The Tree on the Plain

On the desolate plain west of Thorinburg, a plant of unprecedented scale blotted out the sky above the scorched earth. Its size surpassed human imagination—surpassed even Gawain's imagination.

Rather than a tree, it was more like a small forest centered around a main trunk and supported by countless pillar-like structures resembling aerial roots.

A thick, dark-brown tree trunk grew from a crack in the earth, its surface entwined with vines, moss, and countless flowers whose names no one knew. A canopy nearly as large as Thorinburg itself was held a hundred meters above the ground. Two-thirds of its layered green leaves covered the plain, while the remaining third had already spread over Thorinburg. Numerous pillars, each requiring two or three people to wrap their arms around, hung down from all parts of the canopy. They supported the crown in an orderly arrangement and connected it to the earth. All manner of symbiotic plants grew upon those pillars as well, lush and full of life.

Beneath the enormous "giant tree," the scorched plain west of Thorinburg had already been covered by vast stretches of flowers, grass, and shrubs. It was so full of life that no one could imagine it had once been the source of the Crystal Cluster Monster disaster, or that artillery fire and incendiaries had once reduced it to scorched earth...

Amber's cry of alarm was entirely justified, because even Gawain's eyes widened in astonishment.

"This... is a little beyond what I expected," Gawain said, blinking. "No wonder the previous reports said it was impossible to describe... Even photographs can hardly convey its scale."

"I feel like this thing is even bigger than the Tree of Origin from elven legends," Amber muttered. "And this thing grew into this... in just a few days?"

"That's what the report says,"