Divine System: Land of the Abominations-Chapter 276: Rest.
Nero found a spot beneath a gnarled oak whose trunk had split some years ago, creating a natural seat in the cradle of its exposed roots.
The wood was rough against his back, but it was solid and stable.
He set his spear across his lap and let out a slow breath.
The forest around them had settled back into its usual rhythm after the violence. The dark avians in the sky had returned to their calling, though their songs were a bit terrifying.
The beasts of Malady were always terrifying, so it was nothing new. Most of the creatures within Thornwood were created that had leaked into it from the forest.
Arthur and Jacob had moved a short distance away, speaking in low tones about something Nero couldn’t quite make out. Sergeant Aldric remained near the horses, his posture relaxed but his eyes constantly scanning the treeline.
Nero closed his eyes for a moment and simply listened.
The wind moved through the canopy overhead, causing branches to creak and leaves to whisper against each other. Somewhere in the distance, water ran over stones. The scent of corruption was still present, that underlying metallic rot, but it was less overwhelming here than it had been in the depths of malady.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself studying the world around him with something approaching wonder.
The tree he sat against had dark bark, almost black from corruption, but there were still patches of normal brown visible beneath. Moss grew in irregular patterns across the exposed roots, some of it a sickly gray color but other patches showing vibrant green. A few wildflowers had pushed up through the undergrowth nearby, their petals a deep purple that caught what little sunlight penetrated the canopy.
Even corrupted, even dying, the forest had a certain beauty to it.
Nero had spent so much time focused on survival, on fighting and killing and staying alive one more day, that he’d forgotten to simply look at the world around him.
But sitting here now, with a moment to breathe and think, he realized how little he’d actually seen.
He’d seen the horrors of this world in the flesh. But there was some beauty beneath all the darkness.
He hadn’t stopped to appreciate any of it.
Now, sitting in this corrupted forest, Nero found himself thinking about all the things he hadn’t seen yet.
The seas, for instance.
He’d heard about them from his mother. Vast bodies of water that stretched to the horizon, waves that rose and fell with the tides, creatures that lived in depths so dark that sunlight never reached them.
But he’d never seen it himself.
The mountains too. The Niel Mountains bordered the northern edge of the Empire, their peaks supposedly high enough to pierce the clouds. The books said that snow covered them year-round, that the air grew thin at such heights, that valleys between the peaks held lakes so clear you could see straight to the bottom.
Nero had never seen a mountain.
He’d barely left the southeastern corner of one small empire on. And beyond that continent, who knew what else existed? Other lands, other peoples, other wonders and horrors that no one in the Thorne Empire had ever documented.
The world was vast and broken and dying, but it was still full of things worth seeing.
A strange yearning welled up in Nero’s chest. Not just the desire to survive, nor was it just the need to grow stronger or complete the trials or achieve revenge against Orpheus.
Those goals remained, but beneath them, was something else.
He wanted to see the world.
He wanted to stand at the edge of the ocean and watch the waves. He wanted to climb a mountain and look down from heights that made the trees below seem like grass. He wanted to explore ruins and forests and cities he’d only read about in books.
He wanted to learn.
After everything he’d been through, after all the death and corruption and horror, he still had room inside himself for something as simple as curiosity.
Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it meant he hadn’t lost everything that made him human.
’Oracle,’ he thought, reaching out to that familiar presence in his mind.
’What is the rest of the world like? Beyond the Empire.’
{This world is broken. But broken things have their beauty. Even a dying star flashes in a final burst of brilliance}.
Nero frowned, his brow furrowing at the response.
"A star..." he murmured.
"I’ve read about them, but I haven’t seen them before. What are stars?"
{Stars are akin to points on a cosmic map. They tell the distance of the past from the future and the present. They give the universe light, life, and color}.
The explanation was poetic in a way that felt unusual for the Oracle. But perhaps there was no other way to describe something so far beyond his immediate experience.
He hummed thoughtfully and raised his gaze upward, past the twisted branches and corrupted canopy, toward the sky beyond.
The heavens above were a pale gray, filtered through layers of leaves and the permanent haze that seemed to hang over corrupted lands. But somewhere above all that...
Stars.
’I would like to see them someday,’ Nero thought.
The Oracle didn’t respond.
He let his gaze fall back to the forest around him, to the immediate and tangible world. The yearning for distant wonders was real, but so were his current circumstances. He was sitting in a corrupted forest, surrounded by death on all sides.
But knowing there were still things in the world worth seeing, worth experiencing, gave him something beyond simple survival to hold onto.
Arthur’s voice cut through his thoughts. "We’ll rest here for another ten minutes, then continue deeper. There should be higher concentrations of Grade D specimens toward the forest’s heart."
Jacob acknowledged with a grunt.
Nero shifted slightly against the tree trunk, finding a more comfortable position.
He closed his eyes again and let himself simply exist in the moment.
