God's Tree-Chapter 203: The First Flame

The storms never stopped.

Even after decades, the sky above the second world remained cracked with lightning and bruised with perpetual dusk. The soil was bitter, the trees leafless and gnarled. Hope did not grow here—not easily.

But change had begun.

Not from speeches.

Not from symbols.

From presence.

Argolaith remained.

He lived among the people—quiet, patient, tireless. He built homes from shattered stone. Taught sheltering techniques using bent metal and forgotten runes. He healed wounds even when they were given by the ones he helped.

He never raised his voice.

Never punished.

Never demanded.

And slowly, the people began to watch.

They didn't trust.

But they noticed.

One evening, as storms crackled faintly over the cliffs, a child stood outside Argolaith's rebuilt shelter. Her face was smeared with ash. Her clothes hung in ragged strips. She didn't speak.

Argolaith stepped outside and knelt, holding out a bundle of dried roots and spiced water. "Hungry?"

She stared. Then grabbed it—faster than he expected—and vanished into the ruins.

The next night, she returned. This time, she brought another child.

Three nights later, an elder followed them.

No one spoke.

But no one left hungry.

The first shift didn't come in light.

It came in fire.

Not the fire he built to warm them.

But the fire that flickered between people.

It happened during a hunt. A young man named Drekor was ambushed by a beast with shadowglass talons. He screamed. His hunting party—once tribal rivals—ran.

All but one.

Taveh.

She was the youngest. The smallest. No armor, no training.

She returned for him.

Fought off the beast with nothing but a jagged spear and a broken arm. Dragged Drekor's unconscious body through sludge and ash. She didn't do it because he was kin.

She did it because she remembered Argolaith.

How he never ran.

Never asked why.

Only helped.

When they returned, the people stared.

Not at Taveh's wounds.

At her choice.

And something broke.

Not in pain.

In silence.

For the first time, the tribes talked across the fire.

Not about enemies.

Not about survival.

About what she had done.

Argolaith said nothing.

He just listened.

The next morning, one of the elders placed a stone at his feet. A blackstone shard carved with a single word:

Thank you.

The first written message of peace in that world in hundreds of years.

He picked it up.

And smiled.

It begins.

Far above, in the void, the Heartroot pulsed slowly.

It felt the shift—not in power, but in spirit.

The second world had begun to heal itself.

Because someone had stayed.

Endured.

Taught.l

The second world had changed.

It had taken one hundred and eighty-two years, but the air no longer smelled only of ash. The storms still rolled across the sky—but they no longer screamed. Now, they whispered like old memories. And beneath their veil, cities of stone and glass had risen from the ruins, carved by hands that once only knew how to tear down.

The tribes had become clans.

The clans had become communities.

And the people had become more than survivors.

They had become each other's protectors.

On the morning of Argolaith's departure, he stood at the edge of the highest plateau, where once nothing had grown but now small silver-blossomed trees swayed in gentle wind.

Hundreds stood below him—young and old, wounded and whole, gathered in the light of a new dawn.

None tried to stop him.

They had known this day would come.

Taveh stepped forward—the same girl who had once saved Drekor, now grown into a leader of her own. She held something in her hands: a blade carved from voidstone, engraved with symbols from every tribe.

She placed it at his feet and said:

"You gave us more than survival."

"You gave us the reason to want it."

Argolaith picked up the blade. It was light, sharp, elegant.

He bowed to her—not as a teacher to a student, but as a man to an equal.

"Protect each other," he said softly. "That's all the world really asks."

And then the light came.

The Heartroot's call.

The next world descending like a falling star.

Without another word, Argolaith turned—

And stepped into the light.

The third world was strange.

Lush. Overgrown. Wild in color and scent. Giant violet trees stretched toward a copper-tinted sky. Rivers shimmered with magic, and the air hummed faintly with ancient spells.

And the people?

They were not human.

They were elves—tall, graceful, eyes glowing faintly with arcane energy. They moved like whispers through the trees, dressed in robes of living thread and ornamented with crystalline talismans.

At first, Argolaith was intrigued.

Until he realized something startling.

They were… helpless.

Brilliant in theory. Powerfully attuned to magic. They could bend flame, wind, and illusion with ease.

But they could not build a house.

Could not hunt food without enchanted bows.

Could not clean wounds without healing glyphs.

Could not plant crops without the sunstone's light.

Their lives depended on magic.

And when spells failed—when storms knocked out their sky-runewards or their forest spirits vanished—they panicked.

Entire villages collapsed from a single failed chant.

They had forgotten how to live without power.

Argolaith sighed.

"Alright," he muttered, rolling up his sleeves. "Let's start from the beginning."

He began in the quiet corners.

Taught one elven child how to boil water over firewood instead of conjuring flame.

Taught another how to make soap from lye and flower oils.

Showed elders how to till the earth by hand—how to feel the soil, not just enchant it.

Showed warriors how to string and repair their own bows, not summon replacements from crystal caches.

Some resisted.

Others laughed.

But more than a few listened.

Because when a magic storm swept through their sacred grove and not one spell could stop it—only the trenches and barriers built by Argolaith's hands remained standing.

After that, even the elders began to watch more closely.

It was not an easy world.

Not violent, like the second.

But proud.

Delicate.

Beautiful—but brittle.

And Argolaith, patient as ever, would teach them to be more than a vessel for spells and ancient light.

He would teach them to endure.

Just as he had.

And far above them all, the Heartroot pulsed.

Two worlds changed.