As Knight journeyed deeper toward the heart of the forest, he noticed the sunlight filtering through the canopy begin to thin. It was as if the towering trees were conspiring to blockade the sky. The air grew heavy and noticeably colder than at the forest's edge. His horse let out a low, uneasy grumble but continued forward under the urge of the reins.
Before long, he reached the center and discovered the ruins of something ancient.
'What is this place...?' Knight guided his horse closer to the wreckage.
The ruins appeared to have once been a church. Judging by the weathered stone, it had likely been a pure, brilliant white, but now it was a hollowed shell. Mounds of stone lay scattered in heaps, while moss and vines coiled tightly around the pillars as if nature were slowly reclaiming the structure. It looked like a difficult place to even set up a camp.
"A ruined church? Why is there a church in the middle of a forest like this?" Knight rode through a crumbling archway that still managed to stand, stepping over debris until he reached what must have been the central prayer hall.
Inside the hall, though the roof had almost entirely collapsed, dim shafts of light pierced through the foliage. They caught the dust motes dancing in the air, making them shimmer like tiny flakes of gold. The silence here was dense, almost tangible. There were no sounds of birds or insects, as if every living thing knew better than to approach this place.
Towering before Knight was a statue. It was so badly damaged that only the torso and legs remained. The missing pieces weren't even on the ground nearby; it was as if they had been intentionally erased from existence rather than simply eroding over time.
'Strange...' Knight dismounted and tethered his horse near the base of the statue. He began to scout for information. Since this entire world was a trial created for him, everything here had to have a purpose.
As he examined the crumbling walls, he noticed patterns resembling the golden runes that appeared on his skin whenever a Fragment merged with his body. He reached out to touch them. A warmth radiated through his fingertips, as if the broken stones still harbored a latent energy.
That was somewhat expected. What was more surprising, however, was a large mural painted on the wall directly behind the giant statue. The image remained hauntingly vivid despite the decay surrounding it.
It depicted a being known as an Archangel from the religions of the real world. It made no sense; these 'Boxes' were supposed to be entities from another dimension, falling through rifts created by the Towers.
"What does this mean? How is a Christian Archangel in a place like this?" Knight stared at the image. He wondered which angel it was. It possessed a single pair of wings spread so wide they nearly reached the ends of the wall. In its hands, it held a pair of scales, one side containing a flame, the other a flower. However, the face had been violently gouged out, the stone scarred by deep gashes. Having never been religious, Knight didn't recognize the figure.
He took a step back to take in the whole view and noticed a detail he had missed: surrounding the angel were dense rows of tiny characters. Some were identical to the runes on his skin, but others were far more complex, arranged like sentences or formulas.
'I really want to know what this says...'
THUD!
The silence of the ruins was shattered by the heavy strike of an old oak staff against the cracked stone floor. Knight flinched, his combat-honed instincts kicking in. He leaped back, his left hand automatically gripping the hilt of the greatsword on his back while his eyes scanned for the source of the sound.
[Eye of Judgment: Active!]
Knight's golden eyes widened, the black rings within spinning to analyze the threat. But what he saw chilled him to the bone. Normally, his Eye saw "Red Threads" of fatality protruding from all living things, humans, beasts, or even possessed objects. But right now... his vision was blank.
Completely empty.
An old man in a black hooded robe stood calmly amidst the swirling dust. There were no red threads on his body. No killing intent. Not even a heartbeat or the thermal heat a human body should emit. It was as if the figure wasn't a "living thing" at all, but a void wearing the shape of a man.
Or perhaps... something far beyond.
"Child of Prophecy..." A raspy voice resonated. It didn't come from the old man's mouth; it echoed directly inside Knight's head, as if someone familiar with the very structure of his mind was speaking from within.
"Leave this forest... Beyond these woods, there are people waiting for you..." The old man spoke, pointing his staff toward the north, behind the broken statue. The direction he pointed was pitch black, yet Knight felt a strange pull, like a compass needle drawn to a magnet.
Knight didn't lower his guard. His hand on the sword hilt was slick with sweat. The fact that the Eye of Judgment saw nothing was terrifying; it meant this entity existed outside the boundaries of "life" and "death" as he knew them. What he couldn't analyze, he couldn't fight.
Yet, he felt no danger, which was equally unsettling.
"Who are you? And how did you know I was coming?" Knight asked warily, his voice harsh. He kept a distance of three paces close enough to talk, far enough to react. "And 'people waiting'... what does that mean? Isn't this world just a trial? There shouldn't be characters who know the truth about the world..."
The old man shifted slightly, the sound of his robe rustling against the stone. He raised his staff toward the defaced mural of the angel.
"This world is a trial, that is true... but it is a 'truth' woven from the fragments of the universe's memory," the old man said, his voice tinged with a weary sadness. "The angel you see... is Uriel, the holder of the scales of justice and the flame of purification. But in this broken world, her name is forgotten, and her face erased from history."
Knight frowned deeply. "Uriel? Scales? What does that have to do with the golden runes on me?"
The old man walked toward the leg remnants of the statue. As his staff touched the floor, the golden runes on the walls began to glow, syncing with the patterns on Knight's skin. A surge of heat raced through Knight's veins, forcing him to grit his teeth against the pain. He gripped his sword tighter, but didn't draw it.
"The runes on your body..." The old man stopped and looked up. For the first time, Knight saw his face clearly; it was lined with the wrinkles of ages, and his eyes were a milky, sightless white, yet they seemed to look right through him. "...they were not created for you by the 'Box.' They are something you possessed long before the Box ever chose you."
A heavy silence descended over the ruins.
"What do you mean I had them before the Box chose me?" Knight stepped back from the old man, his hand white-knuckled on his sword. "I was just a worthless kid from the slums."
Knight stared through his Eye of Judgment, but still, he could read nothing.
"Do you not find it strange? That on the very day you turned sixteen, all of this began to unfold?" The old man reached out and gently touched the statue.
A blinding golden light erupted from the statue, forcing Knight to shield his eyes. When he opened them again, everything was gone. The ruined church, the mural, and the old man had vanished. He was standing on flat, empty ground surrounded by ordinary forest. There wasn't a single trace that the church had ever existed.
'What happened?! Where did that old man go? Where's the church?' Knight spun around, but found only trees and clearing.
"... No use overthinking it. So, north? People are waiting?" Knight recalled the old man's words. He walked to his horse, which was still there, though the rope that had been tied to the statue's base was now loose.
"This trial is getting way too big," Knight grumbled. He climbed into the saddle, took the reins, and headed north.