Clayton’s eyes snapped open.
For a mont he thought he was still falling.
The mory of the traitor Verdant Lord’s gaze clung to him, sharp and cold. But when he reached for the ground beneath him, it was solid. Not soil, not stone, but sothing in between, a living surface that pulsed like a slowed heartbeat.
’Great,’ he thought as he forced himself upright. ’Another puzzle to solve’.
Around him, the others finally stirred awake, each groaning as they shook off the disorientation.
"Everyone alive?" Clayton asked, his voice steady despite the pounding in his chest.
Torren grunted as he sat up, brushing ash off his shoulders. "Alive, bruised, not dead," he grinned. "For a mont there, I thought we’d fall to our deaths. But hey, what do you know? We survived".
Clayton chuckled. "We survived, for now".
Torren rolled his eyes at that but didn’t say more.
Veyra rose next, bow in hand, already scanning the surroundings for any danger. As for Kaelin, the bastard didn’t even fall to the ground like the others. Clayton doubted he was even disoriented at all as he watched Kaelin materialize from a curl of shadow at her side, silent but alert.
Soren leaned on his Emberblade like a staff, breathing hard. Harrick rubbed at his ribs, while Mirra steadied him, her silver roots flowing instinctively across his arm to calm his pulse.
Clayton finally looked at where they were.
The scar’s descent was gone, and in its place stretched a chamber vast enough to hold a city. Its walls weren’t walls at all but massive ribs of black root arched upward, spiraling into a do.
Each rib burned faint glyphs, their patterns shifting in rhythm with the chamber’s pulse.
And at the very center lay a rift, green light swirling in and around it like a whirlpool, drawing breath in and out.
Clayton’s Heartseed core trembled at the sight of it. This was no ordinary scar, this was the wound’s heart.
The pulse stopped.
And then, for the first ti since their arrival, the system’s voice rang clear.
DING!
~----~
[Orientation: 100% Complete]
[Congratulations! You have t the requirents to unlock the Trial Objective!]
[Trial Objective Loading...]
...
[Trial III: Genesis Protocol — The Wound of Thrones]
[Challengers Detected: 5]
[Minimum Required: 3/ Maximum Allowed: 5.]
[Orientation Complete.]
[Objective: Resolve the conflict that birthed this scar.]
[Failure Condition: Collapse of challengers’ pulse and loss of unity.]
The words carved themselves into their minds, resonating deep in bone and marrow.
And then, everything finally made sense to Clayton.
Why this Trial felt so different from Trial when, why it was filled with so much ethereal thes and mysteries. He finally understood it all.
Unlike Trial I, this was fundantally a different kind of trial, and the main difference lay in the amount of people that were challenging it.
Unlike Trial I where he was alone for large swathes of the trial, this was a trial with multiple challengers. With the setting of Trial I, it made sense for the objective of the Trial to push into developing himself, his own power, and his domain.
Afterall, he challenged it alone.
But this was different, there were multiple challengers, so instead of growing his domain and territory, the trial focused on challenging all of them instead of one single challenger... him.
By making them resolve a conflict instead of just growing stronger, this was a trial testing how close they were, if they trusted each other or not, and if their unity was tight-knit enough to translate into battlefield synergy.
’Damn...!’ Clayton thought.
At that mont, the others finally reacted.
"Resolve?" Torren’s eyes narrowed. "That ans kill, doesn’t it? End whatever traitor started this and close the wound, right?"
Mirra shook her head at once. "No. The system didn’t say destroy. It said resolve, that’s different. Healing is resolution too."
Veyra’s expression was sharp, skeptical. "We can’t change the past, thinking we can change the past is pure arrogance".
"These battles already happened, all we’re looking at are echoes of the mory of the ancient battles. What we can do is overwrite the scar’s mory, and force it to accept a new ending."
Kaelin crossed his arms. "Overwrite history with lies, then? Even if it works, that’s not resolution," he looked Veyra in the eye. "That’s trickery."
"So?" Veyra stared back at him. "In the end, we have a Trial to complete, and we need to use any ans available to us to win. You’re more of a spy and assassin, you should understand what I an".
Kaelin pursed his lips. "Fair".
Soren’s jaw tightened, his hand flexing on the hilt of his blade. "Maybe it’s not about truth or lies, maybe it’s about survival. We stand in the middle of their war. To walk out, we have to fight through it."
Their voices rose in fragnts, theories clashing as the others all chipped in with their various opinions. While they bickered, Clayton didn’t answer.
Instead, he turned his gaze to the rift at the chamber’s heart. It pulsed faintly with a rhythm that matched his own Heartseed core.
The system didn’t just want them to fight, it wanted them to understand.
At that mont, the rift suddenly flared and images spilled outward in broken fragnts. The group turned as scenes played across the chamber walls like stories carved in fire and shadow.
Verdant Lords stood tall, roots bristling, crowns burning with erald fla. They clashed not with outside monsters but with each other. Thorn t vine, branch t branch, forests tearing forests apart.
It was a brutal and harrowing battle.
Opposing them were not just machines but hybrids, biochanical horrors with profane powers, once Verdant Lords themselves but twisted by grafted alloy, their roots fused with steel veins.
Two factions... one crying to preserve Echoterra’s natural form, the other insisting only fusion with machinery could ensure survival.
The clash was endless.
Their screams shook the walls, their strikes shattered plains. And then, the loop repeated again; the betrayal, the first cut, a Verdant Lord driving a thorn-spear through his own kin.
The chamber shook.
"This..." Mirra whispered, horrified. "This wasn’t just war, this was a civil war."
Clayton’s hand curled into a fist.
Civil war, the first wound, the scar that weakened the Protocols themselves. This was where the world first cracked.
The system’s voice returned, pressing the weight of truth onto them.
DING!
~----~
[Context Established.]
[To resolve the wound, challengers must act within the battlefield of mory. Stabilize the pulse and decide the fate of the Verdant schism.]
~----~
For a long ti, there was only silence as they took in what they just learned.
"It’s worse than I thought," Veyra finally muttered. "We’re not just spectators here, we can’t be either, we have to take sides."
Torren slamd the butt of his axe against the floor. "There’s no side to take," he said. "Betrayal is betrayal. The traitor dies, and the scar closes. Simple."
"Too simple," Kaelin said, eyes narrowing. "What if we kill the wrong one? What if we destroy the wrong mory? Then the scar festers instead of heals."
Mirra spoke softly but firmly. "Unity is in the rules, that’s no accident".
"We can’t brute force this. We’ll need to hold together when the trial tries to tear us apart."
Clayton looked at each of them in turn. His thoughts churned, steady but heavy. The system wasn’t going to hand them an easy solution. If it had wanted brute force, it would’ve said kill. If it wanted trickery, it would’ve said deceive.
But instead it said resolve, and resolve ant choice.
The rift pulsed again.
The chamber darkened, then shadows coalesced at the edges, folding into humanoid shapes. Verdant soldiers made of pure mory, their bodies twisted from thorn and root erged, their eyes glowing hollow green.
Beside them rose biochanical constructs, spines of alloy wrapped in crawling vines, limbs twitching in jerks.
The floor shook under their advance.
And then, the system’s voice bood one more ti.
DING!
~----~
[Phase I: Enter the battlefield of mory.]
[Prove your right to intervene.]
~----~
Dozens of echoes marched toward them in perfect unison.
Kaelin tensed, fading into smoke. "Looks like debate ti is over."
Soren drew his Emberblade in a blaze of fire. "We earn our right by fighting."
Veyra had already nocked an arrow, her eyes narrowing. "Then we fight."
Clayton lifted Regalia, roots unfurling around his arms. The chamber pulsed with the system’s presence, the wound watching every move they made.
"Formation!" he barked. "Stay close. The system said unity; if we break, we fail. No matter what cos, we hold."
Torren stepped to his side, fire licking up the haft of his axe.
Mirra stood at the center, roots coiled like silver threads ready to bind and heal. Harrick braced his spear at the flank, Kaelin vanished to harry from the shadows, and Veyra drew back her bowstring until it humd.
The mory army surged.
Clayton felt the system’s whisper crawl across his thoughts, words ant only for him.
"Resolve as king, or perish as pawn."
He breathed in, steady and calm, his resolve like iron.
"Let’s prove we belong here," he said.
And then the Rootsite’s chosen charged.
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