"Focus, Liling! You're striking the stone with anger, not with calmness!"Sali shouted from atop a rocky cliff, his raspy voice clashing with the roar of the waterfall crashing into the river pool below.Liling did not answer. His breathing was ragged. Cold sweat streamed from his temples, washing away the soot he had deliberately smeared across his cheeks. In his right hand, Damang's inherited Mandau felt five times heavier than usual. The Emerald Mark running along his right arm pulsed wildly, emitting a dense green glow that flickered unstably. Each pulse sent pain like an electric shock directly to the base of his skull."I can't do it, Grandpa Sali!" Liling shouted in frustration. "These voices... they're too loud!""You can do it. You simply haven't surrendered to your destiny yet!" Sali leaped down from the cliff with agility that was astonishing for a man of his age. His feet landed on the slippery river rocks without losing balance. "Damang chose you because you can hear what

"Your footsteps are too heavy. Stop stepping on the leaves that have already hardened," Liling whispered, raising her hand in a tactical signal for the small team behind her to halt.Bara, walking closest behind her, lowered his bow while holding his breath. "The ground ahead of us has already turned into a glass floor, Liling. There isn't a single soft patch left. No matter where we step, the sound will echo.""Use the heel of your foot first, not your toes," Liling replied curtly. Her eyes swept across the surrounding vegetation.The Dead Forest at Baram's outer boundary presented an impossible sight that night. Beneath the pure moonlight, the forest canopy was no longer dark green but silvery-white and translucent. The leaves of ironwood trees and ancient ferns had hardened into crystal plates as sharp as razors. Whenever the night wind blew, the sound it produced was no longer the soothing rustle of foliage but a deafening static chime, like thousands of shards of glass grinding a

"Liling! Don't look back! Run!"Isabella's distorted voice still echoed through the collapsing tower walls, but Liling no longer cared. Her entire world had just crumbled along with the holographic visualization she had seen moments ago. Down below, at the heart of her village, everything was dying."I have to go back! I have to go back right now!" Liling shouted to herself, her voice hoarse with the desperation burning in her chest.The air inside the crystal tower suddenly dropped below freezing. The endothermic effect of the mass crystallization drained every trace of warmth from the atmosphere. Liling's breath emerged in thick white clouds. Beneath her feet, the tower floor began to crack, releasing shockwaves that could fling her body into pieces at any moment."Damn it! The path is blocked!" Liling skidded to a halt at the edge of the shattered observation deck. Ahead of her was nothing but emptiness, the canopy of Baram Forest, now resembling a sea of gigantic glass thorns from

"Don't come any closer, Bara. Take three steps back."Liling’s voice no longer sounded entirely human. There was a dual resonance within it, a low vibration akin to the hum of an ancient quantum engine blended with the rustling of dry leaves.Bara stopped in his tracks right at the threshold of the half-ruined hut. His breath caught in his throat. In the dim light of the Baram dawn, the figure before him appeared both terrifying and graceful. Half of Liling’s face, starting from her right jaw down to her neck and her entire right arm, was no longer fragile skin. The surface had mutated into a weave of dark, shimmering emerald crystal textures. The crystalline structure pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat, emitting a green aura that was soothing yet simultaneously lethal."Liling... you did it," Bara whispered, his voice trembling between awe and horror. "The plague... you tamed it?""I didn't tame it, Bara. We reached an agreement," Liling replied without turning. Her gaze was fixed o

"Don't shoot! It's Damang! Damang has returned to punish us!"The hysterical scream of a village elder shattered the panic in the western defense line of Baram. Under the pouring drizzle and the thick smoke of the fires, several villagers dropped their weapons. They prostrated themselves on the muddy ground, trembling in fear as they stared at the sturdy silhouettes moving nimbly through the tree canopy."Get up, you fools! That is not Damang!" Bara lunged forward, grabbing the elder by the collar and forcing him to stand. "The real Damang fell in the Leviathan prison! Those things in the forest are just shells; they are fakes!""But that face, Bara... those guerrilla tactics... no one else can move like that in this forest!" wailed another villager, their mental resolve beginning to crumble.Boom! Boom!A series of smoke bombs and sulfurous fire explosions erupted from the direction of the settlement. Damn it, Bara cursed under his breath. The enemy wasn't attacking with a large-scal