Diablo traveled through time and became a necromancer

Wu Ye leaned on his staff and walked to the foot of the enormous, tangled, ancient banyan tree, which exuded a sickening odor. The brass compass needle still pointed firmly at the deep tree hollow, but at this moment, the terrifying will that lingered within seemed to have largely dissipated with the death of its leader, leaving only a deep, unsettling silence.

His eyes swept around the tree hole. Due to the fierce battle and the impact of the self-explosion, the thick layer of rotten leaves and mud accumulated near the tree roots had been blown away, revealing some buried objects underneath.

Some... stone debris.

Wu Ye's mind shifted, and he signaled several skeleton warriors to move forward to clean up the mess. Rusty bone knives carefully scraped away the sticky mud and rotten roots.

Gradually, a broken, moss-covered, and stained stone tablet emerged. Made of neither gold nor stone, it felt cold to the touch, and carved with intricate, ancient patterns. Even after years and filth had eroded it, one could still feel its former splendor.

The upper part of the stone tablet had been broken and lost, but the remaining text on the lower part made Wu Ye, Leah and Vera, who were struggling to walk over, hold their breath.

It was a kind of writing they had never seen before, beautiful and full of natural rhythm, winding around like vines. But strangely, they could understand its meaning.

"...Mother of Green Shade...Guardian of Carastri...Source of Life..."

"...May your roots remain firmly planted in the earth, your branches and leaves remain evergreen, protecting all living things here..."

"...Elf Era...720th Spring of the Reincarnation...All Wood Elves stand in respect..."

"Elf Age...Mother of Green Shades..." Leah whispered, her icy blue eyes filled with shock and disbelief. "This...this terrifying tree covered in eyes...was once...the sacred tree of the elves?!"

Vera also gasped. She squatted down, stroking the vine patterns on the stone tablet, which, though covered in filth, still pulsed with life. "Karastrei... I seem to have heard this name... in the oldest songs of the Amazon tribes... Legend has it that in the days before darkness invaded the Kurast rainforest, there once stood a great ancient tree connected to the source of life... sheltering the forest and its inhabitants..."

Wu Ye stared at the stone tablet in silence, then looked up at the enormous, decaying banyan tree before him, its trunk covered in strange eyeball patterns and sticky secretions. Upon closer inspection, those so-called "eyes" seemed more like some diseased, twisted tree tumors, or strange runes formed by the erosion of evil forces.

"So that's how it is..." Wu Ye's voice was low and hoarse, carrying a hint of indescribable heaviness. "It's not some 'Ancient Eye Tree'... It was once the heart of this forest, a symbol of life... 'Mother of Green Shade,' Karastri..."

"The demonic invasion... the corruption of Hell..." Leah's voice trembled as she recalled the elven ruins occupied by the Flayers. "Even such a great life... was twisted into a nest that bred evil..."

Gray Weasel Team's Foreshadowing: Echoes of the Forgotten Diary

At that moment, Vera pulled from her backpack the thick leather journal, stained with dried blood, that she had obtained from the collapsed members of the Gray Weasel team at a flea market on West Street in Kurast Harbor. She flipped to the pages filled with drawings of eye-vines. Scribbled charcoal lines outlined twisted vines, densely packed with eyes! The dark brown fingerprints on the edges of the pages silently spoke of the recorder's fear.

"West... Ancient Tree... Eyes..." Vera muttered the last scribbled words in the diary, then looked up at the corrupted sacred tree before her. "The 'Ancient Tree of the Eye' he mentioned... is right here! The dense fog and revived vines that the Gray Weasel team encountered in Razorvine Grove... originated from this corrupted Carastrid! Those vines covered in eyes must be tentacles extending from its decay!"

Leah leaned over and compared the charcoal drawing in the diary with the twisted "eye" patterns on the banyan tree's trunk. Her face turned pale. "Exactly the same... Old Jack and the others... were dragged away by these... vines controlled by the corrupted sacred tree..."

The truth, like a cold chain, linked the chance encounter at Kurast Harbor to the harsh reality before them. The unshaven, despairing adventurer, and his lost companions, Cook and Old Jack, their sacrifices were not in vain. Their experiences, like a glimmer of light in the darkness, forewarned of the horrors of this region and ultimately led Wu Ye and his companions to the core of corruption—the former Mother of Green Shade.

"Old Jack..." Wu Ye looked at the dark brown fingerprints on the diary, as if he could sense the recorder's final despair and warning. He closed the diary and solemnly put it away. "We will put an end to this."

The brass compass vibrated slightly in Wu Ye's hand, its needle still stubbornly pointing deep into the tree hollow. Perhaps there were still fragments of the Worldstone there, or... perhaps the last uncontaminated core of this sacred tree? Or perhaps a deeper darkness? And was the fate of the members of the Gray Weasel team also within this darkness?

Wu Ye took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart and his respect for the victims. "Rest for ten minutes. Then... we'll go into the tree hole."

Skeleton Brother silently walked over to him. With a wave of his massive bony hand, the cracked, dimmed soulfire skeleton shield flew back into his grasp. His massive frame blocked the entrance to the tree hole, its dark blue soulfire gazing into the darkness like a loyal guardian.

The remains of the sacred tree lay beneath their feet. The clues the Gray Weasel Squad had found pointed towards darkness, and the ultimate answer lay hidden within the tree hollow that devoured the light before them. The hustle and bustle of Kurast Harbor seemed to echo across time and space, while here, there was only the dead silence of humus and a chill that penetrated deep into the bones.

After a ten-minute break, the tense nerves were stretched to their limits again.

Wu Ye withdrew his heavy gaze from the decaying banyan tree, suppressing the weight of history and respect for the victims. The brass compass vibrated in his palm, its needle drawn, as if by an invisible thread, to the dense darkness deep within the tree hollow. Vera had already put her diary away, her eyes ablaze with a resolute will to seek justice for the deceased. Leah took a deep breath, and the blue light at the tip of her ice crystal staff condensed again, dispelling the shadows several meters around her.

"Brother Skeleton, clear the way." Wu Ye's voice was low, but with unquestionable firmness.

"Alright!" A short, piercing cry rang out from the skeleton's larynx, and a fiery blue soul fire surged forth. Its massive frame, like an icebreaker, silently and steadily took the lead as it entered the vast tree hole, seemingly capable of swallowing up all the light. The massive skeletal sword lay steady before it, its tip pointing directly into the unknown darkness.

Wu Ye followed closely behind, stepping into the area of ​​the sickening aura. Leah followed closely to Wu Ye's right, the light from her ice crystal staff straining to create a small circle of light. Vera brought up the rear. Her figure paused slightly as she entered the tree hollow, turning back to take one last look at the battlefield ruins beneath the twisted sacred tree. Her javelin gripped tightly, her eyes sharp as a hawk's, before she, too, vanished completely into the darkness.

The interior of the tree hole wasn't as straight down as one might imagine. The space at the entrance was unusually wide, like a giant, decaying lung cavity. The damp, slippery walls were coated in a dark green, translucent, sticky secretion, emitting a sweet, greasy, and humic stench ten times stronger than outside, nearly suffocating. The air was filled with countless tiny spores and dust particles visible to the naked eye, which shimmered eerily in the beam of Leah's staff.

Layers of massive spiderwebs, like pale shrouds, hung from the cave ceiling or entwined around twisted roots. Most were tattered, draped with dried, shrunken spider skins that resembled black fists, and the unrecognizable skeletons of smaller creatures, shrouded in slime. These were the last traces of the spider swarm that had descended upon them. The lesion-like "eye" patterns on the cave walls shimmered at the edges of the light, as if countless eyes were peering into the darkness.

After a dozen meters, the ground beneath my feet felt different. The rotten leaves gave way to a sticky, slippery mixture of unknown composition, which made a teeth-grinding "puff, puff" sound. Worse still, the passage began to slope downward, as if leading to the center of the earth. The air grew hotter and more humid, the oxygen content plummeting. Every breath felt like a heavy drag, like swallowing warm water. The light from Leah's staff seemed infinitely small in the absolute darkness. Beyond the aperture lay a solid, oppressive, inky abyss, ready to wriggle and pounce at any moment.

"There's a fork in the road!" Vera, standing at the rear, whispered, but her voice was remarkably clear in the dead silence. Not far ahead of her, a narrow, irregular crack silently opened in the rotting, flesh-like wall to the left of the main passage. The crack was so dark that only one person could squeeze through sideways. From the depths of the crack surged an even more pungent, corrosive, and acidic stench! Its concentration far exceeded that of the main passage, making the very smell nauseating.

The skeleton's massive frame came to an abrupt halt in the main passage! It made no movement to detect human presence, but its empty eye sockets suddenly turned toward the ominous crack on its left! Its dark blue soul fire, like a flame swept by a strong wind, instantly swayed violently! A powerful mental wave, filled with repulsion and vigilance, emanated from the soul link—danger! Extremely foul! The aura of the target's "remains" lay within!

Wu Ye and Vera immediately understood! The source of the faint aura of Cook and Old Jack from the Gray Weasel Squad, the place bearing the final mark of their sacrifice, lay deep within this wound-like crack! Vera's eyes flashed coldly, and her hand was already on the javelin!

"Brother Skeleton, stay and guard the main road." Wu Ye quickly judged. The gap was too narrow for Brother Skeleton's massive skeleton to fit in.

"Vera, go in and investigate! High Priest, focus all your light sources to illuminate the gap for her! Brother Skeleton, be alert to the darkness ahead!"

"Understood!" Vera said without hesitation. Leah also immediately manipulated her staff, projecting a concentrated ice-blue beam of light at the crack's entrance with the precision of a searchlight.

Vera took a deep breath—even though it filled her lungs with a foul stench—and tensed her body, like a nimble feline. She turned sideways, her back pressed against the cold, slippery wall on one side (it felt like the guts of a giant beast), and pressed her head against the other cave wall, which was also covered in a disgusting mucus. The pungent, sour, and rotten smell was as thick as matter, almost burning her nasal mucous membranes. The crevice was extremely narrow, and the sticky substance covering the twisted rock walls (or perhaps the core of a rotting tree) slowly moved like a living thing, with dark green pustules in some places pulsing and pulsing slightly. Underfoot was a semi-solidified, waxy filth, sinking deeply into it with every step. Pussing with a sticky "snap" sound was extremely difficult.

With the help of the weak beam of light that Leah desperately gathered and struggled to penetrate the sticky darkness, Vera advanced less than five meters in the suffocating narrowness!

Wherever the light reached, she felt a sudden sense of clarity! But this "clarity" brought her the ultimate terror of instantly freezing her breath!

At the end of the crevice, there was no natural structure of a tree hole, but a disgusting, giant glandular cavity that seemed to be made of pure corruption and filth! The "walls" of the entire cavity no longer had any traces of plants, but were instead wriggling, dark red and purple tumor-like hyperplasia tissue! The surface of the tumor was densely covered with a network of blue-black blood vessels, covered with a thick, slippery mucus like fresh slug secretions, dotted with countless huge dark green pustules that were constantly shrinking and swelling, beating like a heart! A thick, dark purple liquid with a pungent, sour, and highly toxic smell flowed on the ground! The entire space was filled with a strong sense of life (or death), but its activity represented only pure distortion and filth!

However, the scene in the center of this evil lair is the ultimate blasphemy that truly rends the nerves!

Two bodies... or rather, two beings that had long lost their "human form" were "planted" in this corrupted core!

The one on the left, judging by the remnants of thick, corroded leather armor and his relatively burly, twisted frame, must be the Gray Weasel warrior Cook. He was pierced through the back by at least a dozen terrifying, deep purple flesh ropes, resembling thick blood vessels or alienated vines! Irregular lumps protruded from the surface of those flesh ropes, rhythmically pulsing as if pumping something!