Chapter 675: Projection of the Past! The Burning Tree of Life

“And also, why is it that so many Roots are willing to treat you so well? And since you refuse to tell me, I'm sorry, but my patience has run out. I'll pry open your consciousness and see for myself... what exactly you are.”

She spoke unhurriedly.

With every step she took.

Crimson vines pierced and spread beneath her feet.

But Lynn remained unmoved, instead breaking into an unusually clear smile. “Oh? Aren't you afraid of triggering that monster sealed within my consciousness?”

The girl’s smile was full of amusement. “If it were really that easy to trigger, you wouldn’t keep using that as a threat against me. After all, neither of us is stupid, are we?”

Slowly.

She walked right up to Lynn.

Lynn made no move at all. Not because he wasn't resisting, but because the space around him had long been locked down by the girl.

“Let me see.”

“What you really are.”

Her eyes narrowed, and the slender hand she extended, right before his eyes, transformed with a cacophonous rustle into a twisted, cyst-covered hand of flesh and blood.

That grotesque hand of flesh and blood drew closer to the center of his brow.

But just as that hand was about to plunge into his skull, a profoundly eerie smile suddenly spread across Lynn's face.

Like the opening ceremony of a grand ball.

The very last grain of sand in the hourglass.

At that same instant, silently, slipped down from the neck.

“Isn’t it already here?”

Lynn said to her, softly.

In an instant.

The expression on the girl's face shifted dramatically.

Without any warning, the surrounding, once-peaceful blood mist began to surge violently, as if it had suddenly been plunged into an unfathomably dark, deep pool, her whole body trembling and suffocating.

It was as if every leaf, every branch, every blossom, could feel the falling frost drifting down.

She whipped her head around.

But Lynn, who had been standing right in front of her just moments before, had vanished.

All around her was an abundance of lush green, the songs of birds, the fragrance of flowers. Morning dew gently rolled off the leaves. In the distance, deer bounded swiftly through the forest. Above, dappled sunlight filtered down through the branches. Everything was so beautiful, like a dream.

But the expression on her face had turned pale.

She instinctively took two steps back.

“A projection...”

She murmured.

And she finally understood what that human had been waiting for.

But it was wrong! Wrong!

He was clearly the Colossus's Heart—there was absolutely no mistake about that. Only the Colossus's Heart could summon a phantom manifestation of the Colossus to descend during a standoff with the God of All Machines. Only the Colossus's Heart could withstand the interference of that terror projection in this damned place!

So why was this happening?

Because this scene was far too familiar. Over three thousand years ago, she herself had been in this very forest valley, witnessing the spread and seepage of that darkness.

Everything was burning!

Everything was rotting!

She had spread her sky-covering canopy, sheltering the entire world beneath her arms. She had told the children to run, she had told her subjects to hide, she had told the stars in the sky to hide within her branches.

And then, the entire firmament!

She saw that distant starfield, in her very sight, extinguish bit by bit. She saw the sky-covering black mist spreading across the sky of her entire world.

She saw that scarlet eye.

She trembled, raising her head. The sunlight filtering through the branches had, at some point, become utterly dim. Something was falling in flurries from the sky. She reached out and caught it, only to find it was floating ash.

The terror sealed in the deepest recesses of her memory, at this moment, unfurled with a thunderous roar like a geyser of blood.

And just as Lynn had said.

She was merely using disdain and nonchalance to disguise her own fear in the face of that Cataclysm. But when it truly descended, when it truly came for you, all despair would be awakened in an instant.

“No!”

She gritted her teeth, and flew forward, running.

She kept weaving through the forest valley floor, and behind her, a sky-blotting expanse of dark clouds was relentlessly spreading.

Bursting into a clearing, she raised her head, trembling, and gazed into that familiar homeland.

Just like back then.

That great tree, representing life and nature, unfurled her sky-covering canopy, and then began to burn fiercely. From every leaf, to every blossom, it burned with pitch-black fire, showering the entire world with endless ash.

She raised her head, hollow.

The fire that filled the sky blazed in her pupils.

The pitch-black clouds snuffed out the stars across the entire sky, with only that firelight illuminating the entire burning world.

And the tree in the distance.

Was herself.

This fire burned for what felt like a lifetime. And this was not a show of respect. Because the truth was, she had long known that darkness was coming. She saw stars go out every day, and every time one went out, it signified the extinction of a civilization.

She had sequestered herself from the world, guarding nature.

Just as she had naively believed, if she didn't provoke them, then they would not descend upon the forest she protected.

But the facts proved.

Just how naive and laughable she had been back then.

And she kept telling herself, what she was seeing now was just an illusion, a projection from this space of the very thing she feared most within her heart. But the true scenes before her eyes kept forcing her to remember, locking her into that moment three thousand years ago.

She knew this fire would burn for a very, very long time.

Long enough for her to burn herself out, and with her final vestiges of life, send all of nature’s subjects from the forest toward that distant, still-bright starfield.

Just like every extinguished star she had ever seen.

And she.

Was destined to become one of them.

She murmured, raising her head, gazing at the arks of nature she had woven in a bygone era, watching countless natural beings, under her frantic orders, sound the horns of exile.

They carried within them every deer, every bird, every blossom.

A vast and mighty procession.

In her final desperate struggle, they broke through the burning horizon, sailing toward the distant sky.

And she finally remembered.

Why she had fallen into that hell. Why she had been so consumed by despair and hatred.

Her pupils trembled.

“No... no...”

“You can't flee!!”

She lunged forward, screaming with all her strength, desperately trying to stop it.

Boom—!

The fragments of the explosion, like endless ash, scattered across her entire dilating pupils.

Like so many fireworks.

That desperate escape, those arks representing her last hope—just like three thousand years ago—as she watched with her own eyes, shattered into pieces under the corrosion of that darkness.

That's why she hated, isn't it.

That's why she struggled to her feet, even if it meant falling into hell, even if it meant burning down to a single smoldering seed.

It was a denial of everything from the past.

A complete severance and severing of her once-naive self.

But deep down, she knew.

Even if those arks had not been destroyed before her eyes, the entire world was still destined to wither.

And indeed, she did not die as gloriously as Cyber had. Because even at the very end, she lacked the power to make a desperate final stand against that darkness.

She had died...

In that endless, smoldering fire.