Chapter 324
Roar of a King (VII)
The first plant to be laid onto a massive, winter-cold, marble table was a flower. It looked strange pressed against the white stone, though still beautiful. It reminded Cain of a lily, though it had twelve petals all protruding outwards from the ‘heart’, and what stood apart the most, perhaps, was the fact that four colors in total dyed the petals--red, white, sapphire, and pink.
Its stalk stretched some few inches and bent into a curl toward the end. The flower seemed alive, as though it was breathing, and though leafless, the green stalk had a strange pattern reminiscent of the shape.
Quinn, Lear, and the twins immediately hovered over it, picking it up, touching it, sniffing it, licking it, using Mana to look beneath the surface, discussing it and dissecting it with words until they seemed to have written an entry in the book of biology.
“The scent is subdued,” Quinn said. “Is it because it’s dead, though?”
“The petals’ surface is rough,” Lear mentioned. “Almost hardened--I think it’s because of that.”
“I concur,” either Harmony or Nature mentioned. “The colors tell me that it uses them to repel animals, disguising itself as poisonous.”
“You don’t think it’s poisonous?” Quinn asked.
“Could be,” either Nature or Harmony said. “But nothing about how Mana is distributed throughout tells me that it is.”
“I agree,” Lear said. “In fact, I’ll go on a limb and say that the flower was likely a garden variety. Even if it does exist in nature, it’s likely a different version of it. This one looks like a purposefully-bred one to display the most colors and the subdued scent could be a mutation to make it an indoors plant without overwhelming the aroma of the room.”
“And? What do you think?” Quinn turned toward Cain and asked him, prompting others to look in his direction as well. He cracked a bitter smile--to him, it was just a nice-looking flower and nothing more.
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “Could be all and could be none. Could be some and could be... uh, won?”
“Haah, anyway, since we have a plant invalid, let’s do it like...”
Cain tuned in shortly after; he did inspect all plants that came about with Mana regularly, and he’d even chime in if he noticed what he considered to be an anomaly, but... it didn’t do much. He realized quickly into the ‘game’ that he was entirely unnecessary.
It hardly hurt or bruised his ego--in fact, he was happy to be able to delegate it to the people with far great qualifications than he had. He’d tried to do everything himself the last go-around, and not only was it beyond difficult and exhausting, it also amounted to very little, if not nothing.
Watching them passionately dissect the various herbs that he could only describe as ‘alien’ and ‘inedible’, he chuckled and stood up, stretching his legs by deciding to take a walk through the massive garden. Though they realized it, nobody stopped him, having accepted that his addition would really be a subtraction in the end.
“What thinks thee of my garden?” he glanced to the side where he saw the small gnome floating along. The figure was slightly hazy, indicating it was likely a clone of some sorts.
“Musta been hell to raise it,” Cain replied.
“All beautiful things require arduous work,” Danny said. “But most are worth the pain.”
“So, why are you here with me instead of talking plants with people who actually know what they’re talking about?”
“Ah, a dagger to the heart of issues, aye,” the small gnome chuckled. “It is so for I have a quest for you, Thief.”
“...” Cain remained unfazed, having realized that he’d encounter more and more people who were aware of his status the further along he went. “What quest?”
“A rewarding one.”
“A deadly one, maybe.”
“Equal parts,” he said. “But I take you as a lad to garner and gather risks like flowers for a bouquet, aye.”
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“... since you know roughly how strong I am,” Cain said. “As you’ve seen me fight the King, and you’re still claiming it’s potentially a deadly quest... aren’t I signing myself into ass-fucking voluntarily?”
“The Crowned had tapped your potential, aye,” Danny said with a faint grin. “But hadn’t pulled it at its roots. Many-a-secret you hide, Thief, and death is likely a distant friend of yours.” Cain was forced to duck underneath a thick, flung, overhead branch of a tree as the two made their way deeper into the garden. Strangely so, however, the aroma grew lighter and easier on the nose.
“Doesn’t mean I’m eager to walk into its hands,” Cain said. “Not without proper incentive, anyway.”
“The reward will be the last Gottan Fruit,” the gnome said with a clearly pained voice, though the name meant nothing to Cain.
“... and what does it do?”
“Aren’t you interested in its history?”
“More interested in its effects.”
“Its history is far more interesting.”
“Are you trying to swindle me?”
“It’s one of the three Genesis Trees,” Danny’s words shut Cain up and caused him to listen. “Y’dril Tree, G’ton Tree, and E’dul Tree. Myths say that each tree only bore three fruits--one of each was used to feed the One in His infancy, the second set was given to each of his Daelas--Seed Children, one for each of the three. And the last three were lost to time. In truth, Edduna Fruit ended up being the seed of the Dragon Race, Ydrassil Fruit ended up becoming the genesis of all life in the cosmos as you know it... and Gottan Fruit became the heirloom of the family that inhabited this world. In their ire and demise, to protect it, they had sought me out and given it to me, with the express purpose of using it as a reward in the future for someone who could challenge the Rites.”
“...” Does he realize he just said a whole bunch of shit that means nothing to me?! though Cain grumbled inwardly, in truth, he was awed.
“I understand that it all matters little to thee,” Danny continued. “And it does not turn your heart discordant like mine. But at least thee ought to understand that the Fruit is not simply the kind that elevates your stats or affords you a skill or two. It is a Fruit that only two before have consumed--both of whom are mythical figures beyond the reach of any one of us.”
“You mentioned Seed Children,” Cain said. “I thought that after the One, there were two strongest, and weren’t called Children?”
“Oh? Thee is aware of the Divine Hierarchy?”
“Somewhat, yes.”
“While it is true that are two Qods, those two are simply the first Heralds of Genesis--for in the time of great Origin Wars, where races fought, would rise and fall infinitely it seemed, those two became the Champions of War and were awarded the seat directly below One’s. But One’s Seed Children are different.”
“How?”
“One of them became the very Magic that you use,” the two men came to a stop in front of a small pond of beautiful, sapphire-dyed water with tiny fireflies flying about. The resonance of the sight and the gnome’s thunderous words shocked Cain to his very core. “The other became the very energy that forms the stars. And the third... the third became the last breath that we all return to.”
“...”
“The Child-Seeds, as myths occasionally call them--the Seed of Birth, the Seed of Life, and the Seed of Death. The cycle that all are subjected to... but their very creator.”
“...”
“The Nine Fruits, Seeds, Origins, whichever one of the many names you ascribe to them,” the gnome continued. “Ordinated the path of the universe since its inception. And the last of them... lays dormant in my hands. The key to the grand, cosmic change--the only way to unilaterally usurp the order of everything.”
“...” Cain frowned, forcibly calming himself down. There was too much to unpack within that statement... and the implications scared him. “Are you sayin’ I’d literally have to start a rebellion against the Towers if I took the fruit?”
“Yes,” Danny replied unhesitatingly.
“Then no,” Cain returned the favor.
“At the heart of everything, there is a Clock,” the gnome turned to him, his tiny eyes glistening softly. “It’s a nameless Clock, one framed in ordinary wood, with an ordinary pendulum. Yes, a pendulum. The Clock represent the whole sum of time, cross multitudes, dimensions, temporal rifts, and even anomalies like thee. Every last nanosecond of existence is stored within the Clock, each one weighing it further and further. There shall come a tipping point,” the gnome said, summoning a translucent, old-looking clock above his tiny palm, as though to illustrate the point.
“Where the pendulum... can no longer swing,” the image within the ‘hologram’ reflected the words. “And it shall cease. And with it... so shall all else.”
“... what? It’s like a countdown to a Judgment Day?”
“It is a countdown, but not to the End,” Danny corrected. “But the Origin Reset. In term you might understand, think back to your world before the Towers fell, how the concept of money existed. Inflation, I believe, it was called. Up and up and up until, one day, poof... it needs to come back down.”
“...”
“For the universe, it is everything--the scope of life, the inflated magic, the levels of power and strength, and, most importantly, the sheer scale of things. At the moment, the two expanding ends of the cosmos are so far apart... that only the One can go from one end to another. Nobody else, not even the Voidworms, could. Not in the afforded lifespan, anyway.”
“... okay,” Cain nodded. “So, it’s just an inevitable death of universe. Or, well, a rebirth. I guess. Why would you want me to start a rebellion or something? It won’t change a thing.”
“Do you know what weighs the most upon the pendulum?”
“What?”
“The Divines.”
“...”
“Their existence accounts for two-thirds of all the weight.”
“Shit.”
“It is not as thought I had been waiting for thee all this time,” the gnome said. “In fact, you are far from a perfect candidate. But... the time is running out. If we do not begin now, we may as well never begin. Though the death of everything is inevitable, the One had tuned it to be natural. Like how an ordinary man is want to live a good, healthy century... but is cut down in his youth by another. You needn’t make a choice just yet. Peruse the world. Talk with yourself. And before you are to leave... if you wish it, come and see me. If not... well, at least I shall finally be able to put my mind at ease and accept... it shall be over.”