Free Web NovelChapter 97: The Origin
"She’s a beta."
"A new beta."
"After all these years, a beta has come at last." Inside a bright red nest, soft sounds could be heard, and red veins pulsed with a desire that couldn’t be understood.
There was a deep cave, and Kestrel, looking down from above, noticed a massive egg resting quietly at the bottom. The egg’s surface was covered with scarlet veins that beat like a heart, making a soft, dull noise. It seemed to be holding some gigantic, mysterious creature inside, still waiting to be born.
Nearby stood the Erdtree, still and calm among the moving veins. Its golden roots mixed with the dirty red veins, each affecting the other. The veins pulsed, and the dark red blood kept spreading over the golden tree.
The golden roots grew outward. As they did, the pain, sadness, and craziness that Kestrel had seen took on twisted shapes, brought back by the shiny golden roots to feed the scarlet egg over and over.
This place was the origin of Polluted Zone 77, the root of all the pain in this tiny world that was locked in time.
Kestrel stood at the top of the crevice and took a step forward. freewebnoveℓ.com
"Don’t come here," a voice said. It was cold but gentle, and Kestrel knew it was Kaworu’s voice.
"Leave."
"Danger."
"Get...away...now." The voice changed at the end, like a broken radio filled with noise. Then Kaworu’s voice stopped, and all was quiet.
In the cave below, Kaworu, who was part of the Erdtree, spread his arms and hung his head, half his body blended with the golden trunk, as if he was asleep. But Kestrel could still hear him.
Kestrel kept going down the edge of the crevice, walking on a path that was steep and narrow. The ground in front of her disappeared, leaving only a thin line.
With her next step, the line went away, and sharp points showed up under her feet. Even though Kestrel knew it was just a trick, an illusion, it made walking really hard. She didn’t know if her next step would be on solid ground or if she would fall into nothing.
Kestrel understood that someone had entered her mind, and the battle was on.
In her thoughts, a strange and hard-to-explain creature appeared. It looked like a long, bloody, slimy thing, with lots of weird faces. It made creepy laughing sounds and spoke in a language that made no sense, coming at Kestrel from all directions.
It was breaking into Kestrel’s mind.
Kestrel kept going, one step at a time, walking on lines, cliffs, and sharp edges, moving forward, toward the bottom of the world.
A feeling like acid eating at her mind began to spread, causing pain. A strong mental force, like thousands of icy fingers, reached in, pulling at her mental defenses. These cold, emotionless thoughts broke into Kestrel’s mind, bringing confusion and pain. But at the same time, she managed to catch glimpses of the other’s memories.
These short bursts of memory floated in the vast space of her mind, along with thin red threads, flying by in Kestrel’s thoughts.
Kestrel saw a fancy cruise ship sailing on a bright blue sea. It was probably from a peaceful and wonderful time long ago. The sky was clear, with white clouds here and there. On the high-tech ship, named "Mary," the crew was showing the captain something they had found deep in the ocean.
"A great find," the captain said with a smile. "An unknown creature, with amazing energy inside it. It could change human technology."
The man with the captain’s hat carefully put the unknown thing from the deep sea into a glass tank. It looked like an egg, or a living rock, moving a little in the clear water, glowing softly as if waking up after a very long sleep.
Jumbled memories flashed in front of Kestrel’s eyes. They were from the red creature in front of her and from all the others like it.
White waves splashed on golden sand.
On a night with a bright moon, a beautiful town was filled with the sounds of music and dancing. In the middle of the town was a wonderful old palace, with white walls and colored tiles, glowing in the calm moonlight. Inside, people were busy getting ready for a big feast for everyone in the town.
But no one knew that at a lonely beach nearby, strange figures were coming out of the sea.
These "people," dressed like sailors from the Mary, squirmed with wet bodies. They came out of the water and crawled onto the land, crossing the golden beach and moving toward the town where everyone was laughing.
These monsters in sailors’ clothes had no expressions, and their bodies were twisted and changed, mixed with parts of sea creatures, no longer human. They crawled slowly, heading for the bright lights of the town.
The next picture Kestrel saw was the Rosarium.
The Rosarium from four hundred years ago looked almost the same as it had just a little while ago.
In a wooden hallway, a room’s door was open wide, and Vanessa’s blood was on the floor.
"Hey, let us inside you, and you’ll feel better, no more pain like this," a small egg said, somehow there, with tiny red veins growing from the bloody floor and sticking to Kaworu’s body.
"We’ll take off the collar and chains that control you, help you get back at them. How about it? Don’t you want to get back at them for what happened to this girl?"
Kaworu’s painful scream then echoed in the night.
Kaworu, who used to shine as brightly as a clear moon, had transformed into a mutant. Unfortunately, he didn’t find the freedom he was looking for. His human body, beaten and tormented, was overtaken by monsters, and he became trapped forever in the Polluted Zone. Kaworu’s psychic landscape turned into the Backbone of the Polluted Zone, and his unending, tainted body became a place for monsters to grow.
...
Many images flashed by, too fast for Kestrel to see clearly. In her determined attempt to grasp them, Kestrel thought she saw a hint of the world’s origin.
"Huh?" a surprised voice sounded in Kestrel’s mind. "Your world is a stary sky?"
The bloody monster finally broke through Kestrel’s defense, entering her mental world. It found itself among vast stars and infinite emptiness, with a giant silver moon quietly looking on.
The monster had thought it was big, but under this moonlight, it realized it was still just an unhatched child.
A human girl stood before it.
Behind her, in the void, countless writhing tendrils appeared.
The monster was confused, feeling a weird connection with Kestrel, a human.
Compared to the monster’s centuries-old life, Kestrel was incredibly young, small, and physically weak.
The monster couldn’t understand why such a human beta would dare come here. It wanted to own this new beta, believing her power and sustenance would speed its entrance into the world.
After waiting for centuries, it looked forward to its beautiful form once hatched. It would then become the true god of the Polluted Zone.
"Go, destroy her real body," commanded the crimson egg, which had controlled the Erdtree for four hundred years.
Golden branches formed a golden spear, aimed at Kestrel’s body. She rolled down a hill, narrowly dodging the sharp weapon, which stuck deep into the ground, shaking. Had it hit her, she would have been pinned to the ground.
The golden branches changed into sharp spears, falling from the sky toward Kestrel. She was in a standoff with the mysterious crimson egg in her mental world while, in reality, she dodged and rolled to escape the falling spears. She barely got away with her life but suffered several bleeding wounds.
Suddenly, a golden branch came close, and Kaworu’s face, now behind a golden mask, appeared.
"Why didn’t you leave? Why did you come here?" Kaworu coldly asked.
Kestrel rolled, and the golden spear brushed her cheek, sticking into the ground and cutting a few strands of her long hair.
"I don’t like this place. I want to destroy it." Kestrel looked up, fixing her eyes on Kaworu, who stood right in front of her. Since entering this place, she had witnessed unbearable horrors: people repeatedly tortured, the girl killed over and over, alphas caged like animals on a breeding farm, humans devoured by pigs, young man killed by sharp knives... It was a place filled with unimaginable wickedness and filth.
"This place shouldn’t exist, I want to destroy it," Kestrel said, staring at Kaworu, whose face was half-human.
She secretly sent a tendril into the tree’s psychic world.
"You’re overconfident," Kaworu said, looking down at her through his cold golden mask.
"Not only will I destroy this place, but I’ll also take you with me."
Kestrel spoke deliberately, pulling the stone necklace from around her neck and pressing it to her chest. "I promised Vanessa."
The spear on the branch froze. Beneath the golden mask, Kaworu’s jaw paled, and his cold lips whispered the name, "Vanessa."
The golden spear in the tree’s crown slowly vanished, and the golden leaves clashed lightly, making a sharp sound.
Kestrel knew she had succeeded. In a two-on-one fight, she had no chance of winning, but if she could awaken Kaworu, she still had hope.
But the next moment, filthy blood poured down from the branches, covering Kaworu’s golden mask and what little remained of his human face.
The crimson blood stained the golden leaves and flowed down the trunk. The blood-soaked Erdtree stood silent, void of human emotion.
Golden spears densely filled the branches again, aiming coldly at Kestrel below.
Kaworu’s murderous intent was clear and merciless. If Kestrel made a move, a hail of spears would rain down, killing her instantly.
"It has been under my control for centuries. Do you think he’ll awake?" The crimson egg in Kestrel’s mental world gave a strange, taunting laugh. "You think he’ll help you? Foolish human?"
"He belongs to me now, and you will soon as well. Submit quietly; I don’t want to damage your body too much."
At that moment, Kestrel’s tendrils began to rant:
"Despicable!"
"Shameless!"
"You have two people!"
"Who would want to belong to you? So disgusting!"
The tendrils raged in her mind. One of them even jeered, "You’ll be born in a very ugly shape."
The crimson egg in the star-filled sky was instantly furious, and Kestrel thought she heard it scream, "Shoot her now, pin her to the ground!"
"Hmph, not just you have two people; we do too."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"He’s coming, he’s coming."
A hurried whale cry echoed in the sky, a sound more pleasing to Kestrel’s ears than ever before.
First to appear was a massive orca, recognizable by its black back and white belly. The giant creature burst through the blood-stained Erdtree, lifting Kestrel onto its back, then turned and swam away, disappearing into the distance.
Next, Ren appeared, holding a red blade. He leaped down from the sky, quickly taking in the situation on the battlefield. His red longsword plunged into the ground, sharp and fearsome. Using the momentum of his fall, he stabbed it into a writhing vein on the earth’s surface, piercing the core of the crimson egg.
A scream of agony echoed through the dark nest.
In Kestrel’s mental world, the invading crimson monster withdrew, its lengthy blood vessels trailing behind.
Kestrel sat on the back of the large orca, looking down from above. All she saw was Ren, filled with an intense killing intent, holding his red, threatening blade, his eyes fixed on her.
