At the same time, in the forest... or at least where a forest once was, no sound of an army remained, nor the roar of energies.

No cries of warriors who, just minutes ago, had filled the forest with their presence.

Only destruction remained. The vast ground of the forest, like shattered glass, was cracked for kilometers, and deep chasms had swallowed the soil. Mountains that had stood for centuries were now nothing but collapsed piles of rock and ash, and a thick mist of dust still floated in the air, as if nature itself had not yet been able to accept what had happened.

Ash slowly fell from the sky, like snow.

Snow of death.

And at the center of all that hell, the cursed tree still stood.

Its massive roots pulsed quietly in the ground, and its dark branches had risen into the split sky.

But what drew the most attention was the fruit.

Daniel slowly raised his head and fixed his gaze on it. Before, it had been small, about the size of a fist. But now it had grown to almost the size of a human head.

Its surface was no longer smooth; golden veins moved inside it, like rivers of light flowing beneath a translucent skin. Every few seconds, the light gathered inside it and then pulsed.

The fruit pulsed like the heart of a living creature.

And each time it pulsed, the space around it bent slightly, as if even the world could not fully endure the presence of whatever was growing inside it.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed for a few seconds. He could sense it.

The death of Walterk and his army had fed the fruit many times more than he had expected.

"So the death of an Eternal Warrior... really makes a difference." He smiled.

He knew that the life force of an Eternal Warrior could cause significant growth in the fruit, but he hadn’t expected this much. Of course, it wasn’t just the Eternal Warrior himself; that army of several thousand had also helped a lot, giving considerable life force to the tree.

Still, he doubted any Eternal Warrior would dare come here again anytime soon.

Especially when one of the continent’s top ten Eternal Warriors had been so easily slaughtered along with his entire army. He doubted the rest would dare to come.

And he was sure they had all witnessed Walterk’s death with their own eyes.

And that could be a big problem.

’What if I kill myself and the tree absorbs my life force, and then I come back to life?’ An idea came to his mind, but he wasn’t sure if it would work.

In theory, it should work. After all, even if he dies, he can easily come back to life with the help of extra lives. But would this bug work?

Or would the Mother System prevent it?

The only way is to test it.

And at that moment, Daniel received a strange feeling. Weak and vague, but real and tangible.

’Hunger and anticipation...?’ His gaze fell on the tree. He had no doubt that these were the tree’s feelings.

His gaze deepened slightly. This was the first time he felt that his connection with the tree had deepened.

"It seems that as the fruit grows more, the connection with the tree also becomes stronger." And for the first time, a thought quietly crossed his mind.

"If a few more Eternal Warriors die..." His gaze fixed on the fruit.

"Will you be completed?"

A few meters away, Elisira was still standing motionless, but she was no longer looking at the destroyed battlefield. Not at the massive chasm in the ground, not at where thousands had disappeared, but only staring at Daniel.

Her mind was still trying to understand what she had seen, but it couldn’t. That was natural. She had witnessed an event that, if someone had told her about it even yesterday, she would have called them insane.

Walterk Bloodfang was not just a powerful warrior; he was a legend.

A being whose name could make armies retreat.

But now he had vanished in an instant, and worse than that, it had happened without a fight, without resistance. Such a powerful being hadn’t even had a chance to resist.

And the one who had done this stood calmly under the tree, as if nothing special had happened.

This very thing frightened her more than anything else. If Daniel had been angry, she could understand it. If he had laughed maniacally, that might have seemed logical.

After all, this was an achievement that someone could brag about for their entire life. This achievement alone could turn Daniel into a legend.

But he was calm, and especially indifferent, as if the death of thousands was just a natural part of the world’s flow.

Elisira unconsciously clasped her hands together, but at the same time, her mind remembered something else.

Daniel had saved her life twice, twice from death caused by Walterk’s attacks.

Her lips trembled slightly.

"If he really is a monster... why did he save me?" She couldn’t come to terms with this or understand it.

Nothing seemed logical. Even though she was afraid of this monster, and her fear was completely logical, she still felt there was no reason to worry, and that her life was not only not in danger, but as long as she was next to this man, even if the sky fell, she would be safe.

"Staring doesn’t help." Daniel’s quiet voice made Elisira’s body tremble slightly.

Her eyes suddenly lifted. She had thought Daniel was completely lost in thought, but without even looking at her, he had noticed her gaze.

Daniel turned his gaze back to the fruit.

"The fruit grew much faster than I expected."

His voice was completely normal. But that normality sent a chill down Elisira’s spine.

He was talking about the death of thousands of people, like someone talking about the growth of a plant.

He wasn’t happy, nor was he sad. And this indifference was more terrifying than any violence.

A few moments of silence passed between them, and then Daniel slowly turned his head toward her.

His golden eyes still had that incomprehensible calm.

"Now you can ask those three questions I promised."

For a moment, Elisira couldn’t speak.

Questions? She had hundreds of questions. Her mind was filled with incomprehensible fragments.

The tree, the book, the gate, and most importantly, this monster himself.

But what bothered her most was fear of the answers.

Her gaze slowly went to the fruit, then to the tree, and again the sentence from the book echoed in her mind.

"Until the fruit is complete, the gate will not be closed."

Her heart grew heavier. She was gradually coming to the conclusion that her questions were no longer just about Daniel.

But about the entire world.

She took a quiet breath, and finally asked her first question. She had thought many times about all the questions she wanted to ask, and then she asked the first one.

"What... are you really?"

She was no longer sure if Daniel was human at all, or even an ordinary being. Perhaps he was something beyond this world and beyond human understanding.

Daniel remained silent for a few seconds, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that he wanted to stay silent; he had made a promise and would undoubtedly keep it. But first he wanted to hear all three questions, and then answer them.

"What is this cursed tree really, and why are you protecting it to the point that you became the enemy of the entire continent?" Elisira pressed her lips together and continued.

And then the final question.

A question that even she herself wasn’t sure she should ask or not. Not because she was afraid of Daniel’s reaction, but because she was truly afraid of the answer.

She was afraid that the answer might not be what she thought, and if that turned out to be the case, it could be the greatest disaster for this world, or at least what remained of it.

"Do you want to destroy this world, or protect it?" But finally, she said quietly.

Silence enveloped the space.

Daniel showed no reaction for a few seconds. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Then a very faint smile settled on his lips, and he calmly sat down under the tree, cross-legged, and placed his sword on his lap.

"Let’s start with the first question and answer it..."