The golden light faded slowly from Moyan's vision, leaving behind an afterimage of the Gardener's final touch burning against his eyelids. He blinked rapidly, his fingers instinctively rising to brush the spot between his brows where that immense presence had connected with him. The cavern air tasted different now - cleaner, sharper, absent the metallic tang that had clung to the Verdant Abyss for as long as he could remember.
Jian Luo's claws clicked against stone as he shifted his weight. "Well," he said, his voice rough with something that wasn't quite disbelief, "that happened."
Moyan turned to find his companion staring at his own hands - the webbing between his fingers had receded completely, though his nails remained darkened to near-black. The amber glow in his eyes had dimmed to a faint shimmer, like sunlight through aged whiskey.
Haiyu moved first, her footsteps silent against the cavern floor. She reached out, her vine-twined wrist hovering near Moyan's chest where the seed had embedded itself. Her fingers formed careful signs: "It changed you."
Moyan exhaled slowly, watching as his breath misted in the suddenly cool air. "It showed me." The words came out thicker than he'd intended, weighted with understanding he couldn't yet articulate. The roots beneath his skin no longer burned - they hummed, a quiet vibration that matched the new rhythm of the cavern around them.
The root-beings had gone still, their silver glow dimmed to embers. They stood in perfect circles around the now-clear pool, their tendril hands clasped in what could only be reverence. The throne of living wood stood empty once more, its curling armrests relaxed into softer curves.
Jian Luo nudged a loose stone with his boot. "So what now? We just... walk out of here?" His tone suggested he already knew the answer.
The ground trembled in response - not the violent shaking from before, but a deep, resonant pulse that traveled up through their feet and into their bones. From above, a shower of dust and small pebbles rained down as the cavern ceiling began to shift.
Moyan didn't need to look up to understand. "It's waking up."
Haiyu's hands moved rapidly: "The roots are moving. The entire Abyss is changing."
As if summoned by her words, a root-being approached, its steps light as falling leaves. Where before they had been silent, this one emitted a soft chime with each movement, like glass tapping against crystal. It stopped an arm's length from Moyan and extended a single tendril.
The contact was electric.
Images flooded Moyan's mind - not the painful, forced visions from before, but clear impressions:
A path forming through stone.
Roots retracting to make way.
Sunlight, real sunlight, filtering through a newly opened passage above.
Jian Luo made a low sound in his throat. "I'll take that as our cue to leave."
The ascent was easier than the descent had been. The spiral handholds had widened, the stone itself seeming to shift and accommodate their passage. The higher they climbed, the more the air changed - the cloying dampness giving way to something fresher, carrying scents Moyan had nearly forgotten.
Soil after rain.
Green leaves baking in sunlight.
Something sweet and floral he couldn't name.
When they finally emerged, the sky stopped them in their tracks.
Blue.
Not the sickly greenish haze of the Verdant Abyss, not the bruised purple of storm skies - true, unfiltered blue stretching from horizon to horizon. The sun hung heavy and golden near its zenith, its light falling across a landscape transformed.
Where twisted trees had once grown in unnatural spirals, now stood orderly groves of silver-barked saplings, their leaves shimmering in the breeze. The ground beneath their feet was soft with new moss, springy and alive in a way the Abyss's loam had never been.
Jian Luo exhaled sharply. "Well. That's... new."
Haiyu knelt, pressing her palm flat against the earth. Her vines pulsed gently in response to something beneath the surface. When she looked up, her expression was unreadable. "It remembers now."
Moyan knew what she meant without explanation. The false Wardens' influence had been purged. The roots had reclaimed their original purpose. The Gardener's awakening had reset something fundamental in the land itself.
A breeze stirred the leaves around them, carrying with it a sound none of them had heard in the Abyss before - birdsong. Clear and bright and utterly, perfectly ordinary.
Jian Luo's laugh startled them both - a sharp, surprised bark of sound. "All that," he gestured vaguely back toward the fissure, "for birds?"
Moyan found himself smiling despite everything. "Not just birds." He turned slowly, taking in the changed landscape. "A beginning."
Haiyu rose, brushing moss from her knees. Her hands formed careful signs: "Our wounds are still fresh. The roots may have changed, but we carry their marks."
She was right. Moyan could feel the seed's presence in his chest, its roots now settled into a comfortable symbiosis with his flesh. Jian Luo's claws might have retracted, but his eyes still held that unnatural gleam. Haiyu's wrist vines had darkened to deep emerald, their movements more deliberate than before.
They were changed.
But alive.
Jian Luo stretched, rolling his shoulders with a series of audible pops. "So. Where does that leave us?"
Moyan looked down at his hands - at the faint golden tracery of veins visible beneath his skin. The answer came easily, as if whispered by the roots themselves:
"Where we're needed."
The path ahead was clear - not physically, but in that new, quiet space behind his ribs where the seed now resided. Somewhere to the east, the first true settlement of this reborn land was taking root. Somewhere, people would be waking to this changed world, frightened and confused.
Somewhere, their real work would begin.
Haiyu nodded once, decisively. Jian Luo grinned, all sharp edges and barely-contained energy.
Together, they stepped forward into the sunlight.
The Verdant Abyss was gone.
Something better had taken its place.