NOVGO.NET Chapter 1784: The Whispering Tree [Part 2]
Chapter 1784: The Whispering Tree [Part 2]
Villain Ch 1784. The Whispering Tree [Part 2]
Not Jane, who had gone silent.
Not Zoe, who was frozen mid-step.
Not Shea, Vivian, Larissa or Alice.
That voice didn’t belong to his girls.
And then it came again.
“Justice was never blind.”
This time—they all heard it.
The air snapped cold. Like the temperature dropped a full ten degrees in one heartbeat.
A wind rolled across the field, hissing through the dying grass, sweeping up ashes from the soil that hadn’t been there seconds ago. The girls instinctively reached for their weapons, forming a loose perimeter around Allen.
It wasn’t an ambush.
It was an awakening.
The whisper came again—not from the air, but through it.
And they turned.
To the tree.
A massive, gnarled thing—blackened wood, with bark that looked like cracked obsidian and a trunk twisted with so many growth rings it felt like it had existed before maps. The roots had clawed into the earth like talons.
They hadn’t noticed it before.
It was too big to have missed.
But it wasn’t there before.
Not like this.
The trunk groaned like an old man breathing.
Then the bark split.
Not violently.
Not loudly.
It opened like a curtain.
Revealing a hollow center of pulsing red light and drifting ash, like a wound in the world.
Allen stepped forward—because of course he did—and when his boot hit the perimeter of the roots, his HUD glitched.
Just once.
Then.
[Event Triggered: The Whispering Tree]
“Memories buried in ash still burn.”
Allen didn’t move.
Because something moved for him.
His vision shifted.
Not in a cinematic way. Not a cutscene. Not third-person.
It was first person.
Someone else’s perspective.
His hands were different.
Broader. Calloused. Clad in black-and-silver armor.
Not demonic gear—royal armor. Old-world. Polished and gilded with gold filigree.
And around him—
Screams.
Smoke.
A burning village.
Children crying. Soldiers shouting.
People begging.
And that voice—his voice—but not really his, echoed with command.
“Burn it. Leave none. This village sheltered the Seer.”
Allen’s breath caught.
His body inside the vision didn’t flinch.
But he did.
The gauntlet-clad hand lifted, signaling the charge.
The swords around him gleamed in firelight as armored troops rushed forward.
It wasn’t a heroic moment.
It was a massacre.
Blood on stone.
Flames crawling over thatch rooftops.
A woman running toward the well with her baby—arrow through her back mid-sprint.
He tried to pull back—but his body was locked inside the memory like a vice.
He felt it.
The heat.
The weight of the armor.
The satisfaction in the soldier’s breath beside him.
The lack of remorse in the voice that spoke his own words.
“Justice is clarity. Mercy is clouded vision.”
He knew that line.
He’d said something like it. When he slayed the players.
But not like this.
The vision snapped back like a rubber band.
He stumbled backward from the tree, gasping.
Jane grabbed him. “Allen?! You okay?! What did you see?”
He didn’t answer right away.
His eyes were still locked on the tree.
Then he said, voice quiet—”It was me… but not me.”
He looked down at his hands. “I ordered the slaughter.”
Vivian stepped in close, her voice tight. “That tree showed you something, didn’t it?”
“It showed me a war I never fought,” Allen murmured. “But I was there. In someone else’s body. Someone who wore a crown and armor. I gave the command. They obeyed.”
Larissa’s frown deepened. “You think it’s the tree? Like the soul?”
Allen nodded slowly. “Yeah… but that voice. It’s like—he’s using me to remember. Or I’m using him.”
A new whisper rippled through the tree.
“Echoes live longer than men.”
The bark pulsed red.
A second notification appeared.
[Memory Anchor Established]
[Warden Caelreth’s thoughts are entangled with your own.]
[“To walk forward, you must carry the weight of his past.”]
[New Objective: Find the place where justice died.]
Zoe muttered under her breath, “Okay, this quest just leveled up from creepy to cursed.”
Alice said, “It’s not just a memory link. This is an identity overlay. We’re syncing with his soulprint.”
Jane’s brows furrowed. “So… Allen’s the host?”
Allen didn’t flinch. “No. I’m the mirror.”
Vivian leaned close again. “Then let’s find out what’s being reflected… and what the hell he wants from you.”
Allen didn’t answer. He just nodded.
His boots pressed into the blackened soil, crunching through layers of old ash and brittle leaves as he stepped forward. The girls moved with him—no banter, no teasing.
The roots of the tree behind them shuddered.
A slow, deep pulse through the ground—like the breath of something ancient exhaling beneath their feet.
And then—
The voice returned.
Softer this time. Not a whisper, not a command.
Something in between. Something that felt like… remembering.
“May you find your purpose on your journey…”
“…and the reason why you are still here.”
Their steps halted.
No one had to say a thing.
It was instinct.
They turned—slowly—facing the tree once more.
It loomed, dark and still, twisted against the copper-red sky. Bark cracked with time, ash drifting from hollow knots, the place where memories bled.
The wind shifted then.
Not harsh, not violent—just enough to move hair and cloaks. A gust from nowhere, brushing their cheeks like invisible fingers.
They blinked.
All of them.
And when their eyes opened again—
The Whispering Tree was gone.
No dust. No collapse.
Just absence.
The clearing stood empty. A circle of roots in the dirt where it had once stood, charred lines drawn like veins into the earth. The sky above didn’t change. The field didn’t tremble.
No one spoke at first.
They just stood there.
Weapons slack in their hands.
Jane’s lips parted like she might say something—then closed again.
This felt like something real?
No… that wasn’t a perfect word for it…
Like being touched by a grief too old to scream.
And yeah…
It was emotional.
Deep in a way the game didn’t usually allow.
Allen exhaled. Long. Controlled.
He didn’t say “let’s go.”
He just turned.
And they followed.
No one wanted to break the silence just yet.