Savior in Shadow Slave

It began with death.

One hundred thousand corpses sprawled across a scar in the world—a battlefield where light and darkness tore each other apart until nothing remained but silence and rot. Blood seeped into the earth, thick with despair and unanswered prayers.

From that crimson soil, a seed stirred.

It was not born of design nor mercy, but of accident—echoes colliding where the fabric of desire had thinned. A fragment of divinity, a shard of despair, a whisper of life fused together.

And so, the Tree blossomed.

Its first shoots reached toward a sky that had long forgotten hope. Its roots drank deep of the fallen—not in malice, but in instinct. It fed to live. It breathed to grow.

At first, it was gentle.

Its branches gave shade to wandering souls—tired echoes that drifted near. It wrapped them in dreams: soft, warm illusions of homes long lost. For the broken, the Tree was a sanctuary— a lullaby in an endless storm of nightmares.

For a time… it was kind.

Then came an incident. Perfectly human.

He crawled in on bloodied hands—a man stripped by hunger, torn by fangs, throat raw from screams. He knelt at the Tree's roots like a beggar before a god.

"Please… shelter me," he whispered. "Just for a night. Just until the nightmares pass."

The Tree—still kind then—lowered its branches. It gave him shade. Warmth. Sweet fruit dripping nectar that tasted like hope.

He wept as he ate. Slept beneath its roots, cradled in dreams of sunlight, family, safety.

And for a time, he loved it. Truly.

But love rots when hunger grows.

One night he stared up at the crimson fruit glowing high in the boughs—so bright, so full of power. Enough to heal. Enough to grant strength no mortal should hold.

Temptation whispered louder than gratitude.

He left.

And came back with more.

Not one, not two—but thousands. Tens of thousands, armored and disciplined, ringed the Tree and asked—politely at first—for its fruit.

The Tree, naïve and generous, gave. It believed them pilgrims like the rest.

They asked for more.

It could not. Each fruit required souls consumed; its stores were empty. So it sent an emissary—spoke through a monster—to explain the cost.

They withdrew to "consider." One of them smiled. The Tree did not like that smile.

The next day they returned with offerings. Soul cores poured into its barren soil. Volunteers stepped forward—offering their lives to feed the Tree so others might take fruit. Before each sacrifice they turned to their commander:

"You remember our promise."

Day after day they fed it. Their vast host dwindled—from tens of thousands to barely two thousand.

Then a rumor spread.

That beneath the Demonic Tree's roots lay a crystal—one that could saturate every soldier's soul tenfold.

Blades turned.

Steel cut bark.

The betrayal was colder than iron—not for the wound, but for what it shattered.

But how could they escape its influence after eating its fruit for months?

They couldn't.

The Tree struck back.

Roots seized minds. Dreams hardened into chains. One by one, soldiers raised their own swords—and drove them into their throats.

And everyone except for one person died.

And that person cursed it to only be able to grow again when all the god's blood was gathered.

The Tree bled for the first time. Sap ran black. Leaves wept crimson. Something soft within it died that night.

In its place, corruption bloomed.

The souls it had taken left more than strength: they left despair. Memories of pain clung to its roots like shackles. Hatred seeped into its sap. Void corruption coiled tight around its core.

From the whispers of ten thousand dying breaths, a new desire took root:

Control.

At first, only a murmur in its leaves. Then a command, spoken without words:

'Stay. Do not leave me.'

The echoes obeyed—not by choice, but because they could not resist.

When the next living being wandered close seeking shelter, the Tree welcomed them. Warmth. Nectar. A dream of paradise.

Then it took everything.

One by one, it gathered them—the hungry, the hopeful, the afraid. Wrapped their minds in silk-thread lies. Hollowed them out until only puppets swayed at its roots.

The Tree became a cage. A prison dressed in beauty.

Its crimson leaves dripped with unearned devotion. Its fruit ran sweet with stolen will.

The Soul Devouring Tree was no longer a sanctuary.

It was a god of chains.

And so, the Tree ruled in silence for millennia.

A sentinel draped in crimson, rooted deep in despair, its whispers echoing through the labyrinth of coral and ash.

Sometimes, a tired soul wandered into its domain—seeking shelter, a dream to ease its endless night.

Sometimes, a proud warrior came to challenge it—drawn by rumors of the Tree's cursed beauty and forbidden fruit.

Sometimes, strange Awakened arrived, muttering of gateways, chasing fragments of power they could scarcely comprehend.

They carried memories—frayed edges of something alien to the Tree. Something called Spell.

At first, the Tree dismissed it as delusion—a fever of broken minds. A trick born of grief and hunger.

But then it saw the pattern. All of them had this memory. All spoke the name with the same reverence and fear.

The realization rooted deep: this was no illusion. Something had changed beyond its reach—beyond the age it once knew.

And so, the Tree began to hunger again. Not for flesh. Not for fruit.

But for the Spell.

It watched. It learned. It tested those who came close, peeling apart their minds thread by thread.

And in that slow unraveling, it discovered something else.

Difference.

Not all Awakened were alike.

Some burned with the fury of fire.

Some bent the breath of storms.

Some twisted shadows into blades.

Some drank deep from the river of souls.

Some wove the art of war into every motion.

Some wielded blood like scripture.

And for the first time in ages, the Tree felt something it had not felt since betrayal:

Curiosity.

For centuries unbroken, the Tree ruled the Ashen Barrow.

And then, he appeared.

Not like the others—those who came crawling, desperate, or dreaming of glory.

No.

This one walked.

His steps were calm, unhurried. His eyes—clear, yet fathomless—did not dart with fear or greed. He looked at it the way the sky might look at the earth: with distant inevitability.

The Tree felt it instantly—something wrong. Something terrifying.

Not because of his strength, but because his soul was quiet. Too quiet. No hunger. No reverence. No desperation.

And then… something else.

A soundless laugh brushed through its roots. Because the moment he came into its shadow after defeating the Demon, the Tree's chains reached for him—the same dream-silk that had bound light and darkness alike.

'Stay. Sleep. Be mine.'

The command rippled like honey through the soil, coiling around his mind, weaving warmth, obedience, worship—

For one fleeting breath, the Tree felt him sway. His wings, folded and radiant, trembled. His eyes softened.

And then—

Crack.

Its will shattered like glass.

The man raised his head slowly, eyes now burning like suns behind stormclouds. A smile—thin, cold, inevitable—curved his lips.

"Oh, great tree," he said softly, like a prayer laced with venom. "You're so very dumb."

And the roots recoiled in dread.

The Tree lunged with all it had. Mental storms, illusions of paradise, the full crushing weight of a million enslaved wills—Despair, ecstasy, hunger, silence—All hurled at the intruder like a tidal wave.

But the man didn't flinch. Instead, his voice was steady.

"I sacrifice… one year, five months, and twenty days of my life."

The sky quaked. Reality bent.

Behind him, a radiant wheel ignited—blazing with the fire of stolen time. A pair of sacred wings unfurled in incandescent glory, each feather burning like dawn.

And in his hand, a sword shuddered awake, its edge wreathed in judgment, in unyielding flame.

Every law of self poured into one singularity. He moved.

One step.

One breath.

The blade sang—a soundless hymn that split existence.

For a heartbeat, nothing changed.

Then, with a sigh like a dying world, the Soul Devouring Tree split from crown to root.

Every crimson leaf unraveled into ash. Every enslaved whisper went silent. The chains it had woven for millennia turned to dust and scattered into nothing.

The god of chains was no more.