Trees bend easily, but they burn easily as well.
The forest was still.
Dawn mist settled upon the leaves, and the wind carefully threaded its way between the branches.
Drian sat at the tip of the highest branch in the citadel of Driandel, the heart of the Silva Empire.
Below her, countless leaves trembled in the light.
She gazed quietly toward the south.
A faint heat was spreading from the southern earth.
That heat was not a mere change in climate, but the trace of a will.
Drian recalled the final words Nereia had spoken when they met a few days before.
“Mutual generation does not mean peace. Mutual generation merely speaks of the possibility of choice.”
Those words rippled through the depths of her heart.
Drian’s gaze slowly turned down toward the forest below.
There were countless lives growing there—branches that did not yet know their direction, and seeds just beginning to sprout.
“This forest is on no one’s side. But it can become anyone’s embrace. Whether it is the energy of water, or the energy of fire.”
She quietly raised her hand and wrapped it around a single branch pointing toward the sky.
Within it was life, and that life had not yet chosen any energy.
“What, then, does Ignis want from us?”
Even as Drian pondered, the flames of Ignis were drawing ever closer to Silva’s southern border.
“Hmm. So this is Silva.”
A massive red energy stepped into the green territory.
The surrounding trees all turned to look at him, as if startled.
“Who is that? Where did he come from?”
“Looks like he came from Ignis.”
“Then could that being be the lord of Ignis? Heavens!”
“But what business does he have here?”
“He even came in alone.”
Vulcanus finally entered deep into the dense forest of Driandel.
There, where even sunlight seeped cautiously between the leaves, two energies faced each other.
One was the gentle cycle of life, Empress Drian of the Silva Empire.
The other was a being wrapped firmly in red energy, Lord Vulcanus of Ignis.
Vulcanus spoke first.
“It was quite the trouble getting here. Was it your decision and Aqua’s to create that lake of water in the south?”
Drian did not know of the lake his army had passed through, so she could not understand his words.
“A lake? What are you talking about? Aqua has never come that far south.”
“Is that so? Well, that is that.”
Vulcanus briefly looked around.
“This forest is truly beautiful. If there had been no fire, these trees would not have grown so thick. Fire does not only burn. Fire can also make the land fertile.”
Drian looked at him in silence.
“For what purpose have you come to me, Vulcanus?”
“It is simple.”
Vulcanus pointed west.
That was where Metallum was located.
“Metallum is your opposing element, is it not? Metal cuts wood. It hews and splits it. But our fire can melt that metal. It is not as if you alone are the ones giving us help one-sidedly. We, too, serve to block the threats against you.”
Drian pressed her lips tightly together.
Vulcanus continued.
“I trust you understand. So you should help us a little, if we are to strike Metallum. Do you understand?”
Drian could not easily open her mouth.
At that, Vulcanus grinned as if he had expected as much.
“Ah, are your thoughts complicated because of Aqua?”
At that name, Drian’s eyes wavered ever so slightly.
“I already knew everything. You are receiving help from that woman’s energy. But water can also encroach upon the forest. It would be best not to stay too close to that side.”
Drian replied quietly.
“We will be neither anyone’s fuel nor anyone’s roots.”
Vulcanus nodded.
“Good. Then I shall make another proposal.”
He pointed somewhere again.
“I have no intention of touching Aqua right now either. Instead, how about this? Attack Terra.”
Drian narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Terra?”
“That’s right. Terra is blocking Aqua’s waterways. If your roots bring Terra down, would that not help Aqua as well? You do not have to join hands with us. You only need to do what we want.”
Vulcanus left behind one final word.
“Time does not wait for us. If you hesitate too long, your roots may be cut.”
Then he parted the leaves and quietly disappeared.
As soon as Drian returned, she summoned her retainers.
She thought to herself.
‘I like Nereia’s flow. But wood also burns easily. Right now, I stand between fire and water.’
Soon, her retainers arrived within the citadel.
Bramir, in charge of sensing the winds, and Tarban, in charge of military tactics.
Both already knew that Vulcanus had visited the forest.
“What proposal did he make?”
Tarban asked first.
“He told us to attack Terra.”
Drian spoke in a low voice.
“He said that since Terra is blocking Aqua’s waterways, bringing Terra down would benefit Aqua as well.”
Bramir immediately frowned.
“It is a scheme that turns mutual generation against itself. Could Ignis not, in truth, support Terra? Even if Vulcanus’s words are correct, Terra is currently only silently holding its own place.”
Tarban continued.
“So he intends to provoke Terra and make it lose its composure. To make Terra need them. It seems Vulcanus means to use us to shake the board.”
Drian traced the grain of the wooden table with her finger.
The grain of life growing within it trembled faintly.
After a moment, Tarban continued.
“But apart from his words, attacking Terra itself may be advantageous. If we take partial control of the flow of energy, Aqua may come to rely on us more.”
“Control of the flow of energy?”
Bramir wore a grave expression.
“Was that truly what we wanted? The aftermath that could arise from it is beyond prediction.”
After that, none of them spoke.
The forest is always slow to choose.
Because growth requires time.
But it seemed the world would no longer permit that pace.
Drian quietly closed her eyes and spoke in a low voice.
“Vulcanus told us to attack Terra, but his intent is rather obvious. Telling us to meddle with a being that remains still—he must wish to throw this world into chaos.”
Bramir nodded.
“Then he will be able to spread his fire even further than before.”
Tarban asked quietly.
“Your Majesty. What should we do?”
A brief silence passed, and Drian answered.
“Not yet. If we move now, we will merely be toyed with as fuel for that fire. We wait, because we are the forest. But do not stop watching. We must be the first to know when Terra’s energy moves.”
The morning of Driandel began as it always did.
Citizens in the shape of trees slowly raised themselves, spreading their branches toward the sunlight as they checked one another’s energy.
In one district, small tree children were riding along paths linked by vines, greeting one another by shaking their leaves.
“The south wind is warm today. I feel like my leaves are growing a little faster.”
As they exchanged jokes, a subtle tremor traveled somewhere between the branches stretching vertically above them.
Branches shedding leaves earlier than usual, the grain of bark vibrating quietly.
One of them said,
“The lower forest seems to have a different atmosphere. The vitality I feel today is different somehow.”
Another tree citizen tilted his head.
“Could some kind of energy be circulating? An energy other than ours.”
“Energy? If it is water energy, we would welcome it.”
“Hmm, but if it is down below, that is close to Ignis. Could fire energy be approaching?”
At those words, silence flowed for a moment.
“Come to think of it, that side’s lord once came to this forest. What is he trying to do by coming to us?”
The forest senses itself without words.
Even when unseen, it reads the intentions within one another through the direction of growth and the tremors.
In the distance, someone passed by.
They were the vine archer unit.
As they moved quietly, swaying between the leaves, a child asked them,
“Mister, are we going to have a war?”
One of the archers stopped before the child.
Dew had gathered on his forehead.
“No. We are trees. But before someone sets a fire, we must sense the wind first. We are trying to protect our land from someone far away.”
The child hesitated for a moment, then nodded and went back.
Energy cannot be seen, but the forest can feel that energy.
And now, the forest was asking itself in which direction it should stretch.
Drian stood quietly with her eyes closed in the deepest chamber of life within her citadel.
It was the center where all branches and roots were connected.
The place where the flow of nature could be felt most precisely.
She focused on the pulse of the forest, which felt like a quiet heart.
Thump…… thump…… thump-thump…….
Within the regular flow, a slight discord could be felt.
“The energies are becoming entangled. The south is still hot, and the north is pressing in more and more.”
Her voice was low and deep, like the grain of wood.
At that moment, Bramir and Tarban approached.
Bramir spoke.
“Your Majesty, more fluctuations of energy are being detected at the western border. In particular, the wind from Terra’s direction seems to be… changing.”
Drian raised her head and slowly opened her eyes.
“Terra’s energy is trembling. There is no movement, but there are signs of change. Now that Aqua’s waterways and even Ignis’s flames have reached our Silva, it seems that land can no longer remain completely neutral either.”
After a moment of silence, she gave an order.
“From now on, expand the detection net beyond Silva’s growth boundary. Prevent Terra’s vibrations from entering this place.”
“Understood.”
Tarban also spoke.
“I will keep the frontline troops within the forest without any rearward redeployment, and station vine archers with long range.”
Drian nodded.
“We have not yet made a decision. But this flow now tells us that before we are shaken down to our very roots,
we must react first.”
Those words were a quiet awakening: the Silva Empire, too, would no longer remain in a position of simple neutrality.
Drian continued.
“We will further strengthen our power. Another growth is prepared. This citadel will grow one stage further, and our lives will become more resilient against external attacks.”
The forest quietly ceased its trembling, and the energy seeped back into the roots.
But Drian sensed it.
The center of this world could no longer rest upon equilibrium.
Within the citadel, she murmured to herself.
“What is shaking may not be the branches. It may be the foundation.”
And at that moment, deep within the earth’s crust, the sound of a heavy hammer began to ring out, distant and weighty.
It was the sound of another energy changing the direction of the world.