The sick Leaf was visible from a day away.

What should have been a sparkling concentration of magic had been begun to dull and wilt. Its vibrant silver had dulled to steel grey, tarnishing even further to a dark, lead grey in places. The veins that connected its magic to that of the Omniverse had turned into starkly black lines, spreading over the facets. Glimpses of the world through the surface of the Leaf were at times normal and at times deeply disconcerting.

To the party, what was even more worrying than the sickness of the Leaf was that there was no Infestation in its visible proximity. The sickness that had spread to the Leaf had spread beneath the bark, in a manner that would have taken a more distant, divine eye to understand.

"Really makes ya think, doesn't it?" Reysha said, flat and grim. "This all has a scale we can't really fathom. Hellroots, I don't even know if we're on some thick Branch near the Trunk or some tiny, recently grown Twig."

"What would it matter?" Korith asked.

"At any point, there could be some fucking Parasyte up the chain of branches that gets large enough to just go… chomp." Reysha's blue eyes stared ahead. "One problem goes unsolved for long enough and millions, all unaware of the fact, die."

"Billions," Aclysia stated, barely restraining the hatred in her voice. "A tragedy that plays out an untold amount of times every year. The Omniverse outgrows the plight of the Parasytes, however. As the great tree expands, more gods are made. More gods command more angels. More angels clear more Branches. More Branches allow more gods to be made. The cycle continues endlessly."

"If that is true, why does the Church appear so stressed?" Apexus asked. In every interaction he had ever had with the Church, they had acted with haste and yet arrived weeks, months or even years late.

"I… do not know," Aclysia answered, quietly. "Perhaps it is a growing pain? On the Omniversal scale, the Church expanding its recruitment and clearing out internal problems might take hundreds of years."

"And the bigger it gets, the longer the time until it all catches up," Korith muttered. "Maybe there's just a point where it's all… too big to grow any larger?"

Aclysia did not respond to the question.

The trio did not press her further.

They met the tail end of the refugees half a day later. The last stragglers from the Leaf had given up their home. A short conversation left no doubt why. To them, the Leaf was lost, its Dungeons had gone dry, the land was losing its details, and Shapeforms roamed the land.

"What is a Shapeform?" Apexus asked, once the group had passed by. For once, no one in the trio with him had a response. An unexpected experience for Apexus, he had stayed his tongue during the conversation, expecting one of them to be in the know. "Should I catch up to them and ask?"

"I think we're getting the best answer from the Church anyway," Reysha said and gestured at the camp in the distance.

As they had been told, the Church had placed a base of operation near the Stem. The necessity of not using magic made it an unusual gathering of people. Large stacks of firewood had been gathered for the sole purpose of cooking. Water and food were stored in purely physical solutions that must have been horrifically expensive to move. The supply chain to keep the operation running boggled Korith's mind.

"Guess this is what we need the Church for…" Reysha muttered with begrudging respect.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

They were soon approached by two men in heavy armour. Like the rest of the camp, the steel plate was entirely mundane. They were knights trained specifically in the art of mundane combat, a skill that had no other use than holding fortifications like this. Ironically, their greatest defence was the threat of mutually assured destruction by Parasyte.

"Hail. What business brings you to our camp?" one of the two knights asked.

"We had heard that the Leaf was being Leeched. We wished to see for ourselves," Apexus said.

The knight turned left, to look at the sick world. "Well, there you go," he spoke with the dry humour of a man who had witnessed too many atrocities to feel for them. "A degrading Leaf, gradually losing its place in the Progenitor's vision."

"Is there nothing you can do?" Aclysia asked.

The knight shook his head. "As long as the angels have not eradicated the Infestation responsible for this, this Leaf cannot be cured."

"We can, however!" Another voice entered the mix. "Slow its demise." An old woman approached them. She was bowed by age, relying heavily on a stick to walk. The two knights immediately hurried to her side, to help her climb the bit of elevation a bump in the bark created. She gave the men a thankful pat on the arm. "You are adventurers, yes?"

"Yes," Apexus answered.

"How do you feel about a quest that will pay nothing, holds the greatest of risks, and will take you a long time to complete?"

"Seems to be the only kind of work we do these days," Korith mumbled.

"I will hear the details," Apexus said. "Then we will contemplate."

"Come along then, my old knees cannot take standing for long."

They were brought to the inside of a tent. It was a luxurious structure. The walls were made of layers of tarp, which was enough to keep the limited noise out. Because the Branches were always at a windless, pleasant temperature, fires to keep warm were unnecessary and even the blankets on her bed existed only for psychological comfort.

"I'm high-priestess Vera, my task is to oversee the degradation of Leaves – this is the fourth and likely final one I have the displeasure of seeing succumb to Leeching," she explained to them. "Our outpost will launch an expedition into the Leaf within the next couple of days. I would request you join them."

"What would that change?" Reysha asked. "No, seriously, you already evacuated all the people. I know a Leaf falling sucks tiny tits, but the worst damage is already done."

"It is a two-way street," Vera responded. "As a woman of the faith, I wish to save a world for its own sake. There is also the reason of aid. The Infestation grows as its Black Roots dig into the world. Destroy the Black Roots…"

"…and the Infestation's expansion is slowed," Aclysia finished the thought.

"Precisely."

"What would we face?" Apexus wanted to know. "I heard Shapeforms be mentioned by the refugees."

"Indeed, they would be your primary concern." The priestess grabbed a blackboard and some chalk. It wasn't her first time explaining the concept and her old hands remembered well how to draw the examples. With swift motions, she drew an image of a dog. "As the Parasytes draw the magic from a world, as they return it to the empty void, they gradually take from everything the details." She licked her fingers and smudged the eyes and ears from the picture. "Bit by bit, they make that which is distinct something that is less so." Every little stroke of her fingers eradicated more individuality from the picture, until only a white assembly of shapes, surrounded by smudges of a brilliant picture, was left. "This is a Shapeform. Something that was that is on its way to no longer be. A gathering of rudimentary angles and curves. A low-detail something that should not be alive anymore."

"Freaky," Reysha muttered.

"You would also be fighting Parasyte Spawns. Greater entities, born from the Black Root. Undoing horrors, spreading the Leeching rot. You would wander a dying world, trying to find centres of corruption. There will be no riches there. Nothing about the Parasytes can be harvested. There are no rare resources that are conveniently made where they act. All you could show for the effort is bravery and dedication. You will be fighting side by side with us. The demons will be-"

"There are demons there?" the tiger woman asked.

Vera blinked twice, this was the least expected question to be had. "The demons are the first and final response of the Omniverse against the Parasytes. When a Leaf grows as weak as this, demons can find their way to it, to wage their own war on the Parasytes,"

"I understand." Apexus rose from the cushion he had sat on. "We will discuss your request privately."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.