Chapter 325: The Light That Waits

The center of the Everglades was quiet.

The professors had expected a battlefield, and instead they found a forest. No corrupted Beasts burst out of the trees, no roots erupted from the ground, and no purple Miasma drifted through the air. Even the distant tremors shaking the other regions felt weaker here.

One of the professors lowered his weapon slightly. "This is strange."

The other looked around. "Very."

Leon walked several steps ahead of them with Mephistopheles following behind. He had caught up with the two professors on the way in, after losing Arthur’s trail somewhere past the eastern clearing. The enormous Beast’s claws pressed into the pale soil as it slowly scanned the forest in every direction, but nothing moved.

Leon frowned. "Where is everything?"

A professor glanced at him. "That’s what we’re trying to figure out."

Leon looked at the enormous trees. "You’d think a place called the Light Region would be brighter."

"It is."

Leon turned. "What?"

The professor pointed at the ground, and Leon looked down. Thin golden lines were glowing beneath the soil, not everywhere, but here and there, like veins beneath skin.

Leon crouched. "Those weren’t here before."

"Probably because the World Tree wasn’t awake."

Leon looked toward the distant center. "And now?"

The professor stood. "Now they’re spreading."

They went deeper into the Light Region, and the silence only grew more noticeable, until one of the professors stopped. "Wait."

Everyone turned. He was staring at the forest floor, where hundreds of footprints were pressed into the soil. They were Beast tracks, some of them enormous, from creatures that should have been far too large to exist in this region. And every trail ended in the same place. None of them continued toward the center.

Leon frowned. "They were here."

"Yes."

"And they left."

"No," the professor said, shaking his head. "They didn’t leave. They disappeared."

That answer changed the mood immediately.

Mephistopheles suddenly raised its head, a low growl rumbling in its throat, and Leon stood at once. "What is it?"

The Beast stared toward the center, but nothing moved, and after a moment, Mephistopheles slowly lowered its head again.

One professor narrowed his eyes. "Even Mephistopheles can’t sense anything."

Leon looked at the Beast. "That’s unusual."

"Very."

A few minutes later, the trees suddenly ended, and the group stepped into an enormous clearing, and everyone stopped.

The Light Mirror floated at its center, larger than any of them had expected. Its surface was almost completely white, but beneath the brightness lay countless faint patterns, like stars trapped beneath a frozen lake. Golden light flowed out of it, not violently or explosively, but gently, spreading outward, and everywhere it touched, the ground grew stable.

The professors stared, and Leon slowly smiled. "So this is why."

One of the professors looked at him. "Why what?"

"The silence." Leon pointed at the Mirror. "It’s not that there aren’t any Beasts." He looked around the clearing. "They’re staying away from this place."

The professor’s expression sharpened. "Because of the Mirror."

"Exactly."

One of the professors stepped forward with his hand outstretched, and the moment he crossed an invisible boundary around the clearing, his expression changed. "The mana..."

The other professor came closer. "What about it?"

"It’s stable." He looked at the Mirror. "Completely stable."

The others understood at once. Outside the clearing, the mana fluctuated constantly as the World Tree reconnected the entire Secret Realm, and the corruption traveled through that connection. But here, nothing moved. The mana was perfectly balanced.

"It’s suppressing the instability," one of the professors said quietly.

Leon folded his arms. "So the Light Mirror isn’t just producing light."

"No," the professor said, shaking his head. "It’s creating a stable environment." He looked at the glowing roots. "Look at the ground."

Golden lines spread beneath the clearing, and then the professor’s expression changed. "There are four more."

Leon stepped closer. Four golden paths ran out from beneath the Light Mirror and vanished into the earth, one heading west, one north, one east, and one south. The professor followed each with his eyes and named them in turn, Fire, Water, Earth, and Darkness.

Leon stared at the four connections. "So they’re all connected."

"They always were." The professor pointed at the center. "But the Light Mirror is different. It isn’t just connected to them." He looked at the Mirror. "They’re connected through it."

Leon slowly understood. "It’s the center."

The professor nodded. "The central stabilizer."

The other professor’s face turned serious. "Which means if the Light Mirror is damaged..."

"The other regions become harder to stabilize."

Leon looked at the four paths. "And if it falls completely?"

The professor didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, "Then everything connected to it becomes vulnerable."

Leon whistled softly. "So protecting this thing is pretty important."

One of the professors gave him a tired look. "Yes."

Leon smiled. "Good."

The professor frowned. "Why does that make you happy?"

Leon turned toward Mephistopheles. "Because it means Arthur isn’t here."

The professors stared at him, and one finally asked, "You came here expecting to find him?"

"Obviously." Leon pointed at the Mirror. "This is exactly the kind of place he’d go." He paused. "Or it would be, if there weren’t somewhere stranger."

A professor sighed. "The students said he headed into the transformed regions."

Leon’s smile widened as he looked south, where darkness was spreading along the horizon. "Then he went there."

The professor looked at him. "How can you be sure?"

"Arthur sees a strange place and immediately wants to know what’s inside it," Leon said. "If he had to choose between the mysterious Mirror at the center and the region where reality looks like it’s falling apart..." He shrugged. "He’d pick the second one."

Mephistopheles gave a low roar, and Leon looked back at it. "Exactly."

The professors exchanged glances, and one sighed. "Then we’d better hope he knows what he’s doing."

Leon laughed. "That’s a dangerous thing to hope for."

A tremor suddenly passed through the clearing, and everyone turned toward the Light Mirror. Its surface rippled once, then again, and the golden lines beneath the ground brightened.

The professors moved into formation at once. "Something’s happening."

Leon grabbed his weapon as Mephistopheles lowered its body. "Finally."

The Light Mirror began to shine, brighter and brighter, until the entire clearing turned white. Leon raised an arm to shield his eyes. "What is this?"

"Don’t touch the Mirror!" a professor shouted.

"I’m not!"

The Light Mirror released a pulse.

BOOOOOOM!

Golden energy surged through the clearing, and all four paths beneath the ground ignited at once, sending the energy racing outward to the west, north, east, and south. Far away, the Fire Mirror flashed in response, then the Water Mirror, the Earth Mirror, and finally the Darkness Mirror. All five Mirrors were resonating.

The professors stared in disbelief.

"They’re synchronizing," one of them whispered.

The other shook his head. "That’s impossible. The Mirrors have been separated for centuries."

The first professor looked at the Light Mirror. "Maybe they were never meant to stay apart forever."

The realization spread through the group. The ancient civilization hadn’t made five separate artifacts. It had built a network, five points in a single system, and the Light Mirror had just switched on its central connection.

Leon stared at the enormous column of golden light rising into the sky. "So this is what happens when all five respond."

The professor looked toward the World Tree, and his expression changed. "No. This is what happens when the World Tree responds to all five."

A deep sound rolled across the Secret Realm. The sky trembled, the ground shook, and the enormous branches of the World Tree began to move.

Then came the scream.

It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t the roar of a Beast. It was something impossibly large, a sound that seemed to rise from the roots beneath the entire Secret Realm.

The professors froze, and Mephistopheles roared back at it. Leon stared at the World Tree, and for the first time since he had arrived, his smile disappeared. "What the hell was that?"

No one answered.

Another pulse passed through the five Mirrors.

Fire flashed, water surged, earth trembled, darkness twisted, and light exploded across the sky, and the World Tree screamed again.

This time, every person in the Everglades heard it. Every Beast stopped, and every professor turned toward the center.

Leon slowly tightened his grip on his weapon and looked toward the Darkness Region. "Arthur..." he said quietly. "You’d better not have found whatever made that sound."