The tree groaned, a low, resonant sound that rattled through the clearing like distant thunder.
Its branches twisted against the sky, gnarled limbs reaching out like skeletal fingers.
The faint pulses of light crawling through the bark flickered erratically, almost like a heartbeat.
Or a warning.
Nero tightened his grip on his wand, eyes never leaving the old woman.
Her frail frame looked like it could snap in a breeze, but her presence pressed against the air like a weight.
She wasn't just some elder, she was the center of this place. The anchor.
Lyra clutched Nero's sleeve, her fingers trembling. "Grandmother... don't scare him," she whispered, voice thin.
The old woman's lips twitched. "If he's scared, he should leave," she said, voice dry as parchment. "Fear is a mercy. It keeps fools alive."
"I don't scare easily. Knowledge is my butter and bread." Nero said, stepping closer.
The old woman tilted her head, her gaze sharp and assessing. "Tell me your name, boy."
"Nero."
Her mouth curved in a brittle smile. "A name born of fire," she rasped. "Fitting for this place."
Her gaze lingered on him, as if searching for the real meaning. Nero let the comment pass.
He knew himself, water and ice were his true calling, but names meant little compared to intent.
She leaned back, her bones creaking like old wood. "Sit," she commanded, gesturing to the ground in front of her. "If you want answers, you'll listen properly."
Nero hesitated, then lowered himself to the ground, crossing his legs.
Lyra sat beside him, still gripping the edge of his robe.
The old woman gazed up at the hollow tree, her eyes distant.
"This tree," she whispered, "is our curse made flesh."
She spoke of a man who had once lived within the Shatterveil.
A wizard of unparalleled ambition.
He had been obsessed with eliminating human suffering.
Not out of kindness, but to prove that magic could remake reality.
He believed sadness, grief, and despair were parasites feeding on the soul.
Flaws to be purged.
He sought to create a creature that could devour those emotions.
To cleanse the human mind.
But magic, especially magic that tampered with the fabric of emotion, is not so easily controlled.
The creature he forged, a swirling mass of devouring darkness, did not erase sadness.
It amplified it.
It latched onto negative emotions, feeding on them, growing stronger.
And when the wizard realized what he had created, it was already too late.
The creature had sunk its roots into the land itself.
The wizard, broken and maddened by his failure, tried to seal the creature.
He bound it within a great tree, using his own soul as the final seal.
The tree grew from his death, its bark blackened, its roots spreading despair like a plague.
The wizard's descendants, the cursed clan, inherited the aftermath.
Their bloodline became tainted, forever tied to the tree's presence.
The creature could no longer manifest as a physical entity, but its influence seeped through them, radiating despair like a beacon.
They had become living conduits of suffering.
A walking curse.
"That is our legacy," the old woman whispered, her voice trembling. "We carry the burden of our ancestor's sin. We do not know how to break the curse... only how to endure it."
Nero's mind raced, piecing together the implications.
He hesitated for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
"Was your ancestor's name... Ekrizdis?" he asked, voice low.
The old woman's eyes snapped to his, and the air froze.
The despair that pulsed through the village surged, pressing against Nero's Void Barrier with brutal force.
The old woman's frail body trembled, her fingers digging into the arms of her chair like claws.
"Where did you hear that name?" she rasped, her voice suddenly sharp, almost accusatory.
Nero didn't flinch. "I study magic, and its history." he said carefully. "The name Ekrizdis appears in dark wizarding history. He was said to live in isolation, practicing forbidden magic... and he created creatures that fed on despair."
The woman's breathing grew ragged, her chest rising and falling like she was struggling to contain something.
"He was not our ancestor," she whispered, voice cracking. "But... he was the master of the man who cursed us."
Nero's blood ran cold.
Ekrizdis had not created the hollow tree.
But someone who followed him had.
"Your ancestor... learned magic from Ekrizdis?" Nero pressed.
The old woman nodded, her eyes filled with an ancient, hollow grief.
"Our ancestor was named Euthymios. He was obsessed with undoing Ekrizdis' mistakes," she whispered. "He believed despair was a sickness, that he could forge a creature to devour it... to free the world from the monsters Ekrizdis left behind. The Dementors. And ultimately, he wanted to free humanity from all negative emotions. Sorrow, grief, despair itself."
Her hands shook. "But he only created something worse."
"The thing he bound to this tree, it didn't just feed on despair. It devoured hope too. Anything good or bright inside a person… it vanishes. What's left is emptiness."
Nero sat in silence, the weight of the revelation crushing down on him.
This wasn't just some random failed magical experiment.
The creature bound in the tree was a failed attempt to destroy Dementors, a counter-curse that had gone horribly wrong.
The pieces clicked into place.
Malrik wanted to unseal the creature because he believed he could control it, that he could weaponize despair itself.
And if he succeeded... he might unleash something far worse than Dementors on the world.
The kind of threat that could devour hope itself.
Nero rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his robes.
His wand hummed in his hand, magic coiling through his veins like a steady current.
The old woman watched him, her gaze heavy. "Will you try to destroy it?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Nero met her gaze, blue frost eyes gleaming in the dim light.
"I don't know," he said, voice steady but quiet.
"I'll do my best to understand if I can help. But I can't promise anything."
He tilted his head toward the tree, his gaze distant. "If I made a mistake, I could make things worse."
For a long moment, the old woman said nothing. Then she looked away, her voice flat.
"That's all anyone can ask. We've had enough of false hope."
Nero nodded, turning his gaze to the hollow tree, the pulsing veins of magic glowing like faint embers beneath its bark.
He wasn't one to make empty promises.
He would do his best to unravel this mystery, to understand the creature's nature, Malrik's plan, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to free these people.
Not because he wanted glory.
But because the cost of failure was too steep.
And if saving the cursed clan was part of the solution, he'd welcome it as a victory.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
50 chapters ahead on Patreon (Suiijin): Chapter 199: The Black Vow