"Selina...?" The name left Lian’s mouth almost without him realizing it.
For a few seconds, he did not move, not because he was sure, but exactly the opposite.
His mind was trying to find a reason why what he was seeing could not be real.
Maybe it was only a resemblance.
Maybe the weak golden light of the Cocoon had made the face inside look familiar.
Maybe the half-transparent roots and white strands had changed the shape of the face, but the more he looked, the less likely it seemed that he was mistaken.
Lian took one step forward.
The surface of the Cocoon in front of him shone like a layer of living glass.
Thousands of thin white strands had come out from the roots of the Forgotten Tree and wrapped around it, some as thin as hair and some thicker than a human finger.
A very weak golden light moved inside them.
He looked at the girl inside the Cocoon through the strands.
Her hair.
The shape of her cheeks.
The line of her jaw.
Even part of the clothes that could still be seen under the half-transparent roots, there was no doubt left anymore.
It was the same girl.
Selina.
One of the Awakener who had entered this Special Area with them.
The same person Liana had asked about many times since the group was separated.
The same girl they had thought was probably lost somewhere in one of the forests or had been trapped with another group.
But no one had even imagined that they would find her here.
In the center of the Dead Zone and directly at the base of the Forgotten Tree, inside a Cocoon connected to thousands of the tree’s roots.
"Do you know her?" Seris stepped forward from beside Lian, her eyes fixed on the girl’s face inside the Cocoon.
She had never seen Selina before, so it was normal that she did not recognize her.
"Who is that girl?" Aren, who was standing a few meters behind them and still did not dare to get too close to the roots around them, asked.
Lian did not answer for a few seconds, then slowly nodded.
"Selina."
"The girl Liana was looking for?" Seris immediately remembered the name.
"Yeah."
The young Pendragon looked at the Cocoon again, this time the expression on her face completely changed... disbelief.
Aren also frowned, all three of them had almost reached the same conclusion at the same time.
Something about this scene was very wrong.
Selina should have been trapped somewhere in the Special Area.
Maybe injured, maybe surrounded by Monsters, maybe captured by the Cindari.
But not here, not in the heart of the most mysterious part of this world.
And definitely not inside a Cocoon that clearly seemed to have been created with the Forgotten Tree’s involvement.
"Do you have any idea what’s going on?" Lian took his eyes off the Cocoon and looked at Aren.
Aren did not answer immediately, he took a few steps forward, enough to see better, but still kept his distance from the white strands.
He looked at the roots connected to the Cocoon, then at Selina and then back at the huge trunk of the Forgotten Tree.
"No." He slowly shook his head.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing, in everything I read about the Forgotten Tree, there was no mention of anything like this, not a Cocoon, not a Human Vessel, not the tree keeping someone inside itself."
Lian did not like this answer, but the problem was that he also did not know anything more.
He moved closer to the Cocoon again, this time he was only one step away from it, and from this close, more details could be seen.
Thin roots passed through the surface of the Cocoon and rested on Selina’s skin.
Some were wrapped around her wrists, some around her neck, and several very thin strands were connected to the back of her head and spine deep inside the Cocoon.
Selina’s chest was moving up and down very slowly.
She was alive, at least from what they could see.
Lian raised his hand to touch it.
"Are you sure you want to touch it?" Seris immediately said.
"No, but I need to check it." And even so, he moved his hand forward.
His fingers touched the half-transparent surface of the Cocoon, and at that exact moment, something inside his body reacted.
Lian did not pull his hand back, but his expression changed.
The feeling he received from the Cocoon was unlike any Mana he had touched before.
Not heat, not cold, not raw energy, not corruption like the one he had seen inside the Corrupted Hollowroot Behemoth.
This thing... was alive.
But not in the same way as Selina, it felt like something was being formed.
Something that was not complete yet, something that did not have a clear name yet, but something that was becoming an independent existence.
Before he could think about it, the egg inside his Storage Space suddenly reacted and started shaking.
A feeling of hunger!
The same feeling that appeared whenever he got close to the corpses of Monsters that could be devoured.
[The Devourer Egg is hungry and thinks it has found a good meal!]
But before Lian could do anything, the egg suddenly pulled back.
It was as if the egg’s own instinct had told it, not yet.
Then the System reacted, and a panel appeared in front of his eyes.
[Unknown Lifeform Detected.]
Lian frowned.
[Identification in Progress...]
[Identification Complete.]
[Name: Black Silence Fetus]
[Host: Selina]
[Rank: ???]
[Level: ???]
[State: Gestating]
Lian became completely still, his eyes stayed on the name for a moment.
Black Silence Fetus.
A fetus... something that had not been born yet.
The System made the panel visible to Seris as well, probably because she was close enough to the Cocoon and had received the Quest related to the area.
She also said nothing for a few seconds, and then a second panel appeared.
[Calamity Gestation Detected.]
[The Black Silence Fetus Is Approaching Birth.]
[Gestation Progress: 63.7%]
The number stayed still for a moment, and then another warning appeared.
[Warning.]
[Upon Completion, a New Calamity Vessel Will Be Born.]
This line was even worse than the previous name, Lian took his eyes off the panel and looked at Selina.
New Calamity Vessel.
That meant the System was not saying that Selina was going to become The Black Silence itself.
It was saying that she was going to become a new Vessel, but a new Vessel for what?
The Corrupted Titan was still alive.
According to everything they knew until now, the Titan was considered the current Vessel of The Black Silence.
The Forgotten Tree also prevented the Titan from awakening through its existence.
So why was another Vessel being born inside the roots of the Forgotten Tree?
Lian started thinking faster, was The Black Silence reproducing itself?
Had a part of it separated from the Titan and entered Selina?
Was the Forgotten Tree itself pulling the Calamity out of the Titan and transferring it into a new body?
If that was the case... why Selina? Why a human? Why now? How was that even possible? It had barely been a month since they entered this world.
So how exactly had Selina suddenly become the Vessel of a Calamity?
Lian looked at the thousands of roots connected to the Cocoon again, all of them came from parts of the Forgotten Tree that still had light... parts that were still alive.
That meant the tree was not only allowing the Cocoon to exist, it was probably actively feeding it.
"What’s going on?" Aren, who could not see any of the System panels, finally could not hold himself back anymore.
Lian did not answer for a few seconds and pulled his hand away from the Cocoon, then finally added.
"This girl is turning into something, a Black Silence Fetus."
"What?" For a moment, Aren seemed unable to understand the meaning of the words, and then the color left his face.
"A new Calamity Holder is being formed inside this Cocoon." Seris answered simply.
"How? Didn’t you say she was your friend? Then what happened to her?" Aren immediately looked at Selina, his eyes opening wider.
"You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?" Lian answered with sarcasm, but his tone showed helplessness more than sarcasm.
He really had no idea.
Nothing.
How had Selina gotten here?
Who had brought her here? Had the Forgotten Tree itself taken her?
Had The Black Silence chosen her? Had the Titan somehow affected her from beneath the Giant’s Graveyard?
There was no clear answer.
Seris’s expression also became cold, very cold, and her hand slowly moved to the handle of her sword.
The sound of the blade leaving its sheath could clearly be heard in the silence, and Lian immediately looked at her.
"Then we have to destroy it before it is complete." The girl said slowly.
"No." Lian stepped between her and the Cocoon without hesitation.
Seris stopped, her sword was lowered, but she was ready to move.
"Lian Vorhelm! This is not the place for emotions."