I Can See Evolution Paths

And it wasn’t anything like the Goblin paths he’d seen before. This was a Beast that belonged to this region.

He glanced around quickly. Nobody seemed to notice the notification.

Good.

Arthur moved to another statue, this one depicting a massive creature resembling a combination of a beetle and a flower, its broad shell covered in petal-like plates. He touched it.

[Evolution Path Discovered!]

[Species: Petalback Burrower]

[Petalback Burrower]

[Bloomshell Guardian]

[Desert Garden Colossus]

His expression changed. "That’s..." He moved on quickly.

Mithra watched him. "What are you doing?"

"Looking."

"At the statues?"

"Yes."

"Of course you are," she smiled.

The next one showed a sleek four-legged Beast with a long tail and a mouth surrounded by thin sensory tendrils.

[Evolution Path Discovered!]

[Species: Glasswhisker Hound]

[Glasswhisker Hound]

[Dunewhisper Tracker]

[Miragefang Stalker]

His eyes narrowed. These weren’t random creatures. Their paths reflected their bodies, their environment, their abilities. The statues weren’t merely showing what lived here. They were showing the creatures that belonged to this ancient civilization.

Athena noticed his growing excitement as he hurried toward another. "You found something."

"Maybe."

"That isn’t an answer."

"It is for now," he said, already touching the next statue, a strange six-legged creature with a broad, flat body and long tendrils stretching from its back like roots.

[Evolution Path Discovered!]

[Species: Rootscale Grazer]

[Rootscale Grazer]

[Thornroot Behemoth]

[Worldroot Wanderer]

"Worldroot..." He stared at the name, glancing toward the enormous roots growing through the city, the way they threaded between buildings like veins under skin, and for a moment the whole cavern felt less like a ruin and more like something that had simply gone quiet. Could there be a connection?

Before he could think about it, he touched a winged creature next, translucent fins instead of feathers, markings resembling stars scattered across its body.

[Evolution Path Discovered!]

[Species: Starlit Sandray]

[Starlit Sandray]

[Moonwake Glider]

[Astral Dune Ray]

"You’re kidding."

Eden floated closer. "What did you find?"

He pulled his hand away quickly. "Nothing."

She tilted her head, and he pointed toward the statue instead. "Just a really strange Beast."

"Oh." She circled it once. "It is strange."

One more caught his eye, a low, heavily armored Beast with six legs and enormous jaws, its back covered in overlapping plates shaped like desert flowers, and he touched it.

[Evolution Path Discovered!]

[Species: Sunplate Mauler]

[Sunplate Mauler]

[Solarhide Crusher]

[Dunebreaker Behemoth]

He slowly lowered his hand.

Six. Six new paths, and every one of them something he had never encountered before. His Evolution Path Vision wasn’t merely showing him the creatures. It was showing him an entire ecosystem preserved in stone, an entire world folded into silence and waiting for someone to finally reach out and touch it.

He looked down the street. There were still hundreds of statues. Maybe thousands. His heart began beating faster. "How many species lived here?"

"What?" Athena looked at him.

He gestured around them. "All of these statues. If they’re records, then this city recorded everything."

Her eyes lit up. "That’s exactly what I was thinking." She immediately started toward another cluster. "We need to document them."

"I’ll help," Athy said, flying after her.

Sun looked between them. "Are we seriously going to spend all day looking at statues?"

Athena didn’t even turn around. "Yes."

"I knew you were going to say that," Sun sighed.

"You could always stay here," Mithra laughed.

Sun looked at the enormous city. "No chance."

Kong pointed at another statue. "More big."

"You found your calling," Sun said, and Kong nodded. Arthur laughed.

The atmosphere gradually changed. The city was no longer just a ruin. It was becoming a record of something that had once lived here, something ancient, something enormous.

Arthur walked deeper into the streets, touching statues whenever one caught his attention, some revealing familiar-looking beasts, others revealing creatures that didn’t resemble anything he’d ever seen. The more paths he discovered, the more fascinated he became.

Then Athena suddenly called out. "Arthur!"

He turned. She was standing in front of a massive wall, the entire surface covered in statues. Not individual figures. A sequence.

Arthur approached, and something about the air here felt different, thinner somehow, as though the whole cavern had been holding its breath since long before he was born.

"What happened here?"

She pointed. "Look."

The first section showed the city surrounded by enormous trees, the stone so finely carved that Arthur could make out individual leaves curling at the edges, could almost imagine wind moving through them if he stared long enough.

The next showed people walking through the streets. Ordinary people. Carrying baskets, leading children, standing in doorways to talk with neighbors, the small unremarkable motions of a life that had once simply continued, day after day, the way lives do when nothing has told them yet that they’re about to end.

The next showed strange beasts moving alongside them, unbothered, familiar, the way a dog might walk beside its owner.

Then the images changed.

Several statues showed figures looking upward. Arthur slowed as he studied them. Every carved face had the same detail worked into it: eyes wide, mouths slightly open, chins tilted back at nearly the same angle, as if the sculptor had frozen an entire crowd in the exact same heartbeat of realization.

Another showed people running.

Another showed a strange wave spreading through the forest, the trees along its edge bent flat, the stone somehow conveying speed in a way Arthur didn’t understand and didn’t want to look at too closely.

Another showed creatures fleeing.

His smile disappeared. "Something happened."

"What?" Luna stepped closer.

He pointed toward the statues. "Look at their faces."

The figures weren’t celebrating. They were afraid. Not the vague, generic fear of a battle scene carved for drama. This was something more specific than that, something the sculptor clearly hadn’t been able to soften even a little, and Arthur found himself wondering what kind of hands had carved these last, and whether they’d known it would be the last thing they ever made.

"Whatever happened wasn’t peaceful," Mithra said, her expression turning serious.

"There’s more," Athy said, flying along the wall.

The sequence continued. Statues showed people leaving buildings, empty-handed, as if there hadn’t been time to take anything with them. Others carried injured creatures, cradling them the way you’d carry something you already knew you couldn’t save but refused to put down anyway. Some held children. Others appeared to be looking toward something enormous beyond the city, their carved bodies angled the same direction, dozens of them, all facing the same unseen thing.

Then the final statue showed a massive structure surrounded by five symbols.

"The Mirrors," Athena breathed, eyes widening.

"So they knew about them," Arthur said.

Luna stepped closer, her voice smaller than before. "My grandfather said the guardians protected the Mirrors..." She looked at the statues. "But these people..."

"They were doing something with them," Arthur finished for her.

Nobody answered. A strange silence settled over the ruined city, heavier than the quiet they’d walked through until now, the kind of silence that felt less like the absence of sound and more like something still listening.

Then Arthur noticed something else. A root, emerging from beneath the wall and disappearing into the ground. He crouched. "This might tell us more."

"Your Root trait?" Athena asked immediately.

He nodded. "I want to see what it remembers." He placed his hand against the ancient root.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the world changed. Not completely. Just enough.

He heard something. A sound buried beneath the silence.

A heartbeat.

His eyes widened.

Thump.

He froze, his hand still pressed flat against the bark, every muscle in his arm suddenly rigid, as though moving even slightly might make the sound stop, or worse, might make it notice him.

Another.

Thump.

His breathing stopped. The sound wasn’t coming from the root. It was coming from somewhere else. He looked toward the statues.

Thump.

His eyes moved to the creature statues. One of them. Then another. Then another. His face slowly went blank, the color draining out of it the way it does when the body understands something a full second before the mind catches up.

The statues were still. Completely still. Stone dust still sat undisturbed in the grooves of their carved fur, their scales, their folded wings. Nothing about them had moved in longer than Arthur could imagine.

But Arthur could hear them.

Not voices. Not words.

Heartbeats.

Slow. Deep. Alive.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

He stared at the enormous city, and for the first time since they’d descended the staircase, it didn’t feel like a ruin at all. It felt like a room full of people holding perfectly still, waiting to see if he’d noticed them yet.

His fingers began trembling.

Vedas noticed first. "Arthur?"

He didn’t respond.

Vedas walked closer, his spear lowering slightly, some old instinct in him already bracing for a fight he couldn’t see. "Arthur."

Still nothing.

Eden flew down beside him, her light dimming without her seeming to notice, as if some part of her had already understood something was wrong before the rest of her caught up. "Arthur?"

His eyes remained fixed on the statues.

Mithra’s smile vanished. "What’s wrong?"

Athena closed her notebook immediately, her knuckles white around its spine. "Arthur?"

Sun stepped closer, all the earlier teasing gone from his voice entirely. Even Kong stopped looking at the statues, his head slowly turning toward Arthur instead, some simpler part of him picking up on the fear before he understood any of the words being said.

Luna looked frightened by the expression on his face, more frightened, somehow, than she’d been by anything on the mural. "What did you see?"

He swallowed. His hand was still pressed against the ancient root.

The heartbeat grew louder. Not one. Dozens. Hundreds. Maybe more. Everywhere around them.

He looked at the nearest beast statue. Its stone eyes stared into nothing.

But he could hear its heart.

He looked at another.

Thump.

Another.

Thump.

Another.

Thump.

The sound didn’t come in unison. That was the worst part, the detail his mind kept snagging on even as the rest of him wanted to run. Each one beat on its own rhythm, slow and separate and patient, thousands of hearts scattered through an entire city.

None of them synchronized, none of them in any hurry at all, as though they had all the time in the world and had simply been waiting for someone to finally come close enough to hear.

His lips parted. His voice barely came out. "I..."

Everyone gathered around him.

Vedas tightened his grip on his spear. "Arthur, tell us."

He stared at the statues, his body trembling. Then he whispered, "I think..." He swallowed again. "...I think the statues are alive."

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