I See You

Outside Doma City, a dense sea of Forest People gathered beneath the towering, colossal trees. Clad in armor of woven vines and wood, holding spears inset with emerald-green crystals, they stood imposing and majestic atop roots that undulated like mountain ridges. The young and able warriors of every forest tribe had gathered here; they were the fiercest hunters and fighters in the entire woodlands. As far as the eye could see— —the surging human tide numbered at least twenty or thirty thousand! Never since the first Day of Judgment had such a massive host assembled upon this land. For a tribal era that had yet to invent the written word, numbers of this scale were all the more unimaginable. Looking out over the endless expanse of warriors, Tunnan felt a surge of passion swell in his chest. Spurred on by rising fervor, he stood high above and bellowed in a booming voice toward the fierce host stretching out like an ocean of trees: "People of the forest—!" "The Sinners not only burned our sacred tree and seized the sacred soil bestowed upon us by the Tree of Ein Sof! They have also had the audacity to steal the supreme treasure from the heavens and rob the holy relic belonging to the Progenitor!" "To spare the forest from disaster, to prevent the coming of the Third Day of Judgment, we must take back the holy relic from their hands! We must reclaim our sacred grounds! For our children and grandchildren, we shall eradicate the root of this calamity once and for all!" "It is time to settle the grudges that began at the dawn of the Awakening Era!" The deafening roar shook the entire forest, resonating deep within the souls of every Forest Person present. It was another gift bestowed upon him by the Tree of Ein Sof— The power to stir hearts! Every pair of eyes gazing up at him ignited with raging battle lust, answering their shared leader with thunderous shouts. "Oooohhh!!!" Watching the tsunami of roars, the chieftains of the various tribes standing among the crowd felt a faint unease. Yet, their faces grim, none raised an objection or spoke a word. Tunnan was right. Time and again they had tolerated the Sinners, only for the latter to push further each time, taking an ell for every inch given. In that case, they might as well settle old and new scores alike and wipe away all trouble once and for all. As for whether Tunnan harbored other motives... Before the threat of the Third Day of Judgment, such concerns could be put aside for now. At least for now, they needed a chief who could lead them to victory! Facing the surging sea of people, Saqui, one of the priests, stood behind Tunnan. For some reason, he suddenly felt a pang of regret over having welcomed the Progenitor into their tribe. Perhaps what brought disaster was never some holy relic falling from the heavens; perhaps it was precisely this Progenitor who descended to earth to seek it, claiming he would help the people of the earth avert ruin. Yet it was too late for regrets. Saqui sighed inwardly, looking at the young men howling like beasts. Perhaps what the Tree of Ein Sof had bestowed upon them was not entirely a blessing. For instance, right now, someone was using the bridge linking them all together to turn every one of them into beasts... ... While winds and clouds surged outside Doma City, the interior, encircled by colossal trees, was steeped in a bleak, grim atmosphere of war. To the Doma people, who still lived in a tribal era, there was no essential difference between war and hunting—only the quarry was different. The men were responsible for fighting, while the women, children, and elderly took care of logistics. Led by priests and shrine maidens, the tribespeople in the city bound sharp crystals to wooden shafts of various lengths. The Sinners in the valley were skilled with bows and swords, and had even used brutal methods to tame bad-tempered, dim-witted wild lizards. Javelins and spears were the best counters against them. Beyond that, numerous priests who had awakened to "psionics" stood praying in the "orchard." It was an offshoot of the sacred tree's roots, serving both as the place where the tree stored nutrients and germinated seeds, and as the granary of Doma City. Through prayer, they accelerated the ripening of fruit coalescing on the roots. Assisted by children, they gathered the harvest into baskets, ground it into flour alongside roots and tubers of other plants, and sun-dried the mixture into high-sugar, nutrient-rich rations. These rations were military provisions. Under the chieftain's will, the entire Doma tribe shifted almost overnight from crop production to war preparation, without causing the slightest tremor of unrest. And this was another societal trait that "psionics" granted to the forest tribes. Power across society was virtually monopolized by psionic awakeners, and those awakeners were mentally bound to one another. In a sense, the Alliance possessed similar qualities, though expressed differently, and the "residents of Shelter 404" had not monopolized all of the Alliance's power and resources. Yet such profound sociological insights were far beyond Doma City. Driven back into the trees by the neutron plume, they had only recently descended from the canopy. Put charitably, they were simple-minded; put bluntly, they were not very bright, serving at best as specimens for study. Still, being simple had its perks. Though Tunnan had had a flash of inspiration and thought of using the Progenitor to command the tribes, he had yet to realize that the "Tree of Ein Sof" could likewise be used to consolidate political power. In fact, beyond his reverence for the Tree of Ein Sof, his respect for the Progenitor was etched into his very bones. Even if the Progenitor had lost all practical value alive, Tunnan only ever considered imprisoning him, never committing the heresy of killing him. In other words, he was a man with a baseline—and having a baseline meant he could never become another Zayed. This did not apply only to Tunnan. Among his people, besides the zealots swept up in frenzy, there remained those who purely and simply believed in the Progenitor. These were people willing to give their lives for what they believed, rather than hypocrites who inwardly scoffed at the scriptures they recited. It was precisely for this reason that even as the flames of fanaticism threatened to engulf the entire forest, their internal corrective mechanisms were still functioning. And functioning in a positive way. At the base of the sacred tree, by the entrance to the shrine. Watching the shrine maiden climb the steps, the guards standing on either side tightened their grips on their spears. One of them, a bare-chested captain of the guard, stepped forward and asked in a low, muffled voice: "Is Lord Progenitor awake?" This inquiry was not made in the forest tongue, but in a higher language bestowed upon them by the Tree of Ein Sof. To outsiders, it sounded like bursts of avian chirping, short and long. Yet every psionic awakener sharing the same cultural background could understand what those calls meant. Dora answered in a gentle voice: "He is awake." The guard captain asked further: "Does he have any commands?" Dora continued in her gentle voice: "He does not care for the tribe's food. He wants wild fruit from the south, and insists that I pick it myself." South was the direction away from the Forbidden Forest Valley. Although dangerous beasts roamed there, generally speaking, they posed little threat to a shrine maiden capable of communing with the Tree of Ein Sof. A communion founded upon the mind left virtually no room for lies. Without questioning her further, the guard simply nodded respectfully and stepped aside. The chief had ordered it. As long as the Progenitor did not leave the shrine, they were to fulfill whatever requests he had to the best of their ability. Provided it was within their power. And did not threaten the safety of the entire shrine... Dora nodded slightly, passed the guards, and headed straight toward the tribe's southern gate. Not a word she had spoken was false. She simply hadn't spoken the whole truth. ... At the exact moment Dora left the shrine, Ye Shi was sitting inside, holding his breath as he stared toward the entrance and listened closely to the footsteps echoing down the dark corridor. Fortunately, the receding footsteps did not turn back; they faded away at the entrance. Ye Shi let out a breath and finally relaxed his frayed nerves, collapsing onto the woven vine bed. "Now it's up to her." He had given Dora plenty of tasks. Besides picking berries in the south, she was to search for a silver-gray research ship. To be honest, he hadn't known how to describe his ride either. After all, whether in terms of appearance or latitude and longitude, the Doma tribe's culture had no corresponding concepts or frames of reference to facilitate understanding. Luckily, at that crucial moment, Dora's psychic "telepathy" had kicked in. Establishing a mental link with him while he gesticulated wildly, she pierced through the fog in the ocean of consciousness and caught sight of the research ship. And it happened to be a place she had visited before! Ye Shi didn't know what her so-called "seeing" really looked like, but as long as she understood what he meant, that was all that mattered. Once she reached the vicinity of the research ship, she could make contact with Jiang Xuezhou, let her know of his predicament, and have her brainstorm a few ideas. Whether by propping up a new charlatan to end the war, or by brokering negotiations between the Qiu people and the Forest People in the Progenitor's name, there was plenty of room to maneuver. If all else failed, finding a way to bust him out first was fine too. Exposing Tunnan's conspiracy with his own two hands sounded like a pretty good idea. In any case, Ye Shi trusted Jiang Xuezhou to make the right choice. Even in the hyperspace conduit where neither could directly observe the other, they had cooperated with the same kind of tacit understanding. "Then again... why does it feel like there's f*cking nothing left for me to do again?" Lying flat on the bed, staring at the fireflies hovering overhead, Ye Shi pondered the chain of events likely to unfold. Suddenly realizing the awkward truth that he had essentially been placed back in the "BAN" seat, he couldn't resist griping aloud. Back in the hyperspace conduit, he had carried his weight at least once, but this time around, he seemed utterly powerless to do anything. In an uncanny way, he even had the illusion that he was standing in a position much like Luo Yi's. Though it had all started because of him, it was destined to be solved by those who came after. The shrine maiden named Dora was the one he had chosen. And his intuition told Ye Shi that out where he couldn't see, there might well be others like her—a band of protagonists chosen by fate, or swept up in its tide. This was to be a holy war launched in the names of the "Progenitor" and the "Tree of Ein Sof." Who knew how people thousands of years from now would recount this epic? Just as Ye Shi was lost in thought, a faint creak came from above his head. It sounded like the sole of a leather boot stepping on wooden floorboards, yet to his ears, it felt like grating mockery. Of course, perhaps that was merely his own presumption. The presence emitting the laugh might not have intended any ridicule at all; there was even a touch of admiration in its tone. "...You little ones are truly amusing. You never fail to entertain me." Ye Shi's face went white as if he had seen a ghost. Bouncing up from the bed like he'd been electrocuted, he darted paranoid glances to his left and right. "Who is it?" The voice vanished instantly, as if it had never been there. Just as Ye Shi began to second-guess himself, wondering if it was an auditory hallucination, that nuanced creaking drifted into his ears once more. Or rather, drifted straight into his mind. "Oh? You can hear my voice?" The voice carried a hint of surprise. Just as Ye Shi was about to demand an answer, he suddenly felt a writhing motion beneath his rear. The bed of woven vines seemed to come alive, wriggling its tendrils and growing upward, winding tightly around his ankles and up his legs. Ye Shi gave a sharp start and was about to discharge an electric current. As if predicting his reaction, that unhurried voice drifted into his mind once more: "Do not fret. I will not harm you... I am merely curious. Let me have a good look." The vines continued to creep upward, covering his entire body in the span of just a few breaths. Surprisingly, though the vines had rough bark, they caused him no pain. "There is a familiar scent upon you... somewhat like my children, yet not quite the same... Hmm..." The sluggish voice seemed lost in thought, and only after a long silence did it slowly speak again: "I see. I believe I understand... In the end, you accepted them after all." "Good, very good. You have finally begun to see the light, if only a little... Even if the end is the same, the path may well differ." It murmured to itself, its tone suggesting it could see far, far into the future. Yet for some reason, It had not seen through everything; blind spots still remained. Listening to the self-absorbed murmurings, Ye Shi felt his hair stand on end, his hands and feet turning ice-cold. It had awakened! And It had noticed him! That was what Ye Shi feared most—far more than any bloodshed between two tribes! After all, on this entire planet, the only thing that could truly threaten them was that nameless entity. Ye Shi thought he had been careful enough, yet he had still ended up exposing his presence. But when did it begin? From the sound of It, It seemed to have been observing all this for a very long time... To grasp the situation, he swallowed hard and forced himself to speak calmly: "Are you Gaia? Or... the Tree of Ein Sof?" "Do you speak of me?" The dry voice let out a soft chuckle, continuing at a leisurely pace: "Your names for me are ever-changing, yet I am simply I... Hmm, how should I explain this to you?" The ambiguous answer threw Ye Shi into confusion. Even bewilderment. He had thought Gaia would loathe him to the marrow, yet It seemed to harbor no such grudge at all. It didn't seem to care in the slightest about what had happened in the past. Even though the Three-Year War had nearly brought total death to this planet... "In truth, whether it is Gaia or the Tree of Ein Sof... they are all me, and yet none of them are me. But for me to explain that in detail would be no easier than your attempt to make that girl Dora understand what a research vessel is." "Not that I look down upon you, but your grasp of 'psionics' is inferior even to that of the children dwelling in this forest—even if the 'clever ones' among you seem to have already begun utilizing this power, and in a systematic, scaled manner at that... Heh." A faint, elusive mockery tinged the voice. This was perhaps the first time he had truly heard genuine mockery in Its tone, as though what they were doing was something even more dull than self-destruction. Indeed. To It, their self-destruction was far more amusing. Growing bored, It said languidly: "I will not waste effort on thankless, meaningless endeavors. If you are curious, go seek out that meaningless answer yourself... It is not as if you have never succeeded before." "Good luck, foolish materialist." The vines wrapped around him receded slowly, returning once more to a flat, ordinary bed. It was as though nothing had happened. As if the bed coming to life had merely been an illusion, just like everything he had witnessed in the hyperspace conduit. Yet even so, the sensation of being bound still lingered vividly against his skin. Without a word, Ye Shi vaulted off the bed and swept his eyes around with sharp vigilance. At last, he located the source of that voice! It hadn't been a "voice" at all, containing not a single acoustic note. From the start, it had been a pure consciousness—emanating directly from the "murals" covering the shrine's surrounding walls! The moment he had tried to decipher those characters, he had sensed Its presence and established a link with It— That was the ability granted to him by his Perception stat! He had perceived Its existence! His thoughts clearing, a flash of realization struck Ye Shi's mind, and he looked toward a specific spot in the shrine—a particular section of the murals. Born of baseless intuition, he felt that someone was watching him, whispering behind his back and spouting cheap, detached commentary. No, perhaps it wasn't just one person— —but a multitude! Almost instinctively, he muttered under his breath: "...I see you."