"The name is Victorian, knight of the Order of the Cleansed Vein."

The man extended a hand towards Apexus. He was only a head shorter than the Monk, which made him incredibly tall by every meaningful standard. Broad shoulders were further emphasized by the bulk of his armour. The haft of a two-handed mace poked up above one side of his back.

"Apexus, leader of the Inevitable party," the humanoid chimera introduced himself, while shaking the offered hand. The rest of the party did the same in short order.

"I will be the leader of the expedition you accompany – and I chose those words deliberately. I'm under no illusion that you are mine to command." The knight smirked, showing off a silver tooth that had replaced the natural ones he had lost. There were a number of scars on him. Imagining the black-haired knight without them put the picture of someone in his mid-thirties in Apexus' head.

"Then how do you view us?" Apexus asked.

"Help that I am deeply glad for," Victorian answered. "If you draw the attention of one Parasyte away from one of my men for one second, then you have already been more good than harm and I will take what I can get."

The two men turned towards the Stem, looking at the grey world before them. Its condition had not notably changed during the few days the party had stayed there. Parasytes operated on no timescale, they simply operated, ceaselessly. The death of a Leaf would take decades, if not centuries.

Those that beheld the Leaf did not know far along this one was.

"You are free to leave at any time. I will not force you to stay. Provide what labours you wish to the Omniverse and the Progenitor's vision."

"It is noted. For now, you have our service."

"And for that, once more, my gratitude." The knight looked around. "If you do not mind, we will depart immediately."

Aclysia tilted her head. "Do you not require rest?"

Victorian, alongside the two knights with him, had just arrived. They were the last reinforcements of this expedition they had been waiting for, leadership that had been travelling to the nearest Leaf to give their last report in person. A ritual of those that would soon venture into a Leaf that could break away from the great tree while they were still in it.

"As much as I love the Omniverse, never been one to dwell on its Branches. The sooner we do our service, the quicker I will have fresh air in my lungs again," Victorian answered. "If you wish to delay, I respect that choice. We can wait until tomorrow."

"Nope," Korith took it upon her to answer. "We are ready to rush!"

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Apexus nodded, there was nothing to be gained from staying in the camp any further.

20 knights of the Church gathered up. Their average adventuring Level was 22. It was a considerable fighting force, capable of destabilizing a country if they so wished. Compared to a regular human, all of them were supremely powerful. For the Church, they were the resources that they could spare. The men and women of faith that had been distinguished enough to be given proper equipment, yet not important or powerful enough to be spared a mission such as this.

It was not that the Church viewed them with disdain or any kind of malice. It was simply that, in some office of some Cardinal, way down the chain of command, a person with deep rings under their eyes had beheld what they could and needed to do and had arrived at this outcome.

The knights shouldered their bags of provisions and began their march.

The Inevitable party walked in the rearguard. All that they had learned over the last few days about the Leeching was no replacement for real knowledge. They kept to the back out of respect for the unexpected.

As they descended the Stem, the voided veins of Leeched magic felt hollow. Apexus sensed it through his feet. It made his feathers rise, his senses bristle, the knowledge that he was stepping onto an unstable world. What he knew through touch, his companions came to experience through sight.

The view of the Leaf gave way to the view of the world. Where the Stem met the ground, tendrils of life penetrated into a landscape of dull colours. Trees, grass, and even buildings only retained their old colours and designs where the magic of the Omniverse yet flowed. Everywhere else, it was… alien.

Trees still existed, but they were wrong. Leaves on them had melded together into thick sheets of green material, mimicking the outline of plant life without fulfilling any of the function. The bark was smooth, the texture remained only as optical illusions patterned upon the surface. The trunks were too straight, too round. Rocks that poked out of the ground were sharp, the abrasive surface minimized and minimized again, until a low-resolution piece of stone remained that was neither polished nor natural.

Buildings met the same fate. The capital that had, until very recently, been lived in showed starkly the differences between the buildings that had been erected and the buildings that remained. There were charming, human flaws in the constructions of clay, brick and timber. They were all rationalized away in the outskirts of the forsaken city. Plaster surfaces had been made uniform, windows into cardboard cutouts, and all colours faded towards grey. It looked like a child's drawing done with a lead pencil.

All was not quiet. There were crows and rats, even larger animals such as deer. They were skittish and angry, crammed together into the places where there was still animating spirit to keep their shapes in order.

"Horrific," Victorian muttered. "Second time and it's still just… horrific."

They now stood at the former central plaza of the world. Trade had once flowed through there, masses of it. The world had been rich in minerals and metals that were worth trading across Leaves. The world had, in turn, been poor in freshwater and fish, buying both at a premium. It had been a lucrative deal.

Now it was dead. No one, however stubborn, had clung onto this home. Even the most bitter old man would rather leave than slowly see their birthplace turn into… nothing. Just nothing.

"So, how do we go about this?" Reysha asked. "Just follow the life?"

"If only it were that simple." Victorian let out a long sigh. "No, the areas where the Omniverse's vision yet holds will be our safe havens. The Black Roots are in the middle of their individual corrupted zones and in a Leaf this far gone… finding them will be difficult."

"We will follow your lead," Apexus assured.

With that, they set out into the fading world.

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