Book 13: Chapter 65: A Beautiful Thing

Path of Dragons

For Benedict and the others from Dravkein, the journey inland to Druhmor was long and time-consuming, but not nearly as difficult as they had probably expected. Elijah chalked that up to the fact that most of the continent’s monsters had already been eradicated. There were a few that persisted, especially in the mountains where the effects of Elijah’s efforts grew more diffuse with increased altitude, but they were much weakened.

For all that Elijah had told them that he intended to keep working while they traveled, he spent most of his time ensuring that they would make the journey without too much trouble. They didn’t see him, but he was frequently there, escorting them inland.

And that told him just how difficult their trek from Dravkein had been.

Most of them couldn’t even walk properly until they’d spent a few days on land, and even then, their dwindling supplies had left a good many malnourished and weak. The only ones who seemed mostly unaffected were the few demi-gods among them, Benedict, and the Sailors. Everyone else had been worn down to almost nothing by the journey.

Elijah helped them out by providing a few tons of monster meat, though he soon found himself eschewing their company. Being around so many people was disconcerting and exhausting for him, and in a familiar way he recognized from his first few months after he’d made contact with Ironshore. Back then, he’d only spent a couple of years alone, but the effect on his psyche was similar.

He bounced back and forth between unrestrained excitement, morose negativity, and intense anxiety. None of that made him good company, even when he desperately wanted to end his bout of solitude.

Of course, the trek across the continent took quite a while. Even for Elijah, covering a few thousand miles across rough terrain would take a few days, and that was with him making copious use of his ability to fly. For the refugees, many of whom were either mortal or barely ascended, progress was far slower. In the end, it took almost two months for them to complete the journey.

Seeing their reaction to the still relatively sparse vegetation of the second layer of terraformed land was gratifying. Some of them just stared at it, unsure how to react. Others knelt beside the plants, tears in their eyes. More than a few anxious smiles stretched across faces.

Elijah even saw Benedict grinning when one of the fat bee-like insects landed on his hand. He stared at it in awe before smiling widely and showing it to Jasai’i.

And then, they finally reached the Abyssal Moat, which no longer earned its name. The corruption-cleansing plants had long since mingled with more mundane vegetation, casting the area in dense greens, yellows, and reds. Above, Treebie’s branches hovered, blocking out the abyssal sky and filling the air with crystalline leaves that reflected the light of glowing, spore-like seeds floating in the air.

The twinkling illumination was magical in a way that Elijah had begun to take for granted.

It had nothing on Treebie himself, whose trunk had reached truly gargantuan proportions. It was hundreds of feet across and miles tall, the white bark streaked with veins of subtly glowing crystal. His roots passed below, never seen but always felt as they formed a complex system of runes that constantly cleansed the atmosphere while immersing the entire area with dense vitality.

He had long exceeded the label of mere natural treasure. He was something else. Something alive and almost sentient, but still tree-like and generating so much energy that he could conceivably cleanse a planet.

Once, Elijah had found himself taking credit for Gorveth’s ongoing terraforming. But in truth, he was just the caretaker of the truly responsible party. Treebie was more powerful than him, and in just about every way possible. Elijah only needed to protect him, and he would do the rest.

The refugees had no way of feeling it, but the tree’s roots extended all the way to the planet’s center, where they had formed a cocoon around the core. They fed off the energy within, repurposing and filtering it, before sending it back the way it had come. Treebie only took a little for himself. The rest went to the planet.

Elijah had no idea how long it would take for him to complete the cleansing, but he suspected the process would be marked in centuries, rather than decades. In the meantime, the terraforming would remain tentative, and it would last only so long as Treebie survived.

Once he cleansed the core, the true healing could begin.

For now, though, the sheer life contained within Druhmor was enough to bring tears to the eyes of even the toughest of Gorvethians. As a group, they stood there, just staring at the paradise they’d found.

Finally, Elijah showed himself, approaching them with a wide and hopefully inviting smile. Upon reaching them, he asked Benedict, “So? What do you think?”

“How?”

“What?”

“How did you do this in less than twenty years?”

Elijah massaged the back of his neck, then said, “Well, I didn’t. In twenty years, I mean. It took a while to even get here, so I don’t think it’s been quite that long. Plus, a lot of those first couple of years was spent cultivating.”

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“That doesn’t answer my question, Elijah.”

“Yeah. I guess not.”

Then, Elijah explained – in the briefest terms possible – how he’d managed to foster the environment of vitality. He even showed Benedict some of his notes on runes. But that clearly didn’t help very much.

As Benedict flipped through the pages – which were made of some sort of hemp, as far as Elijah could tell – he said, “This shouldn’t have worked.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Elijah admitted. That it had left him with a mixture of awe, disbelief, and pride.

“No. I don’t think you understand. These glyphs shouldn’t work together like this. Not with what we know,” Benedict insisted.

Elijah shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, man. It worked. I admit that Treebie did most of the real work, though,” he said, hiking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the massive tree in the center of Druhmor. “Without his roots, this whole area wouldn’t feel much different from the farms in Dravkein.”

“Tell me more.”

That was when Jasai’i interrupted, reminding them both that the refugees were both exhausted and hungry, and they needed some place to settle.

Elijah directed them to a large meadow where they could erect their camp, which was comprised of thousands of small tents stretched across a significant area. When Elijah saw the haphazard collection, he was forcefully reminded that their arrival brought with it a host of logistical problems.

After all, permanent housing for so many people would take some time to build. Even with plenty of Tradesmen specializing in construction, it just wasn’t possible to do things properly and quickly. One or the other needed to take precedence.

And then there was the problem of food.

For years, Elijah had survived almost exclusively on a diet of monster meat. Though adequate, it had left him lean and stringy. And he knew that his silver-tier body was doing quite a lot of work when it came to making up for lacking nutrients. None of the refugees had that benefit.

Even the demi-gods among them would need at least some fruits or vegetables.

In any case, diet wasn’t necessarily the biggest issue, especially considering how many Farmers had escaped Dravkein. With a little time and effort, they could get some crops growing.

But they weren’t likely to survive without protein, either. And given the dearth of monsters, it wasn’t going to be long before there just wasn’t enough meat to go around.

It was while Elijah was contemplating that problem that Zek found him sitting on a cliff overlooking the former Abyssal Moat.

The old hunter settled in beside him, and for the longest time, neither of them spoke. Instead, they just enjoyed the scenery. While Elijah had begun to take it all for granted, the arrival of the refugees had served to remind him just how wondrous Treebie and the surrounding land truly was.

Zek needed no such reminders, evidenced by the wetness on his cheeks.

“When you left Dravkein, I was certain that I would never see you again. I believed you would die before ever reaching this place, and even if you managed to survive, soon after subjecting yourself to the corruption at the very heart of Gorveth’s fall,” Zeke stated.

“You weren’t that far off,” Elijah admitted. He’d come close to dying on multiple occasions, and that was just during the journey itself. “If I hadn’t taken some pretty desperate measures, there’s no chance I would be sitting here right now.”

“And yet, here you are. Stronger than ever before,” the old man said. “You did more than simply evolve into a demi-god.”

“I did.”

He shook his head. “Cultivation was never my strength. Never take that talent for granted, for it is what separates you from everyone else. Anyone can gain levels. Only a scattered few can climb the ranks of cultivation. And I know of no one – not even in legend – who could do what you did here. Planets are meant to stay excised.”

“I know,” Elijah said. “But if it makes any difference, my goal wasn’t to terraform the whole planet. I just wanted to plant a tree.”

And that much was true. Elijah’s initial goal was to integrate the ancestral tree seed with the sliver of the Branch of the World Tree he’d gotten in Ithalon. Everything else he’d done in Druhmor – from the terraforming to his soul cultivation – had been in service of that single idea.

“I believe you overshot your goal,” came a voice from behind. Elijah didn’t need to turn to know that Benedict had arrived.

“I think you might be right,” Elijah admitted. “Oh, and Treebie functions sort of like a Branch, by the way. I might’ve told you that already. Anyway, if anyone needs to evolve classes, he’s your tree.”

“The messaging function?”

Elijah shook his head. “No such luck,” he answered. “But I think that might one day be possible. I really don’t know how this all works, though. There’s a reason this planet was excised, so my guess is that there won’t be a full connection to the World Tree until we prove that we can overcome the abyss. Until then, we get only the most necessary functions. Or function, singular. Still, at least classes won’t be tainted, like the ones from the Branch in Ithalon.”

Elijah had given that quite a lot of thought, and he’d come to the conclusion that the taint served to infect the functions of that Branch. That was why the class he’d been offered was corrupted.

The real question was what would have happened if he’d taken it. He didn’t believe he would have immediately turned into a monster. But that just served to horrify him. After all, the monsters of the abyss were bad enough without being able to reason. If they could think past their own hunger, they would become a truly terrifying force.

Perhaps that was the core of the conflict between the Ravener and the World Tree.

Or maybe Elijah just didn’t know enough to understand any of it. In any case, he wasn’t about to go off to war against the abyss. He was content to live his own life, and for now, to help Treebie be all the tree he could be.

After sitting there for a little while longer, they shifted the conversation to more immediate concerns – specifically, the logistics involved in constructing a real settlement. They also spoke of meeting its people’s needs, though that was a thorny problem that would require a lot more thought to solve.

Finally, Elijah said, “I need to finish the latest ring, which is probably going to take me at least another year.” He rose to his feet. “In the meantime, I’ll keep coming back to check on everyone. I trust you two to keep things going in the right direction.”

Zek nodded solemnly, and Benedict insisted that he would do whatever was necessary.

“Oh,” Elijah added To Benedict once Zeke had gone back to the temporary settlement. “Nobody enters Druhmor proper without me there. I’m not going to hurt anyone for wandering in, but Treebie is at a delicate stage. And I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“That…that’s fair,” Benedict said. “I’ll ensure everyone knows your terms.”

Elijah nodded, then gripped his longtime companion’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Benedict. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

Then, without saying anything else, Elijah headed off. He didn’t immediately take on his dragon form, and instead, just walked away. That felt appropriate.