I Can See Evolution Paths

The collapsed building was far larger than it had first appeared. What looked like a single ruined structure from the outside was actually the remains of an enormous complex, its upper floors having collapsed inward and buried the lower sections beneath layers of sand and stone.

The golden trail disappeared beneath the rubble. Arthur crouched beside it. The light wasn’t gone, simply traveling beneath the ground, and when he placed his palm against the sand, the line brightened immediately. "There." He pointed toward a narrow opening between two collapsed walls.

Luna raised the compass, and the needle pointed directly toward it. "So the trail continues underground."

Athena’s eyes lit up. "Then this building may have been constructed over whatever Halburn discovered."

Sun looked down the dark opening. "Of course it is."

Arthur glanced at him. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing." He sighed. "I’m just starting to recognize how these things work."

Mithra smiled. "That’s progress."

"I don’t like this kind of progress."

Kong had already squeezed through the opening. Sun stared after him. "Kong!" A grunt answered from inside.

Arthur laughed. "He’s already checking it."

"Of course he is."

They followed. The passage quickly became a set of ancient stone corridors, sand poured through cracks in the ceiling forming small dunes along the walls, thick roots pushing up through the floor and wrapping around the old architecture. The golden trail remained visible beneath their feet, leading deeper, until the corridor suddenly opened onto a wide staircase descending into darkness.

Arthur looked down. "Well."

Mithra leaned over the edge. "That’s deep."

Athena stepped beside her. "I can’t see the bottom."

Sun looked at Arthur. "Please tell me we’re not going down there."

"We’re definitely going down there," he smiled.

Sun closed his eyes. "I knew it."

Kong immediately started down the stairs.

"See?" Arthur pointed after him. "Kong agrees."

Sun opened his eyes. "Kong would walk into a volcano if you told him there was something interesting inside."

Kong stopped halfway down, looked back, and gave an offended grunt.

Arthur laughed. "Sorry."

They descended, the staircase seeming to go on forever, the air growing colder with every step until the sounds of the ruined city above disappeared entirely, leaving only their own footsteps.

Finally the stairs ended, and Arthur stepped onto a massive stone platform. He looked around. They’d entered a pit, walls rising high on every side, nearly enclosing the chamber entirely, sand covering the floor, ancient stone structures protruding from the dunes. But the strangest thing was what wasn’t there: no statues, no inscriptions, no obvious ruins at all. Just an enormous empty space.

Arthur took another step, and his King Mark suddenly began shining.

Everyone stopped. Vedas looked toward him. "Again."

Arthur raised his hand, the golden glow intensifying before the light rushed outward, sweeping across the entire pit, illuminating the walls, the sand, the ancient structures buried beneath them.

And then, people appeared.

Not living people. Spectral figures, dozens of translucent forms standing across the pit as though frozen in time.

Arthur stared. The nearest figure wore brilliant golden armor, a golden helmet covering his head, long golden hair flowing from beneath it, carrying himself like a king.

His eyes widened. Vedas stared. Mithra’s mouth fell slightly open. Sun frowned. Even Athena stopped breathing for a moment, because there was no mistaking the resemblance. The spectral figure looked almost exactly like Vedas, except this man wore golden armor from head to toe.

Vedas stared at him. "Halburn."

Arthur looked at him. "So that’s what he looked like."

Vedas nodded slowly. "Yes."

Luna stood several steps behind, staring at the unfamiliar Goblin King. "That’s Halburn?" She looked at Vedas. "They look almost identical."

He didn’t answer immediately, his eyes fixed on the spectral figure. "That is how he looked when I knew him."

Arthur turned back. The memory was already moving. Three robed figures stood before Halburn, their faces hidden, and one stepped forward. "So, a child of the Endou Tribe sent you here?"

Halburn crossed his arms. "He believed the Mirrors would be in danger."

The robed figures exchanged glances, one of them frowning. "Then Varka Endou has finally decided to involve outsiders."

"He didn’t involve me lightly."

"And yet you came."

Halburn shrugged. "He asked me to."

The three remained silent a moment.

Arthur stepped forward, and the spectral scene shifted, as though the memory had jumped to another moment entirely. The ground beneath the figures was different now. Green. Grass stretched across the land, trees surrounding a clear body of water.

An oasis.

Arthur blinked. "This place?"

One of the robed figures gestured at the landscape. "This was once an oasis."

Athena’s expression changed. "Here?"

The figure continued. "Before the Mirror came." Another pointed toward the ground. "When the Earth Mirror was hurled into this region, it descended deep beneath the earth."

The scene shifted again, and Arthur watched a massive object fall from the sky, the ground exploding, a shockwave tearing through the green land, the oasis disappearing beneath a storm of sand. The landscape changed before his eyes, grass vanishing, water drying up, the land turning barren, a desert stretching across the horizon.

He stared. "So the desert..." He looked down at the sand beneath his feet. "It was created by the Mirror."

Athena’s eyes widened. "An entire environment was transformed?"

Sun’s expression darkened. "That’s not a small effect."

The spectral figures continued speaking. "The Mirror changed the land." "It altered the environment around it." "And something else happened."

The scene shifted once more. The oasis was gone, Beasts wandering through the newly formed desert, moving normally at first. Then dark energy began rising from beneath the earth, spreading through the soil, the plants, the water, and the Beasts began to change. Some grew violent. Others attacked one another. Several tore through the landscape without reason.

Athena’s eyes widened. "The energy..."

The robed figure continued. "The negative emotions buried beneath this land began to surge upward."

Luna gasped. Athy’s brow furrowed. "Negative emotions?"

"Resentment." "Hatred." "Despair." The words echoed across the chamber. "They corrupted the land." "They entered the Beasts." "They became mad."

Arthur’s expression turned serious. "So that’s why the Beasts here are so aggressive."

Athena stared at the spectral figures. "If this is true, then the Mirror didn’t merely transform the environment. It may have amplified something that was already beneath it."

Luna looked shaken. "What happened here?"

Nobody answered her.

Halburn’s spectral figure stepped forward. "Where did that energy come from?"

The robed figures hesitated, one glancing toward the others before finally answering. "From the massacre that happened—"

The memory froze. Every spectral figure stopped moving, the words hanging in the air.

Arthur stared. Nobody spoke. Athena’s face had gone pale. Luna’s eyes widened. Athy lowered her wings slightly. Sun’s expression hardened. Mithra looked toward Arthur. Vedas slowly tightened his grip around his spear.

"A massacre..." Luna whispered. "What massacre?"

Arthur looked around the frozen memory. The answer had been cut off, but whatever had happened here, it had been terrible enough to leave resentment and negative energy buried beneath the land for centuries, and somehow the Earth Mirror had brought it back to the surface.

The memory moved again. Halburn was walking away, the three robed figures remaining behind him. Then, metal scraped against stone, and the three drew their weapons, a spear, a sword, an axe.

Halburn stopped, slowly turning his head, and sighed. "Why are you trying to do this now?"

One of the figures stepped forward. "We thank you for revealing the truth."

His eyes narrowed. "The truth?"

"That you are acting on behalf of the child of the Endou Tribe." The figure raised his weapon. "But no one is allowed to exist who knows about the Mirror."

The other two stepped forward. "Except for us."

Halburn closed his eyes. "Of course."

The memory suddenly accelerated, the spectral figures flashing around the chamber. Halburn turned, his right arm beginning to glow, golden energy spiraling around it, twisting, condensing, forming into something resembling a massive helix wrapped around his arm.

Arthur’s eyes widened. "What is that?"

Vedas stared. "I’ve never seen that technique."

The golden helix tightened. Halburn’s arm moved. The entire chamber exploded with golden light, the three robed figures blasted backward, the walls cracking, stone collapsing, sand pouring down as the building began coming apart around them.

Halburn stood in the center of the destruction, looked at the fallen robed figures, then sighed. "Could have just let me go."

The spectral memory showed him walking away, his golden form slowly breaking apart, glittering particles drifting from his armor as his body dissolved into golden light. The defeated robed figures dissolved along with him, and the entire memory collapsed into glitter.

Then every golden particle in the chamber suddenly moved at once, rushing toward Arthur, straight into his King Mark.

His eyes widened. The Mark flared.

[The Mark responds.]

His breath caught, the golden light around his hand intensifying.

[King’s Mark Authority — Piercing Light]

He stared at the notification as a strange sensation gathered around his right arm. He raised his hand, golden energy spiraling around it, the same helix from Halburn’s memory.

Athena immediately pulled out her notebook. "Arthur." She started writing. "Don’t move."

He glanced at her. "I’m not moving."

"Good."

The energy kept gathering, condensing, the helix tightening around his arm until the golden light became almost blinding.

Sun slowly backed away. "What is that?"

Vedas’s eyes narrowed. "It resembles Halburn’s technique."

Arthur felt the power building and pointed toward a massive stone wall at the far end of the pit. The golden energy compressed.

Then—

BOOM!

A concentrated golden beam erupted from his arm, punching straight through the enormous stone wall. The impact shook the entire pit, dust exploding outward, a massive hole appearing above them and revealing a distant patch of the underground city beyond.

For several seconds, nobody spoke. Athena stared at the hole, then at Arthur, then immediately started writing again.

Eden flew closer to his arm. Kong stared at the destruction with wide eyes. Sun’s mouth hung open. Mithra slowly smiled. Vedas looked at him with an expression somewhere between surprise and pride.

Arthur looked at his glowing arm, blinked, then chuckled. "Well now." He looked at the massive hole he’d just created. "I really do like this."

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