I woke before dawn, though it was hard to tell in the eternal twilight of the forest. My muscles ached from sleeping on stone, but that was a small price to pay for safety. Noir was already alert at the cave entrance, its form like a piece of night-given life. The bird's ethereal feathers rustled silently as it kept watch, our clever wards having remained undisturbed through the night.

"Ready for another exciting day in the sanctum?" I muttered, working out the stiffness in my joints. Noir turned its head to look at me, letting out a soft caw that somehow managed to convey both sarcasm and resignation. We'd developed quite an understanding over our time together.

After a quick check of my essence levels – still steady after yesterday's absorption – I began methodically breaking down the wards I'd set. Each one dissolved under my touch, leaving no trace of our presence. Even in this hell of a forest, basic precautions could mean the difference between life and death.

While I worked, I sent Noir up for an early morning reconnaissance. Through our shared connection, I watched the forest wake up. The sanctum was already stirring, Treants moving through the misty undergrowth, their vine tentacles weaving patterns in the early morning air. The sight was both beautiful and terrifying – like watching a dance choreographed by a madman.

"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us," I said as Noir returned to my shoulder. "But we need more cores if we're going to survive this place."

The hunt began sooner than I expected. Barely half a mile from our cave, we encountered our first Treant of the day. It was smaller than yesterday's opponent, but that didn't make it any less lethal. Its hand-tipped vines moved with deadly precision, each finger twitching with unnatural life.

I called upon my Demonic Transformation, feeling the familiar rush as crimson patterns spread across my skin. The essence flowed smoothly through my channels, enhanced by yesterday's absorption. This time, there was no need for Lunacy – experience had taught me the Treants' weaknesses.

The fight was quick and efficient. Noir took to the air, diving and weaving between the creature's vines, creating crucial distractions. Each time the bird drew the Treant's attention, I struck. My claws, enhanced by demonic power, tore through its defenses like they were made of paper. When it finally fell, I collected another essence core for my growing collection.

But that was just the beginning. As we moved deeper into the forest, we encountered Treant after Treant. They seemed to materialize from nowhere, rising from beds of moss or emerging from behind ancient trees. Some were larger, some smaller, but all fought with the same deadly purpose.

The strange thing was, despite their numbers, they never worked together. Each one fought alone, fiercely territorial even with their own kind. Even when our battles drew the attention of nearby Treants, they merely watched from their own territories, unmoved by their kin's destruction.

"Makes our job easier," I told Noir as we finished off our fourth Treant of the morning. The bird had become an invaluable hunting partner, its shadows complementing my more direct approach perfectly.

Noir responded by creating another Phantom Flock, the shadow birds spreading out to watch for more threats. Through their shared vision, I could see dozens of Treants in the surrounding area. Each maintained its own territory, marked by those eerily glowing fungi, creating a patchwork of deadly domains throughout the forest.

The pattern continued throughout the morning. Hunt, kill, collect core, move on. With each encounter, my technique improved. I learned to read their movements, to spot the moments when their vine attacks left them vulnerable. The Ring of the Fallen's essence flow ability proved invaluable, helping offset the constant drain of maintaining my transformed state.

By midday, I had collected six more cores, bringing my total to ten. Each one represented not just power, but potential – the possibility of evolution, of growing strong enough to face whatever else this sanctum might throw at me. Yet something was bothering me.

"It's too easy," I muttered to Noir as we paused in a relatively safe spot. "I need something stronger if I want to evolve soon."

The sanctum itself was already proving more dangerous than expected, but the thought of that third person who'd entered kept nagging at me. I needed to evolve quickly – ideally, gain a new ability before any confrontation. Every core counted, but these Treants, while numerous, weren't providing the level of essence I needed for a significant breakthrough.

Even as these thoughts crossed my mind, I noticed something odd. The forest had grown quieter. The strange creatures we'd spotted last night – the shadow walkers and floating lights – had completely disappeared. Even the luminescent fungi seemed dimmer, their glow pulsing with an almost anxious rhythm.

I sent out another wave of phantom ravens, this time with specific instructions to look for anything unusual – any break in the pattern we'd been observing. Noir itself stayed close, its feathers slightly ruffled in a way I'd learned to recognize as unease. The bird's instincts were rarely wrong.

The phantoms spread out in all directions, their shadowy forms weaving between the massive trees. Through their shared vision, I watched the forest unfold around us. More Treants, always more Treants, each in its own territory, each seemingly oblivious to the others. The regularity of it was almost hypnotic – which made what happened next all the more jarring.

One of the phantoms, scouting further ahead than the others, sent back an image that made my blood run cold.

At first, I dismissed it as another cluster of trees. But then it moved. Rising up from what I had thought was a grove of ancient trunks was a single massive form that made the Treants look like saplings in comparison. Its body was a twisted mass of wood and flesh, with multiple trunk-like legs supporting a central mass that resembled a bloated, bark-covered heart.

Where the Treants had human-like hands at the end of their vines, this monstrosity had entire human torsos, their arms reaching out like branches, their faces frozen in eternal screams. Waves of corrupted essence rolled off it, so strong that even through the phantom's vision, I could feel its power. The air around it seemed to twist and distort, reality itself bending away from its corrupted presence.

Above its pulsing, heartlike center, a name appeared:

[Soldure Corrupted Treant]

"Oh..." I whispered to Noir, understanding dawning. "So the Treants aren't just random monsters. They're its children. Its spawn."

The phantom watched as the massive creature moved through the forest with ponderous steps. Each movement sent tremors through the ground, causing the nearby Treants to shudder in response. Now I understood – they weren't just territorial, they were spreading out, preparing for something. Their behavior, their organization, it all served some greater purpose.

But what made my heart truly skip a beat was what the phantom spotted clutched in one of its many human-like appendages – a torn piece of fabric, fluttering in the corrupt essence that surrounded the monster. A piece of fabric I recognized instantly. This сhаptеr wаs оriginаlly pоstеd оn М^VLЕМРYR.

It was the same shade of blue as Lyssandra's jacket.

Noir let out a soft, worried sound as I absorbed this information. The Soldure was heading in the same direction we were – toward that distant horizon. And if that scrap of clothing meant what I feared it did, we couldn't afford to waste any more time hunting regular Treants.

"Change of plans," I told Noir, already calculating the risks in my head. "We're going to have to be a lot more careful from here on out."

The phantom ravens returned, dissolving back into shadow as they reached us. But I kept one eye on that massive form moving through the forest ahead of us. If we were going to reach Lyssandra in time, if she was still alive, we'd have to find a way past that monstrosity.

And something told me that all the Treants we'd fought so far had just been practice for what was coming. Their individual territories, their seemingly random attacks – it was all part of a larger pattern, a web with that corrupted giant at its center.

"Well," I said to Noir, checking my essence reserves one last time, "at least we know why they call this place Evergreen Hell now."

The bird's response was to land on my shoulder, pressing close in a gesture of solidarity. Its shadow-feathers brushed against my cheek, a reminder that I wasn't facing this alone. We'd faced impossible odds before, survived situations that should have killed us. This was just another day in paradise.

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