Chapter 163: Descent into the scar
Throughout the night, Clayton barely had a wink of sleep as he thought about everything that had happened since he was sucked back into Echoterra.
On one hand, he prayed that the Trial take him back to the location where his first Trial took place.
It was harrowing and incredibly difficult back then, he almost died countless times even, but Clayton had knowledge of that region, and that was what mattered.
In Echoterra, he knew that knowledge was power.
Another thing was the nature of the challenge. Back then, the Trial objective was for him to grow his domain territory to 100 square meters.
Then, it was difficult but it was straightforward enough.
Now? Clayton didn’t know how to put it; compared to Trial I, Trial III was more mysterious, carrying ethereal themes that he was struggling to understand.
The only bright hope so far was the fact that his team was complete. With them around, he didn’t panic, he still had hope that they had what it took to take on any challenge that the Trial threw at them.
Dawn came gray, muffled, and wrong.
The scar on the Earth, or Echoterra considering where they was did not allow sunlight to fall cleanly. The sun rays bent at odd angles, warped by the pulse rising from the pit.
What should have been golden morning was instead washed in pale green, as if the world itself had bled into the sky.
Clayton stood at the rim.
His companions gathered around him in silence. They all remembered the whispers from the night before, the echoes that clawed at their dreams. None of them had slept well, but none of them showed hesitation either.
He looked at them one by one... Torren, jaw set, Pyreaxe resting across his shoulders. He was ready. Veyra was quiet, but her bow was already strung.
Kaelin? Silently shifting from foot to foot, his shadow clung to his form like a second skin. As for Soren, she was still but alert, her Emberblade faintly glowing. Mirra was calm in the center, her silver roots curling around her palms.
Clayton was still not used to see them in these Aspect form of theirs. Harrick stood at Mirra’s side, his spear angled down but steady.
"This is it," Clayton said simply. "We step in, we follow the plan, and we don’t lose sight of each other," he paused, then said. "Nothing else matters."
No one argued.
And then, the descent began with silence.
The scar’s rim sloped downward like a throat, walls of twisted root and broken stone guiding them deeper.
The glyphs Veyra had spotted last night glowed faintly, spirals etched into the black stone, their green light flickering in rhythm with the scar’s heartbeat.
At first, it felt like walking through ruins. Melted walls leaned against roots that had fused with steel, half-buried skeletons of constructs lay scattered, jaws open in silent screams.
Veyra almost struck out of instinct, thinking they were real till Clayton raised his hand to stop her.
The air grew heavier with each step that they took.
It wasn’t just thick, it clung like a quagmire, pulling at their limbs like invisible water. Each breath came harder, as though the scar wanted them to drown before they reached its heart.
Torren tested the ground ahead with his axe as a burst of flame hissed across the ash veins. The glow retreated for a moment, but only for a breath before knitting back together.
"They’re stubborn," he muttered.
"They’re alive," Mirra corrected softly as her roots spread faint silver lines through the dirt, anchoring the group in a steadier rhythm.
The oppressive pulse dulled just enough to keep them moving.
Kaelin moved in and out of the shadows, slipping through folds in the path where reality twisted. Twice, he had to pull Harrick back when the scar tried to fold the way forward into loops.
"Don’t blink too long," he warned. "The road wants us lost."
They pressed on.
Then, it happened suddenly.
CRKSH!
One moment, they were walking a narrow corridor of roots and stone. The next, the ground pulsed violently and the world around them shattered like glass.
Clayton blinked, and he was no longer in the scar.
He was in a battlefield.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
It felt visceral and real like he was right there as a participant in this battle.
Roots the size of towers lashed across a plain as Behemoths of steel and bark collided, shaking the ground with every strike. The sky was green fire, streaked with lightning that wasn’t natural but alive, bending and coiling like serpents.
Clayton stumbled back as the others gasped in unison.
They were still together, but the air was different. Clayton could smell blood, ash, and burning sap. ’The hell?!’
"This isn’t a vision," Torren said tightly, flames already curling along his axe. "This is real enough."
A Verdant Lord’s construct, part tree and part beast suddenly toppled nearby, roots snapping as it fell. Its death cry shook their bones.
The ground split, vines thrashing, while biomechanical overlords pressed forward with blades fused to their arms.
Veyra’s eyes darted to the walls, but there were no walls, only faint glyphs burned into the air itself, spiraling across the battlefield like brands in the sky.
"These are the same as the rim," she said, her voice sharp. "Warnings, records... someone left them here."
Clayton’s gaze swept the chaos.
It wasn’t random. The battle repeated itself, looping the same motions over and over again... a root-giant falling, a steel-beast rising, a thunderclap splitting the sky. The same sequence, endlessly looping.
"This isn’t a battle," Clayton whispered. "It’s a memory."
They moved cautiously, weaving between the clashing giants.
A tendril the size of a tree trunk swept low.
Clayton reacted quickly as he threw up a wall of roots, blocking it just enough to save Soren. Sparks rained when Soren’s Emberblade struck against another beast’s legs, the blow landing solid, not like a dream.
"These things can kill us," Soren said grimly.
"Then don’t get hit," Kaelin replied, vanishing into smoke.
His dagger flashed from the shadows, cutting into a beast’s leg. The form shuddered and collapsed, fading into ash. "Shadows," he confirmed. "Same rule as before. Cut the shadow, collapse the memory."
They adapted.
Veyra loosed an arrow into the shadow of a biomechanical brute and it burst into fragments instantly. Harrick’s spear stabbed through the dark underbelly of another, unraveling it like thread.
But Clayton’s eyes weren’t on the monsters.
He was watching the loop.
The battle replayed again, and again, and again.
And each time, his eyes caught the same detail: two Verdant Lords fighting side by side, roots intertwined, until one turned.
The betrayal was sharp, almost casual as a thorn-spear stabbed into the other’s chest, tearing vines apart. The wound spread instantly like poison in the soil, and the entire battlefield faltered around it.
Clayton’s breath caught.
"That’s it," he whispered. "The first cut!"
The scar hadn’t been carved by outside enemies. It was born here, in this betrayal, Verdant Lord against Verdant Lord.
"Can we break it?" Torren asked, sweat dripping as he cleaved another echo. His flames burned bright, but the battlefield never ran out of enemies.
"Not yet," Clayton answered. "This isn’t about winning, it’s about finding the memory that holds everything together."
They moved closer to the betrayer, weaving between collapsing echoes. Each step was harder. The traitor Verdant Lord’s presence weighed like a storm, shadows thickening the closer they drew.
Soren swung his Emberblade again, testing the edge of one echo.
It cleaved true, scattering sparks that didn’t vanish like smoke but lingered, clinging to his blade.
"They’re changing," he said. "We’re pulling too close to the core."
Kaelin slid under a sweeping root, stabbing its shadow as he said. "Then we’re close, we keep moving."
Harrick faltered when overlapping pulses hit him, three versions of the same strike colliding at once. He staggered, eyes losing focus, until Mirra’s silver bloom wrapped around him, pulling his pulse back into rhythm.
"Stay tethered," she said firmly. "If the memory swallows you, you won’t come back."
They were not fighting against literal forces, they were fighting against memories itself, a power that could snuff you out of existence from ethereal things like memory.
Then at last, they reached the heart of the loop.
The betrayer raised his thorn-spear again, about to strike his kin. But this time, the motion froze as the entire battlefield halted.
And then, slowly, the traitor Verdant Lord turned his head.
For the first time, the memory broke its cycle.
His eyes locked on Clayton, cold and aware.
"...!" Clayton’s chest tightened.
He had seen echoes, illusions, and phantoms, but this was different. This was direct recognition.
BZZZ!
The world shook as the battlefield collapsed in on itself, roots and steel folding into a whirlpool of ash and light.
The system’s voice rang in their minds.
DING!
~----~
[Orientation: 100% Complete]
[Trial Objective Loading...]
~----~
But before the message finished, the ground gave way.
Clayton and his companions fell, tumbling into the scar’s depths as the traitor’s gaze burned in his mind.
The last thing he heard was the whisper, soft but unmistakable.
"Finish what we began".