Resurrection

A week had passed since the sea monster's attack.

The tribe was still steeped in an atmosphere of fear.

The unknown, colossal creature lurking beneath the surface had left everyone utterly shaken.

If a giant crab of that size could actually climb onto the island, what kind of disaster would it bring to the tribe?

At the same time, what was hard for people to accept was that the boat they had painstakingly built never even had a chance to be truly used before the monster mercilessly shattered it.

Shattered along with it were people's boundless fantasies about the sea.

The craftsmen who had worked on the boat were hit especially hard.

Years of effort destroyed in an instant—their sense of defeat was far greater than anyone else's.

Yet amid this fear and frustration, people still felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

Because they had a god.

It was thanks to that divine protection that the chieftain's child, the tribe's hope, had survived.

Those who had been on the shore at the time excitedly exhausted every word they could to describe the scene to every tribesman.

"The world seemed to split in two—one half still moving, the other frozen still."

"If I could witness such a great Divine Miracle again with my own eyes, even if I died right after seeing it, I would be willing."

The storyteller spoke with such longing to everyone.

This kind of magnificent miracle left even those who only heard about it or saw drawings of it utterly awestruck, the image lingering long in their minds.

The devout craftsmen who had witnessed the miracle all took up chisels, trying to carve that sacred moment into stone.

People also turned the miracle into a poem, sung during sacrificial ceremonies.

And so, a new myth was born.

Yet, just as the tribe was shaken by the events at sea...

Not long after, a major incident also occurred in the forest.

Someone had discovered a strangely shaped Stone Flower in the woods.

This bizarre plant grew in front of an ancient tree.

Its outer black petals had a hardness like rock, with several cracks visible on the tough surface, and inside those cracks was a blue substance resembling pollen.

In the gloomy forest, it glowed with a faint light like a firefly.

No one dared to approach this strange plant carelessly.

Ever since the early days of clearing the land, people had learned many lessons from tribesmen who died in the mountains—

The more vivid and unusual a plant, the more potent its poison often was.

If someone recklessly got close, even brushing against a bit of pollen could mean death by poisoning.

While everyone was discussing how to deal with this Stone Flower...

Richie, leaning on his cane, arrived with his guard.

The two children followed behind him.

Ever since that disaster, Richie had kept the children by his side at all times.

Perhaps the aging Richie, afraid of losing his children like he had lost his wife, feared they might meet with another misfortune.

Only by keeping them close could he find a shred of peace.

"That is a plant created by the gods."

The crowd in the forest fell silent and turned to look.

The child who spoke was Richie's eldest son, Ned.

Ned was not as lively as Boer.

He rarely spoke to others on his own, and his personality was much more reserved.

He often amused himself by playing with insects, or would stand staring blankly at the forest scenery, as if lost in a daze.

Richie leaned on his cane, letting his child come closer, then bent down:

"Why do you say that?"

Ned hesitated for a moment, but remained silent.

He didn't know how to put into words the strange feeling the flower gave him.

Richie simply looked at his often-silent child, a complex emotion flickering in his eyes.

Ned had the same white hair as his mother.

He knew that Ned was very much like her.

That mysterious affinity for nature.

The child often spent time in the forest with the birds, beasts, and insects, and was even quicker than the adults at distinguishing every plant and tree.

As if he were born understanding every single thing in nature, able to comprehend the language of the natural world itself.

"Have the guards protect this flower."

Richie did not dismiss his child's words as a joke.

He ordered the tribe to seal off this area.

Leaving only the guards to carefully watch and observe this Stone Flower of extremely peculiar form.

This time, with prior experience cultivating the Return Fruit Tree, the guards were much smarter.

They did not take the initiative to again irrigate this Stone Flower with large amounts of fresh water.

Instead, they simply stood guard with bows and arrows, driving away other animals from the forest to prevent them from accidentally damaging the Stone Flower.

Time passed once more.

The Stone Flower's size gradually grew larger.

It had already matured into a giant plant.

At the center of its enormous petals, a crystalline, jade-like ovule could faintly be seen hidden within, shimmering with light.

At the base of the receptacle, countless strange, pale blue-green filaments resembling slender mycelia spread outward.

Those filaments were hard to spot without close inspection, finer than a strand of hair.

Moreover, they seemed to twitch slightly, like tiny earthworms.

Soon, the entire forest appeared tinged with a layer of blue.

Whether trees, grass, or stones, everything seemed stained with that peculiar blue hue.

Such a strange sight convinced the people that this plant was a flower bestowed by the gods.

As the Stone Flower grew.

Ned was always curiously nearby, watching this miraculous plant imbue everything in the forest with its wondrous color.

As if deeply drawn to it.

The guards did not stop him.

As the chieftain's child, Ned had the privilege to approach this place.

Ned often slept on the grass near the Stone Flower.

For some reason, he always felt an indescribable sense of peace.

One day.

After waking up, Ned found something lying beside him.

It was a furry brown rat.

How did this crop-ruining brown rat end up here?

Ned wondered.

The brown rat was an animal that loved to ravage the Tree Cassava planted on this island.

In years past, the brown rat population had noticeably declined for a time.

But recently, they seemed to have increased again.

These creatures, fond of hiding in burrows, were hard to hunt.

Otherwise, the islanders would have long turned the lot of them into roasted meat.

However, the brown rat lying there quietly had its hind legs already rotted.

It was clearly dead.

Ned stood up, preparing to pick up the brown rat's corpse.

Just then.

A strange scene unfolded.

That already decayed brown rat suddenly jerked upright in a spasm.

It propped itself up on its rotting limbs in an eerily twisted posture.

Under Ned's stunned gaze, it limped and hobbled into the underbrush.

Ned told his father about this.

Richie quickly led the elders to the area.

More and more people also witnessed the bizarre scene unfolding in the forest.

Some decaying small animals, after coming into contact with the blue filaments floating on the ground or in the air, began to revive, wandering slowly near the Stone Flower in strange, stiff movements.

On the surface of these dead creatures, the barely visible, hair-like, writhing pale blue filaments clung.

These filaments seemed to be the medium that allowed the rotting creatures to move again.

The astonished people finally grasped something.

This God-Given Flower could actually make these dead creatures "come back to life."

Or rather, it was Parasitism.

Under the parasitic spread of the flower's mycelium.

The dead things would start moving.

As if they had truly come alive.

That day.

Countless tribespeople crowded outside the forest, kneeling devoutly before the Stone Flower.

Even though they knew those rotting creatures might not be truly resurrected.

They still prayed piously for something.

As if doing so.

Could make the gods grant them genuine revival.