Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 53: The Burnt Forest

Chapter 53: The Burnt Forest

After all that, I decided to leave the mountains. Not out of cowardice. Out of caution. The winged creature was still prowling around, and I didn’t want to get killed a second time this year.

So I headed toward the west coast. Lysara by my side, the egg well protected. We descended the volcanic slopes, and soon, the scenery changed.

The black stone gave way to twisted woods. Despite the suffocating heat, forests still grew here. Trees with black bark, cracked trunks, twisted, their leaves singed at the edges as if burned by a giant’s breath.

A vegetation of survivors. Like us. But the reptilians were no longer there. Here, something else reigned.

The Barkcrawler.

I saw it for the first time hidden inside a hollow tree. Almost motionless. Then it moved.

A giant parasitic plant. A tentacular body, sprawling over several meters, covered with blackened bark, bone hooks, root-like nerves, and grainy pustules.

It insinuated itself everywhere. In dead trunks. In crevices. In the forest itself. And in terms of power... it easily matched a reptilian. But it wasn’t brute strength that made it dangerous. It was patience.

Lysara had been caught off guard the first time. The Barkcrawler had sprung from a dead tree, its bark tentacles striped with bone hooks snapping in the air like living whips. She had stumbled for a moment. Just one. But she had reacted with brutal calm.

A hammer blow. A crack of shattering bone. And the thing collapsed, split like a rotten trunk.

I watched her silently.

She hadn’t asked for my help. She didn’t need it. She was used to my sudden assaults, my surprise attacks — swift, vicious, always faster than the monsters themselves.

So this slow thing... It was just a stylistic exercise.

I tested her. Several times, along the way. I attacked without warning, as always.

She reacted. Not perfectly. But fast enough.

She was learning. Adapting.

So this time, I didn’t offer her food. I let her handle it. She had her rations. Her dried meat. The magic canteen. It was her turn to truly grow on her own.

We slowly descended the mountains. But the ground never softened. It remained volcanic. Dark, cracked rock, sharp underfoot. Even here, at the heart of the woods, stone ruled the earth.

Roots wrapped around the black rocks, digging into them like claws, growing through pain. The vegetation, twisted, burned at the edges, wasn’t there by accident. It survived. It resisted. It took root where the lava had calmed, but not extinguished. Not a forest like others. Not a peaceful postcard wood.

No.

A sea of black trees. Twisted. Cracked. Their trunks seemed intertwined in pain. Their leaves were edged with burns, as if fire had caressed but never consumed them.

The heat was still there. Suffocating. Crushing. As if the air itself was sweating. Yet despite that... the forest lived.

Whispers in the branches. Creaks in the ground. Shadows between the foliage.

We moved slowly, Lysara carefully avoiding live roots, hollow trunks, and most of all... the Barkcrawlers. Because they were everywhere.

Lurking in dead trees. Hidden in stumps. Sometimes, they watched us. Their silence was worse than a scream. A forest that watches... is a forest that judges. But she was faster. More attentive. More determined.

And so... a month passed.

A month of slow progress, silent meals, naps hidden in the foliage, impromptu training, surprise attacks, almost non-existent but meaningful conversations.

Lysara didn’t speak. But I saw her gaze change. She observed. She anticipated. She adapted. Again and again. Getting better and better. Sometimes... I even caught her imitating me.

As for me... I thought. Of Cassandre. Of Lucas. Of my friends from the tutorial. Of what I had become inside that creature’s belly. But I didn’t say it. I was afraid of what I would say if I started talking. Because in my head, everything was still screaming.

I simply walked. Protected. Watched the horizon, searching for a city, a refuge, or even a greater enemy. But the forest still refused to let us go.

Still, we kept moving forward.

Another month passed. A month of crunching rock underfoot. Black roots knotted around volcanic stone. Warm ash sometimes falling from the sky like dying snow.

Then, finally... the forest ended. The twisted tree vanished, the last vegetal cry smothered in black dust.

In front of us, the space opened.

A silence. A void. A breath.

We still stood at height, on a natural ledge gnawed by centuries, feet resting on cracked basalt slabs.

And before us... the world changed.

As far as the eye could see, the woods gave way to a volcanic desert, a sea of black, jagged stone. Smoking crevasses dotted the ground, and sometimes a vein of dormant lava glowed under the rock like a half-closed eye.

Here and there, a few black trees still stood, lonely, thin, their trunks twisted by wind and heat. They looked more like statues of ash than real plants.

And at the center of this desolate landscape... it appeared. The city. Massive. Inflexible. As if it had been forged, not built.

Walls about twenty meters high, made of carved black stone, reinforced with hardened molten metal veins.

The whole seemed both ancient and active, as if the mountain’s heat still lived within it. Smoke rose from multiple chimneys, and the glowing reflections of interior forges pulsed through loopholes, like the beats of a heart of fire. Watchtowers were numerous, spiraling, with sharp metal spikes atop them.

And everywhere, on the walls, armed silhouettes were visible. The city moved. It lived.

At this distance, its enormity was clear: over a hundred thousand souls, maybe more, crammed into a steel and stone anthill.

Larger than anything we had encountered so far. Larger even than the city we came from.

— Well... now we have to blend in again.

I sighed, casting one last look at the horizon.

The city was approaching. And with it, the gazes. The checks. The suspicions.

I turned to Lysara.

— This time, let’s stay within my race. No need to attract attention unnecessarily.

I ran a hand through my hair.

— Turn it white. Completely. And...

I paused.

— Age me a bit. Not too much. Just enough to look like a tired man, not a threat.

I looked up at her and added in a whisper:

— And for you... hide the horns, the tail. Make your hair white. Your eyes, black like mine.

She slowly nodded. Not a word. But a fluid movement.

She stepped closer, lifted her hand. Her fingers brushed my forehead. Her Shapeshifter skill reacting without even thinking. She knew me too well now.

I felt a warm wave run over my skull, down my jaw, anchoring itself into my features. My hair turned white in a breath. My face hollowed just a little. Enough to evoke years, fatigue, invisible scars.

Then she tended to herself. Her horns resorbed. Her tail vanished in a shiver of shadow. Her hair turned white, with a dull, discreet glow. Her eyes became two black, calm pearls.

When she lifted her head, she looked like me. Not a copy. But a harmony.

Our faces, in certain light, could pass for a father and his daughter. A master and his apprentice. Two souls worn by the same journey, wearing the same clothes, the same matched, discreet kimono.

We were in sync. Two ghosts from a world that no longer existed.

I smiled at her. She didn’t respond.

But her gaze lingered on mine a little longer than usual.

And in that silence... something passed between us.

A budding emotion. Discreet. Silent. But real.

It had woven itself through the trials, through the battles, sleepless nights, wild trainings, shared meals without a word.

It had crept into gestures, into glances, into the way she followed me without asking questions. And now... it mattered. Truly.

I reached out. And without thinking, I placed my hand on her head. I ran my fingers through her white hair, ruffling it gently, as I always did.

A ritual between us.

My only way of expressing what I didn’t know how to say.

— Your training is finally complete.

— For now.

I looked her straight in the eyes.

She stared back, calm. But there was a gleam. A flicker. A tiny crack in the armor.

I smiled.

And said, with soft seriousness:

— I’m proud of you, my student.

She didn’t respond. But she lowered her head slightly. And didn’t flinch when my hand lingered a little longer in her hair.

That silence... was an answer.

Then, together, we set off. The road to the giant city, forged from rock and steel, visible in the distance like a frozen titan, immobile yet alive.

We crossed the volcanic desert. The ground was dry, cracked, each step echoing on the black stone like a muffled drum.

There were no monsters here. Nothing prowled. Nothing hunted. Nothing lived. Only this arid, burnt, scorched land, emptied of all will, as if even death had forgotten this corner of the world.

The wind blew, heavy, carrying ancient ash, muffled whispers under cooled lava.

We walked for hours. And gradually, the city grew larger. Clearer. More immense.

The walls rose like cliffs built by metallurgist gods. The towers pierced the reddening sky. And the air itself grew denser, as if the city was breathing.

Then finally, we stood at the foot of that giant furnace. Its black metal gates, veined with incandescent copper, were open. And there, standing before it, the wind blowing our matching kimonos, our white hair stirred by burning dust...

We were ready. Ready to enter.

To discover.

To survive.

A new world. A new adventure. Another truth.