Nero stood beneath the hollow tree, its twisted limbs clawing at the sky.
The veins of magic running through its bark pulsed like dim embers, a heartbeat echoing through the cursed land.
The old woman's words lingered in his mind, heavy as lead.
A failed experiment to destroy the Dementors.
A creature that devoured both hope and despair, leaving only emptiness behind.
The weight of it settled in Nero's chest, but he didn't falter.
He simply observed, watching the tree, the silver glow of his Raven Eyes tracing the tangled coils of magic winding through its roots like veins of poison.
"I need to understand this thing," Nero muttered under his breath. "If I can understand how it works, I might find a way to sabotage Malrik's plan."
The old woman shifted in her chair nearby, the creak of brittle bones barely audible beneath the tree's ambient groan.
"Understanding is dangerous," she warned. "The more you try to grasp the creature's nature, the more it will try to grasp you."
Nero glanced at her, then turned back toward the tree.
"That's true of any dark magic," he said quietly.
"The danger doesn't come from knowledge. It comes from not knowing enough."
He stepped closer to the tree.
Lyra let out a sharp breath. "What are you doing?" she whispered, her fingers clutching the blanket around her shoulders.
Nero knelt beside the base of the tree, placing a gloved hand against the bark.
The surface was cold, unnaturally so, and beneath it pulsed a magic that felt sick and stagnant. It wasn't alive, not in the way most magic felt alive.
It was more like a corpse.
A corpse that still rotted.
He activated his Raven Eyes, letting his vision sharpen and pierce through the layers of enchantment.
What he saw made his breath catch.
The lines of power within the hollow tree snaked and writhed, jagged as broken glass.
At first glance, the magic seemed little more than raw, cursed energy, wild, senseless, and suffocating.
But as Nero pressed his will deeper, letting the tracing spell draw him inward, the chaos began to shift.
Underneath, there were patterns. Pulses. Echoes of something that had once been whole.
He let himself sink further, filtering the noise with methodical precision.
Then he felt them, minds without shape, voices without words.
Fragments of consciousness drifted along the roots of power: hundreds, no, thousands, each a wisp of memory or emotion.
Some burned a little brighter, flickers of fear, resignation, old sorrow, but most were so faint they seemed ready to vanish at any moment.
The clan's descendants Nero realized.
Their souls have been siphoned away for generations, bled into this tree, strand by strand, their despair woven into the curse itself.
Each was just a shadow of what it had once been, fueling the aura with stolen grief.
But deeper still, something else, a presence so vast and battered, it seemed to distort everything around it.
Unlike the countless faint presences tangled in the tree, this one blazed with a haunting intensity.
Its consciousness was shattered, but the weight of it, the tangled storm of rage, guilt, and obsession, set it starkly apart.
This isn't an ordinary soul, Nero realized, feeling a chill run through him.
This must be the one the old woman spoke of…Euthymios, the ancestor who tried to defy despair itself.
He could sense echoes of impossible ambition, a mind that had once reached for something beyond human grasp and shattered itself in the attempt.
Even the residual magic here felt twisted by a singular purpose, a lingering mark left behind by the one who had forged this curse.
Suddenly, the pull intensified, threatening to drown him in the storm of suffering.
Nero tore his mind free, severing the connection before it could draw him in too deep.
Pain spiked behind his eyes. Blood trickled from his nose.
His vision swam, but he held himself steady, pressing a sleeve to his face.
"Nero!" Lyra was beside him in an instant, hands on his arm. "What happened?"
"I'm fine," he rasped. "Just... saw too much at once."
The old woman leaned forward, her face carved from years of pain and caution.
"What did you see?"
Nero swallowed, pulse still thundering in his ears.
"The tree's core isn't just cursed, it's full of souls. Most are barely more than flickers. The clan's descendants… their spirits have been siphoned away for generations, woven into the roots, fueling the curse."
He hesitated, then looked at the old woman, the weight of his next words heavy on his tongue. "And there's something else, someone else. A soul so powerful it distorts everything around it. I think it's Euthymios. Your ancestor."
The old woman's hands tightened in her lap, knuckles white.
Nero continued, voice lower. "He tried to destroy despair, but he became trapped here. His own spirit is caught in an endless spiral of rage, guilt and obsession.
I suspect that it's his will that keeps the curse alive. But the rest, the thousands, those are your people, drawn in little by little, strand by strand."
Lyra's breath hitched, eyes wide with horror.
Nero pressed on, analytical, but there was a faint tremor to his words.
"Malrik doesn't need to feed victims to the tree directly. The curse already drains your people over time… so why would he bother kidnapping anyone at all?"
He paused, frowning. "Maybe he's trying to accelerate the process somehow, either with a ritual, or by forcing victims into greater despair.
Or maybe he just wants more control over which souls are drawn in, and when.
I can't be sure. But it's clear he wants results faster than the curse would give on its own."
Lyra's face went pale. "Then… the ones he took…"
"They're very likely already part of it," Nero said quietly.
There was no gentle way to soften the truth.
Above them, the tree's hollow groan deepened, as if the land itself mourned.
The old woman closed her eyes, shoulders bowed by defeat. "Then there is no saving them."
Nero didn't answer immediately.
He stared at the slow, sickly pulse winding through the bark. "Maybe not," he admitted, voice softer than before. "But maybe there is a way to stop it from taking more."
—————————————————————————
That night, they sat around the guttering fire, the air weighed down by unspoken grief.
The cursed clan had no food to spare, but Nero drew rations from his enchanted pouch, preserved by Eastern sealing magic.
He passed portions to Lyra and her grandmother.
Lyra ate slowly, determined, as if afraid the food would vanish if she looked away.
The old woman barely touched hers, gaze fixed on the shifting embers.
"Malrik's men will come back," she said eventually, voice thin. "They always do."
Nero poked at the fire, watching the sparks drift into darkness.
"He already knows I'm here. One of his Black Talons tried to talk during my interrogation, Malrik killed him from afar. And he saw me."
Lyra's hands tightened around her bread. "Then he'll send more. Stronger ones."
Nero nodded, his expression thoughtful. "And eventually, he may come himself."
"He's a Grandmaster-ranked wizard," the old woman said, resignation threading her voice. "You cannot fight him."
"I know," Nero replied. "Not yet."
He leaned back against the broken stone wall, eyes scanning the warped silhouette of the tree.
"I may not be able to defeat him as I am now," he continued, glancing at the hollow tree. "But defeating him in a duel might not be the only way to win this time around."
His fingers tapped against his wand, slow and methodical. "I still need to understand how I can delay his plan. And if I can, I will act on it."
The old woman studied him. "And then?"
Nero's blue frost eyes gleamed. "Then I will probably leave," he said. "I only planned on staying in the Shatterveil for a month originally. To sharpen my battle instincts."
Lyra's head snapped up. "You're... leaving?" she whispered, her voice shaking.
Nero's expression softened. "Yes, I have to, Lyra," he said. "After antagonizing Malrik, staying here too long would be suicide. I need more knowledge. More strength."
He glanced toward the tree, watching the dim pulses of light crawl along its bark. "I'll come back," he promised. "And when I do, Malrik won't walk out of this place alive. In the meantime, allow me to try to gain you more time by disturbing his plans."
The tree groaned behind them, a long, low sound that shivered through the earth.
Nero turned his head slightly, as if listening.
Then he gave a quiet nod.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
50 chapters ahead on Patreon (Suiijin): Chapter 200: The Countdown Begins