People were removed from history, and creatures that had never existed appeared in memories.
That strange contamination did not only spread to intelligent creatures... it also spread to other living beings of this world that played the role of animals and beasts.
And by spreading to them, it drove them mad and made them bloodthirsty, creatures that had no purpose other than killing and domination.
And this led to the formation of monsters in this world...
Lian finally understood the reason for the design of the first two trials.
The Mirror Vault was not looking for someone who could only withstand the power of the inheritance.
The heir had to maintain their identity against distorted memories.
They had to be able to distinguish between what they truly knew and what their fear showed them.
And more importantly, when all the surface evidence pointed to their companions’ betrayal, they had to not act against them without sufficient reason.
Someone who collapsed in the first trial would lose themselves with the first change in their memories.
And someone who betrayed in the second trial would become a tool for spreading the Black Silence.
’This legacy dungeon is looking for an heir who can resist identity distortion. But this makes me wonder, a disaster that targets identity and memories? Where did such a thing even come from?’ Lian reflected.
Until now, the Ruined Realms, each of which is a world, fell due to monster invasions. But this world had experienced a different disaster.
This surprised him greatly. This meant that not all worlds fell in the same way, and in fact, there could be different disasters.
And more importantly, in this world, monsters were not invaders entering through rifts and destroying everything; they were actually created right here.
But what is the reason for these disasters? Why do worlds fall and get destroyed? What is behind them?
And this gave him an idea.
What if their own world was also facing a different model of disaster? Different from this world and the Ruined Realms?
What if there were different models of disaster?
But how many? How did they work? How was each world chosen? And why did these disasters even exist in the first place...?
The images grew larger. War spread across the entire world.
But civilizations were not only fighting against the contamination, they were also fighting each other, each remembering a different version of the disaster’s beginning.
Some blamed the Mirrath, some imagined the Primordial Root as the enemy.
One group wanted to destroy the tree, and another group was willing to eliminate all contaminated races.
The world had collapsed from within before it was physically destroyed.
A meeting appeared in a massive hall. Representatives of the remaining civilizations had gathered around a white root.
Many were wounded, some were not even looking at each other, and in the center of the hall, a woman with white hair stood.
Her silver eyes were dark from exhaustion, but her voice did not tremble when she spoke.
Then the trial showed them more information about her.
[Aurelia Mirrath / Magic Warrior]
Next to her, an armored giant knelt, a very massive giant that was the protector of the Primordial Root.
But upon seeing that giant, Lian immediately recognized it. At first he had some doubt, but he was sure.
It was the same creature he had seen in the Giants’ Graveyard, but not as a skeleton, but alive and aware and full of power.
Even from within the memory, Lian could feel its unusual physical pressure.
The meeting was about finding a way to stop the Black Silence.
Destroying the Primordial Root was impossible. Its roots were connected to the entire world. Its complete death meant the death of the world and all living creatures.
Cleansing the contamination was also no longer possible.
The Black Silence had infiltrated all three of the tree’s main functions.
The only way was to separate those functions from each other.
If the contamination could not move freely between body, memory, and heart, perhaps its spread could be stopped.
But this was not enough. A creature needed to be large enough to absorb all the contamination and seal it within its body.
The ritual began.
Thousands of Mages, Warriors, Priests, and creatures of different races were placed in various points of the world.
Massive strands of Mana connected from cities and towers to the Primordial Root.
This was not cutting a tree. It was an operation similar to splitting the soul of a living creature.
The three main flows were separated from each other. The physical force and growth were pushed to the western part of the world.
The ground trembled, and the trees grew at an unnatural speed.
The animals changed, their bones became thicker, and their blood and muscles were saturated with physical energy.
Some creatures multiplied several times in a few minutes, and their roars shook the mountains.
A panel showed the region’s name.
[Forest of Giants]
In the middle section, the memories and perception of the Primordial Root were separated from the main flow.
The tree’s sap came out from the roots, but instead of flowing on the ground, it froze in the air and turned into a transparent substance.
New trees grew with glass trunks. Light, sound, and Mana broke among them.
Images of people kilometers away appeared on the trunks.
The memories of the dead passed through the branches like brief shadows.
[Glassthorn Forest]
In the east, the heart and warmth of life were concentrated.
The roots turned red, the ground split, and warm light emerged from its depths. Trees grew with fiery leaves, but did not burn.
The Mana flow in that region multiplied several times.
The cities were moved to the east, and the survivors took refuge around the burning roots.
[Emberroot]
The center of the Primordial Root remained.
Not as a complete tree, but a large part of the trunk had been destroyed.
The roots reached from three directions to a massive wound in the world’s center, and there, without connecting to each other, they stopped.
[Forgotten Tree]
Lian saw the underground network. All the roots, despite being separated, still returned to that point.
The Forgotten Tree was not the complete heart of the Primordial Root but the....