Chapter 461: Ninety-Sixth Floor, Divine Armament (2)
[Find materials. Time remaining: 3 hours 59 minutes.]
A breath of cool, crisp air filled my lungs. An enormous tree stood before me, so vast that its canopy disappeared into the sky.
A World Tree.
However, it differed completely from any I had seen before. Its sheer size defied reason. No number of buildings could compare; it was as if dozens of skyscrapers had been stacked atop one another. Branches stretched endlessly in every direction. Facing forward, all I could see was bark, stretching out until it vanished from sight.
This is the most impressive World Tree I have ever seen.
Then again, it wasn’t as if I had encountered many. Three, at most. Ryun’s love on the forty-first floor, Euros from the seventy-seventh to the seventy-ninth floors, and finally, the one I had personally planted in Seorden’s Forest. Even discounting the last, which had only just taken root, the first two combined still couldn’t compare to this one.
Even the sky was almost entirely blotted out. Despite that, the surrounding area remained bright, illuminated by countless motes of light drifting through the air like fireflies.
Hmm. It doesn’t appear to be healthy.
Despite its staggering size, the power emanating from it felt weaker than the World Trees I had seen before. Looking closely, I noticed signs of withering.
The first thing I had observed upon arriving was its cracked bark, and now that I looked closer, the rest of the trunk was no different. The entire surface was dry and fissured, as if the tree itself were losing its vitality.
Even the leaves look dull.
They weren’t completely brittle, but they lacked vigor. It was a subtle lifelessness that felt off. It was strange, and clearly a sign that something was wrong. Perhaps that was the very clue I needed. Whether this counted as a trial or not, recognizing a problem was the first step. Solving it would mean earning a reward.