Root

Biodata

Background / History

The designation “Root” emerges from memories connected to the Gray Covenant. Leike reports that its members were feeding something called the Root and were headed for the Pipe Network Layer, toward the Copper Wall. Lu Yuan notes that the Gray Covenant uses “Root” for the place behind that wall, while the memories themselves appear deliberately scrubbed except for this clue 322.

Lu Yuan later identifies two possibilities: the Person on the Wall may be attempting to release whatever lies behind the Copper Wall, or a disturbance beneath the Abyss may be independently weakening the larger seal. In either case, the Copper Wall’s erosion is part of the same crisis. A severed limb intercepted from the Gray Covenant was apparently intended as an offering for the Root 329.

The Gray Covenant's later rituals indicate that its activities also involve Seeds, parasitized humans, and Wooden Men. A Wooden Man formed after a person consumed dark green liquid can establish a connection to an immense otherworld composed entirely of intertwined roots and trees. The Forest Seed was subsequently confirmed to have been created by the Gray Covenant and possesses the capacity to consume copper, making its relationship to the Root designation a significant but unproven possibility 333 337 403.

In the vision obtained from the Wooden Man, the otherworld had neither visible soil nor stone: intertwined roots formed its ground, while trunks and canopy enclosed it overhead. An enormous unidentified presence moved within the forest, and the trees made way for it. Gray-White Text described the Wooden Man's transformation as contamination involving special knowledge and a connection to an unspecified existence, but did not identify that existence as the Root 337.

The Seed discovered within the Skull at the Tower of Erudition had taken root in and fed upon the remains of the Person on the Wall. Its later root system parasitized the Great Ascendant and contaminated the Person on the Wall's shell, establishing a direct link between the Seed-derived root contamination and the latter entity without establishing that either was the Root itself 348 351 353.

Later underground investigations revealed woody roots infiltrating the gears of a Born and consuming its metal components. Contact with those roots also left corrosion pits on the Great Ascendant's alloy wrist. Forest Seed contamination attacked the interconnected Bronze Pillar sealing network, with the Serpentine Chimera's roots penetrating the pillars and severing their Inscriptions. These incidents demonstrate the root contamination's role in weakening Bronze City's containment, rather than independently establishing the identity of the Root 362 364 369.

Behind the Copper Wall, Selina's group discovered a massive golden crown with seven eyes sealed within the copper structure. Lu Yuan later witnessed a vision in which a golden crown was entrusted to a figure and sealed inside a Copper Wall. When the seal failed, the Seven-Eyed Crown emerged from the Pipe Network Layer; soon afterward, the Copper Wall disappeared altogether, leaving an abyss 427 433 439 443.

Klaus subsequently established that Selina could mobilize the Eerie Inscriptions behind the Copper Wall, suggesting that she possessed something resembling a Key. The Person on the Wall openly acknowledged ordering her to trigger the seal, but also stated that it had halted her actions. Separately, Klaus discovered conscious Flesh at the bottom of the Abyss, with the Bronze Pillars driven into and merged with it. These discoveries complicated the earlier suspicion that the Person on the Wall simply intended to release the Root 438.

During the crisis, the Person on the Wall described an original future in which Flesh and plants consumed Bronze City and a plant-ruled world opened. According to it, Lu Yuan's intervention altered that outcome: Gray Covenant members who should have survived had died, and the plant-world had not opened as originally expected. This account connects the Covenant's activities to the planned emergence of the forest-world, without explicitly equating that world with the Root 463.

The Crown of Ten Thousand Kings later fused with the Starry Sky Flesh and became a newborn, half-human, half-tree Taboo. Its transformation exposed green roots and summoned an external forest-world whose individual roots dwarfed Bronze Pillars. The roots descending from this world were explicitly of the same kind as those within the newborn Taboo, identifying the forest as the apparent source of the root power manifesting in Bronze City. The Sea of Knowledge Rift ultimately swallowed the newborn Taboo and the partially emerging verdant world; afterward, the former seal was said to be empty except for residual Flesh no longer empowered as a Taboo. This does not conclusively establish whether the Root was the Crown, the forest-world's source, or merely the sealed region connecting them 479 494 497 500.

The final transformation occurred as the newborn Taboo attempted to escape the competing claims of the City of Chains and the Person on the Wall. It sacrificed its Flesh to strengthen the roots within itself and summon the forest-world, whose descending roots then began replacing or absorbing it. The Taboo shattered the Crown of Ten Thousand Kings, its source of Authority, and incorporated the fragments into a body composed entirely of branches before being swallowed by the Sea of Knowledge 491 495 496 497.

In the aftermath, the remaining Flesh retreated underground and became a recyclable resource, while Bronze City began rebuilding. Oden later emphasized that neither the Crown nor the Person on the Wall had been at full strength during Lu Yuan's encounter with them. Much later, an unexplained increase in Forbidden Studies experience led Lu Yuan to suspect that the Sea of Knowledge was continuing to digest the Taboo and world it had swallowed; this remained his interpretation rather than confirmation of the Root's fate 504 530 608.

Connection to Bronze City

• Copper Wall — The Root is associated with the area behind the wall; its deterioration is linked to the ongoing failure of Bronze City's containment structure. The wall's eventual disappearance exposed a massive Abyss and ended the known physical boundary of the sealed area. Following the Taboo conflict, the seal was reported to be empty apart from weakened residual Flesh 322 329 443 500.
• Gray Covenant — The organization refers to the target behind the Copper Wall as the Root and appears to have conducted feeding operations for it. Its Seed rituals, Wooden Men, and root-based parasitism further connect the Covenant to forest-like contamination 322 329 333 337.
• Person on the Wall — Lu Yuan initially suspects the Person on the Wall seeks to release whatever is behind the Copper Wall. However, the Person later orders Selina's group to withdraw from the Seven-Eyed Crown and subsequently attempts to claim the Crown during the battle for it, leaving its intentions concerning the Root unclear. The Forest Seed also parasitized the Person on the Wall's remains before Lu Yuan removed it 329 353 427 491. It later confirmed that it had ordered Selina to trigger the seal but had stopped the operation, and attributed the failure of an originally anticipated plant-world opening to Lu Yuan's interference 438 463.
• Tower of Erudition — The Tower's Inscription network connects to the Bronze Sin pillars and extends into Bronze City's sealing Root. When black substance infiltrates that network, the Guardian warns that the Root of the seal has suffered a mishap 389.
• Forest Seed — The Gray Covenant-created Forest Seed produces root-based contamination, parasitizes hosts, and can consume copper. It also grew by consuming the remains of the Person on the Wall. Its connection to the Root is strongly suggested by the Covenant's shared methods but has not been directly confirmed 337 348 403. Its roots can infiltrate mechanical bodies, consume their metal components, and damage the Inscriptions maintaining the Bronze Pillar sealing network 362 364 369.
• Crown of Ten Thousand Kings — A massive Seven-Eyed Crown was sealed behind the Copper Wall before emerging during the seal's collapse. It later merged with Flesh and forest-derived power into a newborn Taboo, though the narrative has not explicitly identified it as the Root 427 439 479 494. The newborn Taboo eventually shattered the Crown and absorbed its fragments into its branch-like body 496 497.
• Forest World — The newborn Taboo's cries opened a rift to a vast world of green roots, apparently the source of the root power manifesting in Bronze City. This world was partially drawn into the Sea of Knowledge Rift along with the newborn Taboo 337 494 497. Its roots initially obstructed the Sea of Knowledge's descending torrent and later began absorbing or replacing the newborn Taboo 494 495.
• Starry Sky Flesh — Conscious Flesh at the Abyss's base had merged with the Bronze Pillars. During the city's collapse, Flesh and plant roots became extensively intertwined; the newborn Taboo later used that Flesh as nourishment for its root-based transformation 438 460 491 497.
• Sea of Knowledge — Lu Yuan's Rift swallowed the transformed newborn Taboo and the partially emerging forest-world. Subsequent Forbidden Studies experience gains prompted him to consider whether their digestion was still ongoing, although no direct identification of the Root accompanied this development 497 608.

Trivia

• The available evidence does not establish whether “Root” is a specific being, a sealed location, an external root-world, or a designation encompassing more than one of these.
• The Seven-Eyed Crown sealed behind the Copper Wall is closely connected to the broader crisis, but it has never been directly named the Root 427 439.
• The Gray Covenant's surviving memories concerning the Root appear unusually sparse, leading Lu Yuan to suspect they were prepared for others to find 322.
• The root source revealed through the Forest Seed crisis possessed roots as thick as Bronze Pillars, vastly exceeding the roots previously encountered beneath Bronze City 494.
• Although the external forest is described as the apparent source of Bronze City's root power, the narrative has not confirmed that the Gray Covenant's term “Root” specifically refers to that world 494 497.
• The enormous presence seen moving within the Wooden Man's forest vision remains unidentified; the passage does not name it the Root 337.
• The Crown is described as the root of the newborn Taboo's Authority, but this description does not itself establish that it is the Gray Covenant's named Root 496.