"No," the man said. "Everything in this forest has already been changed by the Magic Stone—not just humans and animals, but the entire forest as well. You can see the color of the forest, right? That's all because of the Magic Stone."
As time slowly passed, Carter Binda's ice began to melt as well. The scents that had gradually vanished due to the cold now slowly began to reappear.
"I've never heard that Magic Stones could corrupt a forest. Forests are plants, aren't they? How could plants be corrupted?" Belaque said.
"I don't know anything about Magic Stones, but I know this was caused by one. Those people too—after a flash of light, they all turned into trees," the man said.
As the temperature rose, the pale yellow skin on the man's body actually began to take on a liquid form, slowly dripping onto the ground.
At first, Uchiha Madara had thought it was the man's skin, but it clearly could not be skin. This man's composition was different from what he had imagined—different even from everything he knew.
"Why did you become like this?" Carter Binda asked. "They all became tree people, so why did you become like this?"
"That's only because you saw tree people," the man said. "Those who see the Magic Stone can be transformed by it into all kinds of forms. Among the many magic creatures you froze just now, there were many humans as well."
"So that's how it is," Carter Binda said. "What a pitiful group of people."
"So it's not that you're different from the people corrupted by the Magic Stone, but that many people take different forms, is that right?" Belaque asked.
"That's right. The Magic Stone truly is an evil thing," the man said, splitting his huge mouth in what