Verdant Abyss Chronicles

The chamber's silence was worse than the screaming.

Moyan's fingers twitched where they pressed against Jian Luo's throat, counting each thready pulse like beads on a prayer cord. The mirrored sphere floated inches above the ground, its surface reflecting not their battered faces, but Yanmei's frozen form suspended in that endless white space. Memory-strands coiled around her like cobwebs, each filament vibrating with trapped whispers.

"Still with us, loudmouth?" Moyan rasped.

Jian Luo's eyelid fluttered. A cracked grin split his bloodied lips. "Disappointed?" His attempt at his usual bravado dissolved into wet coughing. Black-veined spatter painted the floor between them.

Haiyu moved first. Her fingers danced in sharp signs: "Poison's in his heart. We need—"

The sphere pulsed.

A sound like shattering glass filled the chamber as its surface rippled. Three doorways materialized in the reflective surface, each framed by fire:

1. The Door of Origin - Its arch burned with the same spiral sigils carved into Moyan's bone charm.

2. The Door of Loss - Its threshold wept black tears that hissed where they struck the floor.

3. The Door of Witness - Its flames burned colorless and cold, warping the air like desert heat.

Kainan groaned against his root bindings. "Don't... choose yet." Blood dripped from his nostrils. "The cost—"

Jian Luo's hand closed around Moyan's wrist. His fingers were alarmingly cold. "Pick the pretty one," he wheezed. "Always... worked for me."

The First Price

Moyan reached for the Door of Witness.

The moment his fingers brushed the flame, the world inverted.

He stood in a field of black reeds that stretched to every horizon, each stalk tipped with a smoldering ember. Above him, the sky wasn't sky at all—it was layers upon layers of faces, their features blurred but their eyes piercingly clear. Watching. Always watching.

At the field's center coiled the Serpent.

Not the harvesters' mechanical shells. Not the voidship's shadow. This was the true parasite—a being of living absence, its form defined by what it had consumed. Memories shimmered along its length like scars.

"You finally see me," it whispered with a voice like roots splitting stone. "How does it feel, little Warden, to know you're holding the knife that carved your own fate?"

Moyan's boots sank into the ashen soil. "Show me."

The visions came without mercy:

The First Betrayal - A woman with Haiyu's strong nose planting the World Will's seed, only to watch it burrow into her child's spine.

The Forgotten War - An army of Jian Luo's face marching into the jungle, returning with hollow eyes and mouths full of thorns.

The Original Sin - Kainan standing over a younger Moyan's sleeping form, a gravity staff raised like an executioner's axe.

The Serpent's laugh vibrated through the ground. "The Rootheart never told you, did it? Wardens don't protect the World Will. They prune its mistakes."

Moyan's charm burned against his palm. The ouroboros had unraveled into a single, stark command:

BREAK THE CYCLE

The Second Price

Reality crashed back in shards.

Moyan gasped as his knees hit the chamber floor. Haiyu caught him by the shoulders, her nails biting through his tunic. Blood dripped from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes.

"Time?" he croaked.

"Three minutes," Haiyu signed. Her eyes flicked to Jian Luo's still form. "His heart's slowing."

Kainan strained against his bindings. "The antidote... Celestial Grove..."

The Rootheart's vines slithered up Moyan's arms. "You saw the truth. Now act."

Jian Luo chose that moment to stop breathing.

For one terrible second, the world narrowed to the stillness of his chest. Then—

Moyan moved.

He slammed the bone charm against the Door of Loss.

The Third Price

The grove existed outside time.

One moment they stood in the ruined chamber; the next, golden pollen swirled around them as the First Vine's branches creaked overhead. Its trunk pulsed like a living heart, roots twisting into shapes that hurt to look at directly.

Jian Luo lay motionless on the moss, his lips tinged blue.

"Hold him down," Moyan ordered.

Haiyu pinned Jian Luo's shoulders as Moyan pried open a blossom. The nectar inside shone like captured sunlight, its sweetness undercut by the scent of rotting pomegranates.

"Three drops purge memories," the Rootheart warned. "The whole flower purges the soul."

Moyan didn't hesitate. He tipped the entire bloom's contents into Jian Luo's mouth.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Jian Luo's back arched like a drawn bow. His scream tore through the grove as the black veins bulged, then ruptured, spraying ichor across the flowers. The vines around them recoiled as if scalded.

When it was over, Jian Luo lay gasping, his eyes—

Empty.

Clean of corruption, but void of recognition.

"Who...?" His voice was a stranger's. His hands flexed, staring at his own fingers like he'd never seen them before.

Haiyu's signing hands trembled. "He's gone."

Moyan gripped Jian Luo's face. "Look at me. You know me."

Blank confusion. Then, slowly, a spark. Not memory, but instinct. Jian Luo's hand rose, mimicking Moyan's grip with eerie precision.

"Mo...yan?" Each syllable came haltingly, like a child learning speech.

The Rootheart's laughter vibrated through the ground. "You wanted him uncorrupted. Here he is. A blank slate."

The Fourth Price

Yanmei's arrow took Haiyu in the shoulder before they heard the bowstring.

She stood at the grove's edge, her right side still human, her left consumed by crystalline growths. The spine-bow in her hands pulsed with the same energy as the corrupted vines.

"The Serpent wants you alive," she said, nocking another arrow. Her voice was hers and not hers. "I don't."

Jian Luo moved faster than thought. His hand—still dripping with antidote nectar—closed around the second arrow mid-flight. The moment the liquid touched the shaft, the corruption writhed like a living thing.

Yanmei screamed. Not in pain, but in clarity.

For one heartbeat, her eyes cleared. "Moyan... it's in the—"

The roots swallowed her whole.

The Breaking Point

The grove shook as the First Vine's flowers withered.

Kainan emerged from the trembling undergrowth, his gravity staff carving a path through the attacking roots. "We need to go. Now."

Moyan hauled Jian Luo up, the older boy's movements clumsy but strong. "What about Yanmei?"

Kainan's face said everything.

They ran as the grove collapsed behind them, the First Vine's dying shrieks echoing through the canopy. Jian Luo kept pace, his body remembering what his mind could not.

At the jungle's edge, Moyan risked one look back.

The Serpent's shadow stretched across the sinking grove, its form no longer hidden. For the first time in countless cycles, it had been fully seen.

And it was afraid.