Alex paused, silently staring at the grim aftermath.

  “Well,” Roric coughed, waving a cloud of dust and ash from his face. He stood amidst a small mountain of empty armor, wiping black, oily sludge from his silver sword with a grimace. “That… was unpleasant.”

  He cast a weary glance around at the newfound desolation. “And there goes our scenic campsite. Shame. I liked the flowers.”

  Alex sat up, his head spinning. The vertigo of the sudden, violent shift in reality churned his stomach. “Was it an illusion?”

  “A lure,” Roric corrected, his voice grave and grim. “The Gloom likes to dress up its traps. Pretty flowers to draw in the weary, a nice shade tree to sleep under…” He kicked a rusted gauntlet. “And then, snack time.”

  He sheathed his sword with a sharp, final click and walked over, offering Alex a hand. “You alive, Dawson?”

  “Uh… yeah,” Alex groaned, accepting the grip. Roric pulled him upright with effortless strength. Alex brushed grey ash from his hair and his leather armor. It had held, but it was now dusted with the residue of something long dead.

  They both turned to Iris.

  Standing at the base of the shattered tree, motionless, Iris stared into the hollow cavity where the weeping woman had been imprisoned. Her blades, now dim and inert, hung at her sides. Her shoulders were hunched, breath visible in shallow, rapid clouds in the suddenly chill air.

  “Iris?” Alex called out softly.

  She didn’t turn. Instead, she reached into the hollow, into the small pile of grey dust that was all that remained of the Guardian. Her movements were hesitant, almost reverent.

  When she withdrew her hand, she was clutching something.

  It was a silver butterfly shaped pendant. For a moment a faint, sorrowful blue light pulsed and then faded.

  Slowly, she turned. Her face pale, her usual sharp composure replaced by a shaken, hollow look. She walked back to them, her movements stiff, and held the pendant out to Alex without a word.

  “It left this,” she whispered, her voice thin.

  Alex hesitated for only a moment before taking it. The object was shockingly cold, heavy as a stone from a riverbed. The moment his skin made contact, a sensation washed through him, not the sterile ping of a System notification, but a pure, clean feeling. It was the feeling of taking a deep, clear breath after being submerged.

  ‘A butterfly pendant…’ Alex thought and then whispered the words: “This must have been her anchor." He didn't need a screen, his resonance hummed in recognition. The object… was the weeping woman’s anchor, it was the only thing that held whatever part of her mind was left intact.

  [Dream Resonance: +8]

  Alex let out a faint gasp as the screen snapped him out of his daze. The gain only solidified his suspicion. The pendant truly had been an anchor of the Weeping Root.

  Yet another thought scratched at the back of his mind.

  ‘An anchor… could it be that...’ Before he could follow it, Roric let out a long, weary groan, dragging Alex back to the present.

  Tilting his head, Roric stared at the clear star-lit sky, “Still nightfall,” he murmured. “I’d wager daybreak is only a few hours off.” He lowered his gaze to Alex and Iris, a faint smile tugging weakly at the corner of his lips. “Why the long faces?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “We need to move. Now,” Iris said. Her voice low and weighted.

  “Move?” Alex protested, sweeping a glance over the dead field beyond the clearing. His vision barely reached the treeline. “It’s still way too dark.”

  The darkness still lingered, anchoring itself to the land. The silence that followed weighed heavy on the trio.

  “We’ll move at first light,” Roric’s voice cut through the quiet.

  “But…” Iris began, then let the thought die.

  Alex nodded as Roric lowered himself to the ground.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Roric said with a tired chuckle. “It’s been a long day and a longer night. We all deserve some beauty sleep.”

  Iris knelt a short distance away, her eyes fixed on the collapsed oak. She pulled her cloak over her head, her form vanishing beneath the folds.

  Alex sighed heavily as he lay back, arms folded behind his head, staring at the night sky, a canvas of shining diamonds. He wanted to recall everything that had happened that day, to be honest Alex felt like they had been in the forest for days rather than hours.

  The corrupted glade, the weeping root, the wingless angel, the upward stream… everything demanded attention, yet he was far too exhausted to hold onto his thoughts.

  “Maybe… I’ll just have a dream… instead,” he muttered, drifting into sleep.

  *****

  Dawn’s light crept over the far eastern peaks, slowly bathing the world in a warm amber glow.

  Standing at the edge of the treeline, Alex stared. The lush green field and white petals behind him were gone. In their place lay ash and dirt, the collapsed oak slumped at the center like a broken monument.

  But his gaze was drawn forward.

  Beyond the treeline, the forest revealed itself. The once-thriving pines were no more than withered spines, tall and brittle, swaying faintly despite the absence of wind.

  Alex stepped forward. His boots crunched softly against the ashen ground as he crossed into the forest.

  For a long moment no one spoke. The silence pressed in on them, heavier than their weapons. Alex found himself wondering if this was truly the same forest they had walked through the day before, or if this was the truth and the dense greenery before was an illusion.

  Slowing, Roric stopped. He frowned as he scanned the skeletal trees rising around them.

  “This place…” he muttered. “It should smell like sap. Pine. Something alive.”

  Instead, the air was thick with the stench of rot. Not the clean decay of fallen leaves, but the sour, clinging smell of flesh left too long in the open. It coated Alex’s throat. More than once he had to pause, swallow hard, and steady his breathing to keep his stomach from turning as he followed behind Roric and Iris.

  Iris took it in with a single, measured nod. “Even ruins have echoes,” she said quietly beneath her cloak . “This doesn’t.”

  They moved on, and the forest seemed to close around them, branches arching inward like the bars of a ribcage. Shapes jutted from the ground at uneven angles. Stone markers worn smooth by time. Wooden posts half-buried in ash and soil, some snapped clean in two as if broken by force rather than age.

  The deeper they went, the thicker the forest became. Trees crowded closer together, their trunks dark and swollen, roots twisting over one another like grasping fingers.

  Alex’s gaze darted as he walked past the flowers, the ones that had once reminded him of Newcrest. Now pale, they clung to the undergrowth… wilted and colorless. Dead moss carpeted the rocks and fallen logs in dull gray patches.

  Now and then, Alex caught sight of stones shaped too much like people to be natural, slumped forms with rounded shoulders and bowed heads, watching them pass with eyeless faces.

  As they pressed deeper, the thin streaks of light that pierced the canopy began to fade. At first the mist crept low to the ground, then rose higher, curling around their legs and waists until the world beyond a few paces dissolved into shadow.

  Time stretched. Hours slipped by unnoticed, measured only by the ache in Alex’s legs and the growing weight of the air.

  Night returned without warning, smothered by fog and towering trees.

  Still, the trio pushed on, their figures swallowed by the mist as the forest closed behind them, silent and unyielding.

  Villain Gender Bender Revenge

  ?? Updates: ?? DAILY ??

  "Death gave me a second chance. Fate gave me the wrong body.

  Now I’m back in the past as my own wife, and I have a list of people to kill."

  Free on Royal Road