The seemingly endless path finally came to an end when Leonard found himself before the colossal trunk of the tree. Each step had been a battle against his exhausted body, and the strength he had left suddenly abandoned him. He fell forward, instinctively turning his face to avoid smashing his nose against the wood. The impact made some splinters come loose, falling around his soaked feet.
Panting, he struggled backward, moving just far enough from the trunk to catch his breath. A small cut on his cheek dripped a thin line of blood, but it soon became insignificant compared to what captured his attention. The part of the trunk where he had hit seemed... fragile, different from the rest of the tree's sturdy surface. There were flaws there, as if that spot was less solid, almost inviting.
"What is this?" he muttered, extending his trembling hand to pull a larger splinter.
The piece of wood revealed a narrow, dark gap. Curiosity and tension wrestled for control of his thoughts. With a clumsy movement, Leonard grabbed his sword from the ground. The blade was worn and chipped but could still serve its purpose. He took two shaky steps back, placing his left foot forward to steady himself. Raising the sword, he delivered a diagonal strike, tearing the fragile wood.
self.
The sound echoed like a muffled scream, and soon a putrid odor emerged from inside the tree, invading his nostrils and turning his stomach. Leonard instinctively stepped back as his eyes widened at what he saw. There, at the heart of the trunk, a human corpse lay trapped, its flesh intertwined by twisted roots that wrapped around it like a grotesque armor. The smell was unbearable, but what paralyzed him was something even more disturbing: the corpse was an almost exact replica of himself.
"But… what the hell is this?" Leonard stammered, staggering backward, unable to look away.
His mind spun, thoughts scrambled by shock and exhaustion. He dropped to his knees, supporting himself on the ground as his vision blurred. He vomited repeatedly, acid burning his throat, but the nausea persisted. He felt as if the whole world was crumbling around him.
When he managed to regain some control over his body, Leonard crawled back to the trunk, ignoring the nauseating smell that seemed to cling to his skin. He began tearing more pieces of wood with his bare hands, splinters digging into his flesh without him caring. Soon, he had opened a larger space, enough to see the corpse more clearly.
The roots emerging from the body seemed alive, pulsing slightly, as if absorbing something from the corpse. Then the truth hit him like a brutal blow: the fruits he had eaten, the same ones that had kept him alive these past weeks, were nourished by that human corpse. The sweet crimson juice he drank so eagerly… was probably a mixture of blood and nutrients from the decaying body.
"No…" he whispered, his voice a broken whisper. "It can't be…"
Horror and revulsion overwhelmed him.
He fell again, vomiting until nothing remained in his stomach. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the rain that continued to fall relentlessly. The ground beneath him was soaked with his saliva, vomit, and blood. Leonard sobbed uncontrollably, crushed by humiliation and despair.
"I just want to go home, damn it!" he screamed to the sky, his hoarse voice nearly lost in the storm's sound.
His dirty, bloodied fingers scratched his own cheeks in a desperate gesture to ward off the contamination feeling consuming him. His skin began to break beneath his nails, and blood freely ran down his face. His mind spun, a storm of conflicting emotions, until something stopped his self-flagellation.
A sudden pressure surged in Leonard's left eye. It felt as if something was pulsating there, a growing heat that made no sense. The young man covered his eye with a trembling hand, trying to understand what was happening. When he finally dared to open his eyes again, he saw... threads.
Thin, silver, and shining threads emerged from his left eye, dancing in the air like ethereal webs of liquid light. They moved with a hypnotic fluidity, each thread pulsing with an energy that seemed alive. Leonard was frozen, watching the threads extend toward the corpse in the trunk. They seemed drawn to the corpse's right eye.
"This isn't real…" he whispered, but couldn't look away.
The silver threads began to transform before Leonard's eyes, slowly gaining a golden glow, as if forged by a celestial light.
They moved with hypnotic grace, like ethereal dancers guided by an invisible force, converging on the corpse trapped in the tree. There was something almost sacred in that movement, but also deeply disturbing, like an ancient secret being revealed against the universe's will.
The connection between Leonard and the threads felt increasingly tangible, almost alive. He sensed a weight in the air, as if the very space around him vibrated with a pulsing energy.
His trembling, bloodied hands reached out impulsively. Hesitation gripped him for a brief moment, his mind wavering between the desire to uncover the mystery and the pure terror of what it might mean.
Finally, his fingers touched the point where the golden threads converged, plunging into the strange luminosity.
"So beautiful…" he muttered almost unconsciously, his voice filled with fascination and unease.
The touch was like a silent explosion inside his mind. As soon as his index finger touched the root of those threads, an incomprehensible, ancient connection surged through him like lightning. He felt transported to an abyss of memories that weren't his, glimpses of ancient secrets and uncertain futures dancing like shadows on the edge of his consciousness. It was as if his very being was being woven into something greater, something infinitely vast and incomprehensible.
"So… close…"
While Leonard was consumed by this silent exchange, the golden threads began to dissolve, their light fading until disappearing completely. When he regained some sense of reality, he noticed the corpse's left eye was gone, leaving behind only a dark, lifeless void. Everything around him seemed to hold its breath for a moment, as if the entire world was waiting.
"Is it over?" the word escaped his lips, but he barely believed it.
The calm was cruelly broken. Suddenly, an excruciating pain gripped his head, as if his skull were being split in two. Leonard screamed, clutching his face with both hands as his left eye seemed about to explode. The pressure was unbearable, like a volcano ready to erupt inside his own body.
His bones began to creak, the sound echoing like a grotesque symphony inside him. Every joint, every vertebra seemed twisted and distorted by an invisible force, stripping him of all resistance. Leonard fell to his knees, his heart pounding in despair, while the world around him dissolved into chaos.
The golden glow that had disappeared from the threads now seemed to burn inside him, transforming, consuming, rebuilding. He felt something was being torn away and, at the same time, implanted in his soul, leaving an echo that could never be erased.
…
Blood. Not just stains, but scarlet rivers flowing endlessly, wrapping Leonard in a living nightmare. The vision before him was grotesque and impossible to ignore: mountains of piled bodies, their twisted, lifeless forms reaching the sky like a macabre monument. Night enveloped everything in suffocating darkness, broken only by the cold, supernatural light of a crimson moon, shining ghostly.
Leonard ran, his feet slipping on the blood-soaked ground, but there was nowhere to escape. His eyes were drawn to something climbing among the corpses — no, someone. A man was scaling the pile of bodies as if they were mere steps, his movement calculated and cruel.
The man was striking, a paradox of elegance and horror. He wore a gray tailcoat with greenish hues, over a fine mesh that shimmered under the moonlight. An impeccable tie adorned his neck, while his long blond hair fluttered hypnotically with the wind's touch. His eyes, however, were empty, two pits of pure white, lifeless and emotionless.
The man's vision was terrifying, but Leonard couldn't look away. He seemed to be ascending to the heavens, holding something that radiated disturbing energy: a key. It was no ordinary key, but a strange object of incomprehensible design that seemed to pulse with ancient power.
"He's going to end it all…"
It was more than a thought; it was a certainty, a conviction that cut through Leonard like a cold blade.
Chaos around intensified. Indescribable creatures emerged from the shadows, their grotesque and deformed bodies spreading destruction through the streets. People fought desperately, facing beings that seemed taken straight from their worst nightmares. But the man continued his ascent, indifferent to the chaos unfolding below.
Leonard recognized the man's face — or something close to it. Dante. Yes, it was him, or at least a distorted, infernal version of who he once knew. The tailcoat was different, but the connection was undeniable. He had seen him before, in that bookstore, on that fateful day that now seemed like another life.
Suddenly, the sky shattered. Reality broke like shattered glass, and a colossal rift opened above everything. Through it, unimaginable creatures descended, horrifying forms defying reason and logic. They were visions of pure terror, seeming to devour the sanity of anyone who dared look directly at them.
…
Leonard was dragged back to the present by the pain. A pain that seemed to burn his soul and consume his body. The golden threads that had vanished now seemed to fuse inside him, transforming him. He almost went insane with the sensations invading him, each more intense and overwhelming than the last.
His hair, once showing signs of his worn life, turned completely white, as if accumulated stress had triggered an instant transformation. His mind boiled with sudden understanding, pieces fitting into an impossible puzzle.
In the depths of his consciousness, a word echoed, screaming to be recognized, a name that seemed to carry the weight of everything that had happened.
Name: Eternal Vision
Description: The bearer of this technique can see, touch, and understand the fine threads of time, comprehending the flow of destiny through past, present, and future, with visions triggered by specific cues.
Sitting at the base of the tree trunk, Leonard remained motionless, trying to process the revelations he had just experienced. The excruciating pain that had consumed every fiber of his body began to fade, but the weight of the new information remained overwhelming. His body, stained with fresh and dried blood, seemed to carry the physical and emotional marks of his ordeal.
He took a deep breath, feeling the heavy, damp night air fill his lungs. The irony of what he had just discovered made him laugh, a bitter sound echoing in the darkness.
"Ha… The guy I helped at the bookstore is destined to destroy the world? Wow, shitty world, what a plot twist…"
The words came out with a mix of sarcasm and despair. He looked up, watching the crimson leaves of the tree fall from the branches in the night breeze.
His slow and graceful movements contrasted with the chaos dominating his mind. The stillness around him was oppressive, as if the world was waiting silently for the next act of his misfortune.
"Am I doomed to watch the end of the world?" he murmured, his voice heavy with existential fatigue. "I can't let that happen… But compared to the people I saw fighting, I'm… less than an ant."
He lowered his gaze, staring at the sword beside him, now more a burden than a weapon. With effort, he leaned on it to stand. His movements were clumsy, each step betraying the exhaustion consuming his body and soul. His chest heaved with disbelief, as if every breath was a challenge to fate.
"I need to get out of here… I need… to get out of here…"
His determination, fragile as it was, propelled him forward. He began walking, each step a reminder of his frailty. He staggered, using the sword as an improvised cane, heading toward the opposite side of the great castle that tore the skies. That colossal monument, which he had witnessed on his first day in that hell, still caused discomfort. It was a reminder of his smallness against what he faced.
But something inside him, a silent intuition, told him that the castle and he were connected. That one day he would have to face it, even if it meant defying the impossible.
"One day…" he murmured to himself, the words barely audible.
For now, however, Leonard wanted only one thing: to leave. Escape that place. Face whatever was necessary, but far from that tree, from that fate that seemed inevitable. He knew the path would be long and arduous, but for his brothers, for the chance to change that dark cycle, he would give his all.
And so, even wounded and worn out, Leonard moved forward, staggering toward an uncertain future but determined to fight for something greater than him