I was surrounded by death. Shade that once protected me from the harsh glare of the morning sun provided no cover. There were no trees in sight. I was the only thing standing. The little ground that could be seen around me pooled in thick blood. Everywhere else was a shredded mess.

My body looked no better. I had no fabric of clothing left. I wanted to sit, but there was nowhere for me to rest. The sun continued to scorch the barren ground, and a perverse steam accumulated.

The massacre had been wild. Beasts and trees fell without remorse. I was hollow and unfeeling. As weak and foolish as I felt trying to chop down trees, it was nowhere as weak as I felt now. I felt gross, not because I was covered in blood but because I didn't care. The wolfbears kept coming, so I kept chopping. No purpose. No reason. They were there, and I had an ax.

Part of me knew the path would be easier down this road. It wouldn't be the stars I was reaching for; I would rule the heavens. It would be so easy, too. A hollow box had endless potential. It could continually consume, and it would never be enough. All I had to do was remain hollow.

To say the temptation wasn't there was a lie. The void pulled at my soul, begging me to let go. Whispering that it wouldn't be forever. It was only temporary… only for when it was needed. Of course, if I wanted it to stay longer, I could stay in its comforting confines. I didn't even have to ask. I could just be. No judgment. No remorse.

As I looked at the piles of dead beasts, I admitted that I desired the power to not care. If I didn't care, then all of this truly meant nothing. If I didn't care, I could be a god.

I cared, though, and that was all that mattered. I cared about the people, the forests, the beasts, the living, and the dead. If I didn't care, then what was the point of having the power of a god or being a god? I was disgusted with myself, and for that, I was grateful.

It took me several hours to gather all the dead trees and beasts. I brought them to the graveyard of my friends and piled them high. Wood was processed for fire. The meat was consumed when I was hungry. I labored day and night to extract all of the cores. When the task was completed, I ground the cores into a powder which I boiled with my mana into a brew.

Refining cores was a tedious process. I knew I was wasting time. There was plenty of ambient mana to cultivate, and I had an entire day of slaughter to analyze. I sat close to the fire and watched the water boil and reduce, leaving remnants of power behind—remnants that lived not long ago.

"This is a much better view," Cal said, his voice sounding as if he were sitting next to me, and I looked to my side for confirmation. "Their self-aggrandizing was beyond arrogant. At the end of the day, they were trees. Tall trees, but trees nonetheless."

Now that the flayen was here, I didn't want to talk. Instead, I grabbed my stick and stirred the pot.

"I knew this natural beauty once." Cal mumbled the words at first." Her bark was golden, and the leaves she grew radiated mana beyond the comprehension of our scholars. One sip of dew that graced her skin would allow cultivators to break through realms. Though she was an aspen and had thousands of sisters, she chose to live alone, unattached, and unlinked to her family's collective mind. She, alone, strove for the heavens. Not that she ever reached high, nor did she dig deep. Instead, she remained true to her idea of a tree. It was her identity, her very being, that reached up."

I threw another log onto the roaring fire, stepped away, and inspected my ice cauldron. After reinforcing the pot with mana, I added water and another pound of ground cores to the brew. The powder shimmered when it landed in the pot, and the boiling water pulled it into its frantic energy, mixing the array of light into a liquid.

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"Anointed Seed of Heaven was her name. I called her Ash. It didn't take long for Ash to garnish the attention of my peers. She became a treasure of my world. A castle was built around her. Guards were stationed to watch over her. Scientists studied her. The powerful used her. Ash never objected to any of it. She was, after all, a tree.

"I was her personal guard. I was stationed at her side every hour of the day. I read her books, sang songs, theorized, and philosophized to her. I spent the happiest years of my life by her side. One day, we engaged in a one-sided conversation, much like we are now, discussing the intricacies of the mind. I was deeply conflicted… she spoke back to me."

I placed the lumber I was chopping through back down and waited for Tents to continue.

The cauldron melted from within rapidly, and the boiling water inside was a blink away from spilling out. I knew a frozen pot would work counter to my goal and would be weak to the intense heat. It wasn't meant to endure the process. It only needed to provide enough structure for me to add another layer of ice onto it. This layering process widened my pot as more energy powder was added. It wasn't my intention, but boiling water while freezing the pot was an intensive exercise for my mind and spirit.

Tents remained silent.

I could tell he was trying to relate to me. His words and emotions were there. The squid cared about the tree. I wonder if his hand held the ax when Ash was cut down.

"You can call me Calipso, and I did not hold the ax, though, after years of reflection, I wish I had." Pain, torment, and regret flash through my mind. "You are right not to trust me, Kainoa; I have every intention of taking control of your body."

My pot begins to crack. Water and mana leaked out. My eyes remained open, my hands unresponsive.

It was one thing to suspect your mind was being attacked. It was another to know it. My arms wrapped around my body, adjusting to the awkwardness of my ax. The solution was to remove the ax, which I did, and then scooted closer to the fire.

Water and fire had a peculiar relationship in that they didn't want to exist with each other. Both fought to extinguish fire through evaporation and water through suffocation.

I never had much use for fire. I could regulate my temperatures on my own, and as a ranger, I found its brightness at night to be a glaring weakness. We were enemies through and through, on the battlefield and off. It was impossible to cultivate in a firestorm. Yet, at the moment, fire was my only comfort. I had no clothing, shelter, or trees to hide underneath. All I had was a bickering flame, and I craved its warmth. I eased my body next to it for some sense of security. It wasn't much, but I found an ember of strength.

"My name is Kip, and you can't have my body."

"Kai—"

"My name is Kip." I raised my volume in thought and voice. "If you can't respect that, we are done." The desperate hold onto anything they can grasp. My name was a sliver of resistance.

"Very well, Kip. It is nice to meet you."

"You can stop with the pleasantries. I don't want you here, and you don't want me to be here. Let's not pretend we will be friends."

"You are right to push me away." A tension near my temple relaxed like a sigh of relief. The tension had been ever-present. Now that it was gone, I noticed more that it was there.

My only hand moved to the tension-free spot and rubbed in a circular motion, trying to ease any lingering pain.

"In truth, I have been trying to deceive you this whole time. My first blunder was the mind projection. No, my first mistake was underestimating your resolve. After two hundred deaths, I thought you would be an easy host to control. Can we start over?"

No more pain remains, yet my hand continues to massage my head. I had a sea of questions but only one answer. "No."