The little girl didn’t speak a lot. She was too excited about her encounter with a God. Even the fear she’d felt just a moment ago had subsided. It was almost as if she’d never been hunted and that she had never been on the verge of death.

Xavier was not sure whether to praise her for living in the moment or if he should scold her for being foolish. At the end of the day, he didn’t do either. He followed her after she grasped his hand to lead him somewhere.

It was not like he had a direction to go either way. Maybe the little girl might bring him back to the outskirts of the Grand Forest. That would certainly be helpful.

Unfortunately, Zela of the Moonwalker Clan – which was how she introduced herself on their two-hour-long journey through the thicket of the Grand Forest – didn’t lead him out of the Grand Forest. On the contrary, the space around them twisted at some point during their journey, and the surrounding environment grew even more vibrant than before.

At first, Xavier happily listened to the little girl hum some tunes to herself as she led him through the forest, but after a while, he asked, “How far is Ixton from here?”

Zela only looked at him but then continued walking again.

“Okay, you don’t know Ixton. How about the outskirts of this forest? A nearby settlement?”

Again, he was met with silence. He looked around in confusion. The forest looked green and dense all around him. The more they walked, the denser it grew.

At one point, he thought of leaving her and going the path he thought was right, but one look at the trees told him he had no idea where they were. He also felt a little bad about abandoning the girl in the middle of the forest. What if some monster attacked her again?

“Hey Zela, where is your home?” Xavier asked her again. That word made her pause, and she looked at him curiously.

“Home?” Xavier repeated.

She only pointed far ahead and urged him to continue walking. She seemed to know where she was going even if the forest looked the same to him wherever he looked.

Having no other option, Xavier followed her as she led him through the thicket. Soon, the dense forest seemed to thin, and his eyes fell on a small clearing. And it was only a moment later he noticed a massive tree right in the center of the clearing.

Several beings surrounded the trees, patiently waiting for something or someone. Xavier squinted his eyes to get a clear look and noticed purple-eyed and dark-skinned people looking just like Zela.

The moment he reached in front of the huge tree, he heard a voice that echoed through the forest.

Xavier craned his neck to look at the gigantic tree before him. The tree’s trunk was massive and roughly fifty feet wide, with thick and long branches spreading in all directions. The leaves were also densely packed and could provide shade to a small village’s population if they were to stand below it in extreme summers.

Xavier’s mouth was half-open as he stared at the massive structure in front of him, amazed by the wonders of nature. He thought he sensed movement on one of the branches and was about to alert the people nearby, but a second glance told him that there were people on top of it.

They looked like the little girl who had led him here, and he soon saw several treehouses built on top of the branches. A few were small, some under construction, and where there was enough space, they had intertwined the branches and leaves to allow building a bigger treehouse.

He wondered how they must have transported the building materials and supplies up and down the tree since they did not seem to be a technologically advanced race. A few seemed old, and he also spotted two little children swinging on a branch and playing happily.

One of the elders saw Xavier approaching the tree and shouted from above.

“Don’t you dare try to take a step forward!!”

His voice alerted the others, and a few men gathered around the tree’s base on the ground.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

A young, purple-skinned man stepped forward, glaring at him.

“I am Xavier, and Zela brought me here.”

His eyes fell on the little girl, and he shouted at her. “Come here. How often have I told you not to wander in the forest alone?”

Zela let go of Xavier’s hand and walked towards the angry young man who pushed her behind him as if Xavier was going to hurt her any second.

“You are not welcome here. So leave.”

Xavier had barely opened his mouth to respond when the young man stepped forward and shoved him back. “Now!”

Xavier stumbled back and could have punched him in the face but held back. He was lost in this massive forest and could not afford to make enemies, so he kept his cool and straightened his back.

However, the young man was still not done.

“How shameless are you to keep standing here when I told you to leave? Your kind is not welcome here. Do you not value your life, boy?” He grit his teeth angrily.

Xavier was spared from having to answer when, suddenly, the earth beneath one of the men’s feet began to move.

Startled, everybody backed away as one of the tree's thick roots appeared to be….moving.

They all stepped back as the root buried in the soil seemed to writhe and twitch, trying to break free of the soil and push itself to the surface.

Soil, small pebbles, and dirt were sprayed all around as the root finally uprooted itself and reached the surface. And then an even stranger thing happened.

The root began to transform into something…or someone.

Everybody watched in a daze as the root seemed to stand up in the air and change its shape. Leaves, flowers, and twigs began to sprout out of it, and soon, it transformed into a beautiful woman.

Is that a Dryad?

The dryad had brown skin and a slender body like a young woman. Leaves and flowers adorned her body to make it appear as if she were wearing a dress made of green, silky leaves, while colorful flowers formed a necklace and other ornaments around her body. Her hair was made of vines that rustled in the light breeze. Her eyes were light green, just like her hair and clothes, but there was a remarkable difference in the shades of green.

Her eyes opened after the transformation was complete, and they found Xavier.

“You arrived,” The Dryad spoke calmly, taking Xavier by surprise.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He was not even one of these people. Shouldn’t she be talking to them instead of him?

He pointed his finger at himself and asked, “Are you talking to me?”

She did not answer immediately but kept staring at him. She could sense his energy fluctuations and spent the next minute observing him while everybody watched her curiously. Xavier felt as if he was being thoroughly scanned from head to toe, and somehow, she could see his physical body and take a peek into his mind and soul. That made him shudder.

After what felt like an eternity, she answered in the same soft and soothing voice.

”Yes, follow me.” She spoke to him and looked at the Moonwalkers, who immediately bowed to her and stepped back. A small crowd gathered following her appearance, and they all stepped back to make space for Xavier to follow the dryad.

“Follow you? Where?” Xavier asked, and soon, he saw an opening near the base of the huge tree. The Moonwalkers gasped in unison and fell on their knees to pay their respects. Zela also fell on her knees and motioned for him to do the same but remained standing.

His body was already on alert mode and a bit sore from the earlier fight. He felt like he would collapse the moment he knelt—not that he was willing to kneel before a tree in the first place.

“I have been waiting for you. Ysgal informed me about your arrival.”

Xavier inclined his head, “Ysgal? Who’s that?”

Some elder Moonwalkers twitched while the younger men and women growled like beasts.

What’s wrong with them? Rabies maybe? I should stay away from them.

“Ysgal is the name of our God. He protects us and the Grand Forest.”

So Ysgal is the guy who helped me out against that ugly monster? Should I be thankful for that or complain that such a monster existed in the Grand Forest? Maybe he’s just busy. Gods must be busy…with godly things, I guess?

“Of course.”

Xavier was unsure why a dryad or a God was expecting his arrival, but he followed her nonetheless.

She led him inside the tree, which she introduced as Ysgal's offspring, the Sacred Tree. Space seemed to twist inside the tree, and if he had not entered through that trunk himself, he would never have believed the inside portion of the tree was so huge. It felt like an entire forest of its own was growing inside. He kept looking around in awe as the Dryad spoke.

"You are an Outsider, and you have no idea about our customs or way of life. Most would be reluctant to trust you, but Ysgal believes that you are what we need to change the future. Because you don't know our ways, the Domains do not bind you. You can affect the Fate of everything in the Domains. We, the natives, are different. We cannot oppose our Lords."

Xavier listened to her attentively, although he was unsure if he understood what she was saying. It took him a whole minute to realize that though he could hear her voice, she had not opened her mouth.

She was speaking inside his head, and he did not notice it. While he came to terms with that, she continued,

"That's the reason Gods fear Outsiders the most. It's why most Gods fear creating Aether Gates connecting our places with the outside world."

Xavier tried hard to retain every word she spoke and imprint it in his memory instead of asking millions of questions. However, that was not easy. It hadn’t been long since he regained consciousness in the domains, and he had already come across various races, learned about Gods and domains, and, to top it all, somehow, a dryad knew his name and had been expecting his arrival.

He thought the apocalypse had been spooky, but the things he learned in the last few days were enough to tell him that the situation was much more complicated than it appeared. He couldn’t help but ask her one question.

“What about Earth then? If Gods fear Outsiders, why would they create countless Aether Gates leading to Earth?”

The Dryad smiled at him wryly. She considered lying to him but shook her head inwardly.

“Your planet is different. You know about the Branch of Origin the Schema has found on Earth, right?”

Xavier nodded slowly. He had heard about the Branch of Origin. It had been mentioned when the Schema descended.

“The Branch of Origin on Earth is much more than a mere branch. It’s a connection straight to the Origin. It is a Root to the Origin!”

The Dryad made it sound like something significant, but Xavier couldn’t put his finger on it. Did it matter whether there was a Root to the Origin on Earth or a Branch of Origin?

“Sooo?”

He felt that it was something big and missing some important detail, but he couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

As if in response to his question, he felt his surroundings change. The greenery was replaced by space and the cosmos, and he saw stars and planets in front of him. The universe was unveiled before him.

“What the…?” Xavier blurted out but stopped himself from cursing in front of the dryad. He was not sure if that would anger or upset her.

The dryad seemed to stare at the scene before them, so he did the same.

He was unsure how he was seeing whatever was in front of him. It was incomprehensible, yet everything seemed to make sense. The changing scenes stopped moving around, and in front of him came a humongous tree that connected the galaxies, its roots, and branches, creating a spider web-like network to connect the domains, galaxies, and more. It was as if the Origin tree was holding everything in place. Everything was connected neatly through the branches and roots of the Origin. It was marvelous and a breathtaking sight.

“Outsiders are not under the Gods’ management. Therefore, they’re not influenced by them. Their natural limits are not restrained in any way. After all, they don’t fall under the grace of Gods’ Fate. If anything, the Guardian Tree of the Universe, also known as the Origin, is the only entity that can influence Outsiders, if desired. However, instead of interfering in the games of mortals and immortals, the Guardian Tree maintains the balance in the universe. That is the purpose of its existence and the reason it governs all Aether.”

“Origin connects and stabilizes the universe and the Domains. It nourishes the living and is nourished by the dead. Taping into the power of the Origin would grant unparalleled power. However, the Domains are never connected to any of the Origin’s roots. They’re connected to the weakest branches of the Origin.”

Xavier tried listening intently, but he was getting a headache. He figured that the Dryad had a lot more to explain, yet her explanation seemed to make him feel more confused instead of clearing it.

“To summarize, the Guardian Tree of the Universe is called Origin because it connects everything. It is the origin of everything as it nourishes everything. The Gods fear Outsiders because they’re not under their influence. Everything they cannot control is something they fear. That makes sense to a certain extent. But now they’ve created Aether Gates for Earth because they sensed that Earth has access to a Root of the Origin rather than one of its branches. The Gods fear Outsiders, but they’re greedy enough to put their fear aside for the incredibly slim probability to access the root and its near-unlimited amount of Aether?”

“That is … interesting.” Xavier had to suppress the urge to yell out all the other assumptions and theories his mind came up with.

He swallowed his words and looked around.

The dryad seemed to be done with her explanation, and the stars and the planets began to disappear from his view. He only watched curiously as the scene in front of him changed again. He saw a massive palace before him, its marble facade glinting in the light. But not even a millisecond later, the walls started crumbling, and he saw silver liquid spilling everywhere. He did not have to think twice to know what it was.

Blood!

There were dead bodies of several races scattered all over the shiny marble floor. None of them twitched or was gasping for breath. All of them had their eyes staring into nothingness. Something vile, something powerful and evil, had killed them all and left them to bleed to death. But as he peered intently at the scene, he noticed they were not mortals.

Xavier swore again when he realized they were Gods.

“Fuck”

Dozens of Gods were lying on the ground, massacred by someone or something.

Xavier swallowed hard. His eyes flicked to the Dryad, who didn't seem to react. It was almost as if time stopped for her.

Chaos was all Xavier could see....and death.

Before he could try to poke her or ask her if she saw what he saw, words suddenly appeared in his mind as if they were being engraved on it.

Xavier held his head and screamed as if a cryptic message had appeared.

**

The Palace in the Clouds will shake when darkness and silver blood fuse.

When the time is ripe, the seals will break, and the Origin will wake to retrieve what ought to belong to it.

When the time is ripe, memories will merge Old and New, connecting the Foreign with the Familiar.

The red string of Fate will unravel, revealing what was hidden for Eons.