The city didn't welcome them back.
The old rusted lift shuddered as it rose, powered by systems that hadn't run in years. Vines peeled off the walls as it passed, like the earth itself was reluctant to release them. Lanz stood silent, the heart of the Sleepless Tree pulsing faintly inside his chest, hidden beneath layers of torn cloth and dried dirt.
Beside him, Lira checked her blade again and again — not because it needed checking, but because she didn't like this silence.
Sylva stood at the back, fingers intertwined in front of her, eyes hollow. She had guided them to a truth buried deep in the soil, but now that they were returning to the world above, her certainty faded.
"The fractures will feel the tree's pulse again," she finally said.
"It won't go unnoticed."
"Good," he murmured.
"Let them come."
Lira gave him a side glance.
"You're starting to sound like someone with a death wish."
"No. Just someone who finally knows what they're willing to die for."
The lift creaked to a halt.
Sunlight spilled in like a blade.
But it wasn't warm.
The sky had turned an unsettling bronze.
The clouds above the city spiraled unnaturally, like some great eye was watching — blinking, unblinking.
"Something's wrong," Sylva said instantly.
"This isn't how the city looked when we left."
The moment their boots hit the surface, the smell hit them: ash.
Not smoke. Ash.
Something had already burned.
They moved quickly, following the main path toward the southern district.
But the familiar alleys were wrong.
Posters were torn.
Drones hovered, broken and silent.
A full building — one Lanz remembered as a market tower — had collapsed inward, like something devoured its foundation.
Then they saw the first body.
A child. Still clutching a wooden toy.
Lira knelt beside it, jaw clenched.
"No scorch marks. No wounds. It's like…"
Sylva finished the sentence.
"...like their life was pulled out."
"The fractures are feeding again," Sylva whispered.
"They know something ancient stirs. They're waking too."
Lanz looked around.
Shadows danced unnaturally across walls, even when there was no wind.
"And the city's letting it happen?"
Sylva turned to him, suddenly furious.
"The city's been asleep! And even when it was awake, it was dying! Don't look at it like it's a god — it's just a body waiting for a soul. And we're centuries too late."
The tension between them was a match waiting to spark, but Lira stepped between.
*Save it. We don't have the luxury of picking sides. We need to find out what happened here."
As they moved further into the district, the signs of collapse became worse.
Craters in the roads.
Echoes of screams that never quite faded.
And finally, the most horrifying part — a garden, where people stood frozen in mid-movement, like statues.
Every person was covered in a thin layer of white moss.
Lira didn't move.
"This is… familiar."
"Spore effect," Sylva said grimly.
"But not natural. This is controlled growth."
"By what?" Lanz asked with a concerned look.
No one answered.
***
They reached the central tower.
Lamz stopped.
Something in the air felt sharp. Almost sentient.
The front doors were cracked open.
Inside, the walls pulsed.
And in the center of the lobby was a girl.
Or what used to be one.
Her skin was white, etched with fractal patterns. Her hair flowed like mist. Her eyes glowed — not with life, but with containment.
She was breathing. Barely.
But around her, the moss grew.
Sylva gasped.
"They planted someone. A Sporemind."
"Now what the f*ck does that mean!?" Lanz said.
"It's how the fractures infiltrate living cities. They create a host that carries their will…
But this one's too young. She shouldn't be able to control anything yet."
Lira stepped forward.
"Then why's the whole district dead?"
The girl twitched.
And then her eyes opened fully.
"You shouldn't be here," she said softly.
Her voice echoed like it came from every wall.
"You've taken something that doesn't belong to you."
The Sleepless Tree's heart in Lanz's chest pulsed sharply.
"It wasn't yours to keep," she whispered.
And then — the walls split open.
Tendrils burst from the stone like veins under pressure, writhing, reaching straight for Lanz.
Lira moved instantly, her mirrored blade flashing through the air. Two tendrils fell in pieces before they even reached him, their ichor hissing as it splashed against her armor. More followed.
Sylva stepped forward, hands raised. Glowing glyphs bloomed in the air, ancient and floral, spinning around her wrists. She shouted a warding chant — and the floor answered. Thick roots curled upward from the stone, forming a half-barrier between them and the onslaught.
But Lanz didn't flinch.
He walked toward the Sporemind.
"I've seen what you're part of," he said, voice calm even as debris rained from above. "I've seen what you destroy."
The girl trembled in the center of the chamber — eyes clouded, body overtaken by fungal threads.
"But I also saw the Seeder's memory," Lanz continued, stopping just a few steps away. "And you were never meant to exist."
The girl's head snapped to him.
Cracks split across her cheeks like dried clay. Her voice came warped, layered.
"Liar."
"You're a parasite feeding on what's left," he said. "I'm the mistake the Seeder left behind… to fix it."
She screamed — a piercing, unnatural sound that rattled the bones of the tower itself. Stone cracked. Roots exploded from the walls, ceiling, floor — spiraling in chaotic patterns, drawn by her fury.
The tower groaned and began to collapse inward.
Sylva shouted something lost in the chaos. Glyphs shattered around her.
Lira lunged and grabbed Lanz, dragging him back toward the archway as the roots converged like spears behind them.
But Lanz stopped.
He tore free of Lira's grip, turned, and slammed his palm against the moss-covered floor.
The fractured core in his chest lit up — not with fury, but harmony.
Green and gold light exploded from beneath his hand, racing through the cracked stone like wildfire finding old roots. The pulse hit the relic embedded beneath the floor — the heart of the tree — and it answered.
A shockwave thundered out from him.
The corrupted spores disintegrated mid-air, blasted into shimmering dust.
The tendrils froze, twitched, then withdrew like scolded animals.
The Sporemind collapsed. Her vines sloughed off her like discarded skin. She lay unconscious, breath shallow, the parasite gone.
The moss stopped growing.
And then — silence.
The tower stood still.
No more screaming stone. No more rot.
Just a still, living heartbeat beneath their feet — slow, ancient, and clean.
They stood in the ruined lobby, panting.
Debris fell around them. The wind outside howled unnaturally.
Lanz stared at the girl.
She looked… human now. Just a child.
"She's the first," Sylva said quietly.
"There will be more. They're accelerating."
"Then we accelerate too," He muttered.
Lira placed a hand on his shoulder.
"What now?"
He turned toward the skyline, where the towers of the Central Core shimmered like knives.
"Now… we burn the rot from its roots."
***
But far across the city, beyond the Core and into the old government blocks, someone else watched them.
A man with no face.
Wrapped in coats of shadow.
Holding a cracked, dormant heart of his own.
He whispered:
"He carries the Seeder's blood.
But he's no Guardian."
And the shadows around him began to rise.
End of Chapter 17.