Night fell upon the world. The mountains vanished into darkness, and the scattered people who had made the Great Wilderness seem lively by day were nowhere to be seen.
All that remained were the roars of fierce beasts and slaughter at its most primal and bloody.
Strange cries rose and fell in the dark. Now and then, a terrifyingly vast shadow swept across the mountains and soared into the sky.
This was the Great Wilderness at night: forbidden ground for ordinary living beings, a domain belonging to Primordial Remnant Species and peerless powerhouses.
Yet in one corner of the Great Wilderness, amid a mountain range, a point of light shone.
Against the darkness that blanketed the earth and swallowed the world, that light was little more than a candle flame.
But up close, its source was no fire. It was a Willow Tree.
No, calling it a tree was hardly fitting anymore.
Only half of the Willow Tree remained. Its trunk was over ten meters across, yet charred black from end to end, like a lump of charcoal.
Apart from that half-trunk, the Willow Tree had only one willow branch left.
That branch was healthy, though—fresh and green, almost unnaturally so, in stark contrast to the dead, blackened trunk.
For the branch glowed. That candlelike light came from it.
Its radiance covered the village behind it, sheltering the ancient, rustic-looking settlement and, at its roots...
A person.
Such a conspicuous point of light in the Great Wilderness at night was bound to draw attention. The Willow Tree would naturally attract the notice of certain beings.
A great bird, for instance, whose wings blotted out the sky and raised gales with every beat.
Or a mountain-tall creature that walked upright like a human, with blood-red eyes and a stench of gore