The demon spirit in another dimension

The North, Flint's Finger Castle, council hall, an unknown space.

"Ha... cough, cough... huff, huff..."

Within a distorted space, Eddard, who had nearly fallen "asleep," suddenly "woke" without warning. Or rather, at that moment, there was no longer any distinction between sleeping and waking, because that sense of powerlessness and confusion had already warped some of his perceptions.

Eddard had indeed lost consciousness, but before using the Golden Eye, he had been memorizing the things in the hall and the scene around him, working hard to impress upon his mind the fact that he was still awake.

So, as Eddard was about to slip into unconsciousness, the impression he had left at the outset took effect. His perception was also desperately stimulating his brain, making him realize that he was losing consciousness. Perhaps it was because his power had grown stronger, or perhaps there was some other reason. In any case, Eddard had now recovered completely.

This was an inexplicably eerie space, frighteningly real. All five senses were exceptionally clear here. Eddard could even feel his heart still beating. Had his perception not been unusually keen, he would never have believed he was still inside the castle.

However, the emergence of his five senses brought one benefit: Eddard had even greater control over his body. He was not quite sure whether this current body was made of perceptive power or some other force.

But as Eddard began breathing and coughing, that sense of powerlessness and of sinking into a mire began to peel away from his body, little by little. At this point, he could rely only on his perception, and he was beginning to regret his actions. He felt he should not have rashly made contact with these unknown beings.

But that was life. If he never tried, how would he know whether he might reach an entirely different world?

So Eddard gathered his somewhat scattered thoughts and shifted all his perception to the space between his brows. Under its stimulation, the eye there began to burn.

Boom...

Stimulated by his perceptive power, a terrifying explosion of energy erupted right before Eddard. The golden radiance was like a nuclear bomb exploding, its world-destroying force illuminating the distorted space.

"Awooo..."

As the golden light appeared, a monster with a twisted face also entered Eddard's perception. It was an enormous creature composed of countless masses of slime and disgusting organs. It surrounded Eddard from every direction, leaving him like an ant trapped in a human palm.

Fortunately, Eddard seemed to be an "ant" that possessed "superpowered formic acid." The immense golden radiance forcibly carved out an area within the monster's body.

The energy emanating from Eddard left the twisted, disgusting monster helpless. Then the light bursting from the Golden Eye spread outward like liquid, and the monster could not stop Eddard at all. On the contrary, he even seemed a little afraid.

"Urgh... blegh..."

After getting a clear look at those disgusting, twisted organs, Eddard nearly vomited. That indescribable revulsion deeply assaulted his perception, making him extremely uncomfortable. When he thought of where that earlier sense of powerlessness and weightlessness had come from, he felt even more disgusted. In the end, that disgust turned into boundless rage.

"Die! Aah..."

At the thought that he had nearly become part of this monster, the fury in Eddard's heart erupted like a volcano. Bolstered by that emotion, his body seemed to turn into a mass of intensely scorching flame.

Then, drawn by some unknown call, Eddard walked toward the place calling to him.

At this point, Eddard could not move instantaneously as he had before. He could only advance toward his destination one step at a time. "Aaaah... ah... ooh... ooh..."

Just then, a pale green rhythm suddenly appeared within Eddard's perception. Beneath that dreamlike rhythm, the anger in his heart seemed to be soothed.

After coming into contact with this rhythm, Eddard's perception also began moving involuntarily toward its source. It was an exceptionally gentle, reassuring rhythm that filled him with strength.

After passing through mass after mass of disgusting organs, Eddard saw the being emitting that strange rhythm. From a distance, it seemed to be a curious existence composed of beautiful souls and pale green energy.

But as Eddard approached, its outline gradually grew clear. It was an enormous heart tree. Its white trunk and blood-colored leaves stood out starkly in this space. A pale green rhythm echoed among its branches, composed of sound and energy, seemingly possessing a powerful ability to soothe emotions.

Yet beneath this beautiful scene lay an exceptionally eerie and terrifying sight. Countless twisted organs and faces wailed, cursed, and suffered without cease as gray-black roots strangled them. Those sounds, mingled from venomous resentment and curses, were utterly horrifying.

This strange scene of beautiful rhythms and terrifying curses made Eddard extremely uncomfortable, because it kept giving him the feeling that he had escaped the wolf's den only to enter the tiger's lair.

"Roar..."

Sensing Eddard's movements, the terrifying monster around him seemed to react as well. It began squeezing its body inward once more, as though trying to stop his advance. But upon touching the golden light emanating from him, it quickly retreated with a mournful cry.

As Eddard gradually approached, the strange rhythm also began to change. It conveyed a desire to communicate, but within those emotions were traces of fear.

"Hiss..."

After Eddard landed, a succession of snake-like hisses and roars entered his perception directly. Though the warning in the rhythm was unmistakable, Eddard was unafraid, because the strange sensation between his brows told him that the power he had just used was connected to this eerie heart tree.

That feeling of moving from death toward life, that feeling of existing between life and death, was reflected clearly in Eddard's perception. This power itself was very similar to the heart tree's characteristics.

Heart trees were weirwoods with human faces carved into them. As a tree unique to Westeros, this special species would never die unless damaged by humans, and could even keep growing indefinitely. In some castles, heart trees were even taller and grander than the castles themselves.

In House Blackwood's ancestral castle in the Riverlands, there was just such an enormous heart tree. Rumor held that it had lived for over a thousand years. Had House Blackwood's sworn enemies, House Bracken, not later sabotaged and poisoned it, it could probably have grown even larger.

This enormous heart tree likewise bore an eerie, terrifying human face. As Eddard approached step by step, its presence grew frightening, and its rhythm became somewhat murderous.

Boom...

Just then, a terrifying force suddenly assailed Eddard's perception. It was dreadful, like a shark devouring a small fish. In that instant, Eddard's perception was swallowed by that powerful presence.

But this heart tree had underestimated Eddard's strength. Just as that terrifying presence was engulfing his body, an even greater power erupted from him. Blood-red energy like fire, black energy as dark as ink, and finally the terrifying might around Eddard that resembled golden sunlight-the three powers erupted simultaneously, directly dispersing the force unleashed by the heart tree.

Bolstered by these three powers, Eddard began pressing toward the heart tree one step at a time. The tree seemed suppressed by his presence, and its strange rhythm and pale green energy dissipated little by little beneath his might.

"Hiss..."

As Eddard approached, that low warning cry sounded again. But within his perception, it no longer seemed as powerful as it had at first. Eddard paid it no heed at all. He simply walked up to the heart tree and reached out to touch its terrifying human face.

For some reason, when Eddard touched the face, he seemed to feel the heart tree wailing. Immediately afterward, blood-red sap flowed from its eye sockets, as though it were weeping blood.

There was more and more sap, and before long it flowed like a stream. Then, as though it had suddenly come alive, the blood-red sap began wrapping around Eddard under the guidance of some strange energy, seemingly preparing to devour him.

Boom...

Just then, the eye between Eddard's brows erupted with strange light once more. After a dazzling distortion, his body changed again, while the blood-red sap seemed to encounter a whirlpool and began converging on the space between his brows.

As time passed, only Eddard and the heart tree seemed to remain in this area. The disgusting, twisted organs around them also seemed to have vanished without a trace. As the blood-red sap disappeared, that wondrous rhythm appeared within Eddard's perception once more.

"M-Master, you... you are..."

Just as Eddard was feeling puzzled, fragments of language, primarily in the Common Tongue, began entering his perception bit by bit. After he had received all those fragments, he understood the other party's meaning and origins.

In fact, in a certain sense, heart trees were kin to the Children of the Forest. Whenever a heart tree grew to maturity, it meant that a Child of the Forest had received new life. During the Dawn Age, the Children of the Forest had been a powerful race. Because they possessed a form of life that was almost immortal, they retained undying, indestructible souls even after death.

This state seemed to be a gift bestowed upon the Children of the Forest by those indescribable gods. But to Eddard, it seemed more like a curse, because once freed from the restraints of their bodies, the Children's imperishable souls would begin wandering this world.

Unable to sing the praises of nature as they once had, evil and suffering would begin gathering within their bodies. Then the souls of these beautiful creatures would become twisted and corrupted, and begin affecting the workings of this world.

In the end, only with the help of the Greenseers could those untainted souls be housed in heart trees and ravens, continuing to exist in another form. But this could only preserve souls with the gift of skinchanging. Those without that gift could only become monsters.

The fantastical space Eddard now occupied was actually the location of Sea Dragon Point. Everything he had perceived since entering this space was, in fact, the world in its truest form, or rather, another manifestation of this world.

And now, this heart tree had become Eddard's possession entirely. The three powerful forces within him had directly reshaped the powerful collective of souls within the tree. From the moment it came into contact with him, this once immensely powerful being had been doomed to defeat and destruction.

After gaining complete control of this heart tree, Eddard also acquired many methods of manipulating soul power. If the disgusting beings around him were sewage, then this heart tree was a sewage processor, and the uncorrupted souls of the Children of the Forest were what operated it.

Although Eddard had directly acquired immensely powerful soul resources and the methods for using them, the greatest problem now lay before him: how he was to use and exploit those soul resources.

Through some of the heart tree's feedback, Eddard learned that these twisted, corrupted souls were extremely difficult to convert. Put another way, there was too much sewage, the machine was too small, and the conversion rate was low.

Moreover, by reasoning through certain pieces of knowledge, Eddard had gradually begun to sense something unusual. Beings such as the Others and dragons were certainly not as simple as they appeared on the surface.

It was apparent that, owing to interference from certain mysterious beings, this world had begun advancing toward an unpredictable future. Whether beings like the Others were tools those unknown entities used to harvest life or the bitter fruit of corrupted souls, Eddard could not make sense of it for the moment.

Unfortunately, the souls that had governed the heart tree had already vanished completely, so those distant memories and secrets would have to wait for gradual exploration in the future. And now, the questions facing Eddard were only growing more numerous.

Sea Dragon Point had been the main battlefield between the First Men and the Children of the Forest during the Dawn Age, which was why there were so many twisted souls here. But the greatest problem now was how to handle them. If a moment of carelessness produced some terrifying creature like the Others, Eddard would be left wanting to cry but unable to shed a tear.

"Wait, create... the Others..."

As certain words surfaced, a strange idea suddenly appeared in Eddard's mind. And so, after settling on certain plans, he turned his gaze toward the heart tree emitting that strange rhythm.