Chapter 135 Assault (3)

'Evolve' I commanded, my eyes stared intently at the spear as I commanded it to evolve, activating my talent.

Aoif and I, Delta and Rhea, those were the only people that I had ever dual evolved but now I was going to try it with an inanimate object. I had no expectations, as I did not have a clue whether or not it would work.

With the activation of my talent I stood there waiting, waiting for something to happen. For a screen to pop up or even just a flash of light to appear and carry me into the evolutionary plane.

I don't know for how long I stood there just staring at the spear as I hoped for it to evolve but eventually I gave up, my hand reaching for the spear intending to pick it up.

When my fingers touched my spear I lost consciousness, my eyelids drooping down without permission as darkness took me.

I woke to a void of darkness and immediately panic threatened to take me, I desperately tried anything, to open my eyes, to reinforce my body, anything that might help me get rid of the darkness that seemed ready to consume me. Nothing worked though, despite my efforts nothing changed.

I sighed, the panic that was taking over thrown to the wayside as a calmness washed over me. The fact that I had tried everything yet still failed gave a sort of calmness, if there was nothing I could do then there was nothing to panic about.

It seemed like my senses had a sick sense of humor, when I had just given up, ready to accept whatever was going to happen, something appeared in my grasp or was it always there. I didn't know which it was but I took comfort in it.

It was as if the very making of the weapon called to me, the rough wood that had been hastily woven into a shaft, the metal that had been refined by countless hands yet still paled in comparison to Delta's work. I could feel all of it

I could feel all of it, yet I could not.

A hollow laugh echoed out, or maybe it didn't, however I ignored the part of me that wanted to study the void, to understand it in favor of just laughing.

It was all a cruel joke, to deprive me of all my senses then give me something I could feel, could touch only for me to feel an even sharper sense of nothingness.

…

A flash of light, one so bright that it had succeeded in blinding me momentarily appeared in my vision. Presumingly taking me to the evolutionary realm that had been dictated by my talent.

Warm dirt filled my toes as I felt the ground beneath me, the shoes that I would normally wear gone.

In front of me was a tree, it was not special by any means, in fact there was nothing special about it.

I looked around, trying to find anything to indicate what I should be doing but found nothing. Aside from the tree and I there was nothing in this realm but grass and dirt.

My brows scrunched as I inspected it, my senses going this way and that as I tried to find some meaning in it.

With deft steps I walked towards it, my hand reaching out to touch it, to feel anything different about it.

When my hands reached the trunk I pushed my hand onto it, trying to feel something, anything.

"Wh-"

My eyes widened as I felt something happening but before I could even analyze it, or even take my hand off the tree I slumped to the ground, my body falling on the tree.

…

A seed, sent into the ground by a fierce storm, wind kicking and blowing dirt all over the place.

Buried the seed grew, blooming into a sapling, years passed as the seasons passed by and the sapling grew larger and larger. Eventually it grew so large that it could no longer be called a sapling, no, it could only be called a tree.

However this was not the end of its journey. The years passed by as the tree grew more and more, never stopping. Eventually a being stood before it and with a chop of its hand, a branch was cut from the tree. Then another and another.

The being sat by the tree, using its leaves for shelter and its branches for wood. A kinship grew between them however one day the being stopped coming to the tree, he had grown old.

When the being came for that final time, his body failing him, he laid under the shade of the tree one last time and closed his eyes. The tree wept for the first time that day, its only friend having died upon it.

…

A branch was deposited into my hand, the tree that I had slumped over was withered, its spirit had left it and in its final moments it had given its frown this branch. That sequence of events, the man who had only a tree for company and the tree who knew only the man. It was like I had lived that whole life, both of them.

I looked down to the branch that sat in my hands, then to the tree that visibly withered in the time that I had not paid attention to it.

I walked to it putting my hand to it again but this time there was no loss of sensation as it brought me on some spiritual journey, only the sharp feeling of decay.

Again I looked at the branch, the endless vitality that I felt in my hand, gently I pet it. I could feel the sense of satisfaction from it almost like it was sentient but not quite.

Carefully I put the branch onto my back, where my spear should have gone.

With one final look at the tree, the one that had accompanied me for so many years I walked on, scenery rapidly changing before me.