease. One leg was casually crossed over the other as he took a slow, deliberate bite from the Gulper meat.
He chewed thoughtfully, his single golden eye fixed on the scene before him with a look of cold satisfaction.
The view was one of carnage. At the water's edge, a tangled mound of piranhas lay still, having suffocated on the shore. Beyond them, the surface of the black lake was dotted with the unmoving bodies of hundreds more.
A familiar feminine voice echoed in his mind. "That was not necessary."
Aurelion's lip curled into a slight smirk. "I am the one who decide what is necessary here," he projected back, "What you see is the result of a flawed ecosystem."
"How can a self sustaining ecosystem be flawed?" the entity asked.
"Stillness means death," Aurelion replied simply. He gestured with the hand holding the meat towards the dead fish. "Am I wrong?"
The voice in his head fell silent.
Pleased, Aurelion took one last bite of the tough meat. He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and walked to the shore, tossing the remaining piece into the water among the floating corpses. "If you guys are so hungry," he muttered to the air, "then eat."
The chunk of meat landed with a soft splash. It bobbed gently on the surface, undisturbed. Seconds ticked by and the meat continued to float.
Aurelion's smirk widened. "Not so hungry anymore, I see."
His gaze scanned the shoreline until he spotted a heavy, fallen log. He walked over to it and, with a kick, sent it sliding into the water. He took his first step into the lake and the cool water swirling around his ankles.
As he did, he looked up at the air, with his void focus perceiving the ambient energy.
The vibrant green aura he had sensed earlier was now significantly diminished, a pale and faded echo of what it had been.
He continued to kick the log forward, wading deeper until the water reached his chest. He then grabbed hold of the log, using it for buoyancy as he began to swim his way toward the center of the lake.
The journey took nearly ten minutes of slow, methodical progress. Finally, he arrived.
Floating in the center of the lake was the swamp lily. It was about fifty centimeters wide, its green and purple leaves was slightly yellowed at the edges. In the center of the leaves, a flower bloomed with a yellow green hue.
His eye was immediately drawn to the plant's core, visible within the flower. He could see sparks of yellow energy dancing within the green, making the core itself tremble.
"So, this was the one responsible for it all," he whispered. A slight smile touched his lips.
He pulled his dagger from his belt and carefully approached the plant. He began to cut the leaves, meticulously selecting only the most vibrant and least wilted ones.
"There's a reason that the mission was specifically for the leaves," he thought to himself as he worked. He cut his eighth leaf and held the growing bouquet in his hand. "If you pull the plant out, the energy in its core would be violently released. This plant sustains itself with this vast energy reserve... which is why no one dares to harvest it whole."
He cut his tenth leaf, satisfying the requirement and then some. He looked down at the lily's core, the source of all the chaos, still pulsing with its internal energy.
"I didn't flow too much of my own energy into it, to avoid damaging it too much," he thought. "If I leave it like this now, it will probably survive."
Then a wide, genuine smirk spread across his face.
Suddenly, the feminine voice flared in his mind, no longer gentle, but sharp and commanding. "That is enough!"
Aurelion's smile instantly vanished, replaced by a cold frost. "You are beginning to overstep your bounds," he projected back.
"Your job with the lily is finished. Do not harm it further," the voice insisted. "I give you my word. When you take me to another World Tree, I will give you a reward in exchange for the life of this plant."
Aurelion let out a short, contemptuous laugh in his mind. "Do you really think I want your reward?"
The Seal on his left palm began to glow. He held his hand out, and a sphere of water coalesced above it. Threads of his brilliant golden energy began to flow into the sphere, twisting within the water like captive lightning.
Then, his hand seized.
The muscles in his forearm knotted violently, and the sphere of energy and water trembled, threatening to collapse.
He instantly realized what was happening. His single eye flew wide open, his nose start twitch with pure rage and a low, guttural snarl escaped his lips.
"DON'T YOU DARE !"
"Aurelion, please, spare the lily," the voice pleaded. "I do not want to do this to you, but you are causing needless harm to nature."
"If you wanted this lily protected," Aurelion snarled back, "then you shouldn't have made it so pathetic!"
He focused his entire will into his left arm, fighting against the foreign power that sought to control him.
His hand began to tremble, a war of wills playing out in his own muscles. Then a roar filled with anger came from his throat.
"HRAAAAAH!"
He broke through the entity's hold and slammed his open palm forward.
The energy infused water ball smashed directly onto the lily's central flower.
A plume of steam erupted with a sharp sound as the water boiled on contact and his corrupted energy start scorching the delicate petals.
Without a second glance, Aurelion turned and began swimming back toward the shore. But clinging to the log with one arm while clutching the leaves in the other made his progress painstakingly slow.
After nearly four minutes of furious kicking, he had only made it halfway. It was then that the world behind him ended.
BOOOOM!
A deafening sound ripped through the air. He whipped his head around.
Where the lily had been, a mushroom cloud of swirling green and yellow energy was rapidly expanding. A split second later, the shockwave hit him. The blast of force threw him through the water, sending him skipping across the surface like a stone for several meters before he came to a stop.
He gritted his teeth, his right hand clutching the precious leaves, his left arm wrapped desperately around the log. As soon as his momentum stopped, he looked back again and a massive wave, a wall of dark green water churned up by the explosion, was rushing toward him.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance. "I didn't want the lily to die so soon," he says, a fresh wave of anger directed at his internal guest. "I hit it much harder than I intended."
The wave was almost upon him. He took a deep breath, held it, and tightened his grip on the log, bracing for impact and the wall of water crashed over him.
The force sent him tumbling end over end through the murky depths. He held on to the log as long as he could, his world a disorienting blur of darkness and violent motion. But after being dragged for what felt like an hours, the log was ripped from his grasp.
After a few more moments, the violent tumbling finally ceased. He was alive, but the weight of his gear and the spear on his back began to pull him down, dragging him toward the lightless bottom of the lake.
Without letting go of the lily leaves in his right hand, Aurelion kicked with all the strength left in his legs, using his free arm to claw his way toward the surface.
He was in deep, and a burning sensation was already building in his chest. His mind, however, remained a fortress of cold logic.
"Stay calm and don't exhale," he thought, forcing the panic down. "You need the air in your lungs for buoyancy."
He pushed upward, his aching muscles screaming in protest. The faint light of the surface seemed impossibly far away. After so long underwater, his oxygen was critically low.
He pushed himself harder, his movements becoming sluggish. The light above grew closer, a shimmering promise of air. But dark spots were already beginning to dance at the edges of his vision.
His consciousness was starting to fade. His mind began to slip towards that familiar darkness, the infinite nothingness of the Void. He felt his body grow heavy, the hopeful light from the surface receding as he sank deeper.
But in the deepest corner of his soul, he rejected this surrender.
"NOOO!"
He forced his eyes open, and with the last vestiges of his consciousness, he desperately reached his free hand toward the shore.
At that exact moment, the Seal on his palm shone with a violent, blinding light.
On the lake's surface, at the spot directly above Aurelion, the water began to descend from a point. It was as if an invisible force was pulling the water down, like a hole deep in the earth.
This column of empty space stretched downward through the water, a bizarre, dry tunnel reaching for him.
However, the hole stopped its descent about a meter away from Aurelion, unable to advance further against the crushing weight of the lake.
"Fuck..." Aurelion thought, his mind grasping the situation instantly even as it failed him. "The water pressure... It increases with depth."
He focused all his power, the last drop of his consciousness, on this single purpose. The hole had to descend further. For it had to reach him.
Then pale, white glimmers began to seep from his hands as he try push the water with his last strength.