The hole was blocked by a web of white strings that did not budge when he pushed at them with his hands. It seemed to be some sort of cotton-like substance, and he could not connect to it, which meant that it wasn't alive.

  He used a spell to carefully pry it apart. There was more of it filling up the hole that led up an incline. Caen got to work, undoing the white strings and gathering them up with him as he went. No point wasting perfectly good planar material.

  His bag of holding was full of interesting things he'd picked up as he made his way up. He needed to stop several times to rest his will and recover some mana, but it wasn't particularly difficult.

  Five hours later, Caen removed the last strip of the white substance and stepped out onto the fifteenth layer, practically crawling out from the ground. He breathed in the thin but clean air as he shoved the rest of the white string into his bag of holding.

  He stood now on a flat open area, like the terraces they had atop the tall buildings on Ser-gwu Island. There was a very high ceiling above. The highest he'd seen so far. It was still night, and the beautiful lights of Parthra's bioluminescence provided more than sufficient illumination.

  This layer was so high up that Caen could see thick clouds over the edge of the terrace and nothing else below. He'd never even broken the cloud cover while in an airship before. This was such a heady feeling. He could see the stars much more clearly.

  The entire terrace looked a little like if a giant had taken a bite from the tree. It was lined with black trees about six or seven feet high. Caen had at first mistaken them for the vertical branches that were also here, but these were clearly something different. They were similar in form to Parthra. Surface roots reached into the ground around them, and, using Soul-sense, he could see their soul structures separate from the ancient tree, as well as their roots.

  Some of the trees possessed bioluminescent light of their own, but others did not seem to share this trait. However, he noticed swirly patterns on all their bark. Birds tweeted, flew high above, or perched on the smaller trees. A very beautiful butterfly fluttered past him. There were several more of those.

  A huge pond sat in the middle of the terrace. A… waterfall cascaded from the top of the only wall here and fed directly into the pond, which somehow wasn't overflowing. Caen had seen enough of Parthra not to worry too much when he saw something that didn't make sense.

  He looked around. He was the only one here. There was nowhere to go. No exits or doorways. The entrance he'd taken to come up here had closed behind him.

  One of the black trees in the corner of Caen's vision moved, startling him. He turned to it as it reshaped itself in short moments into the form of a dryad with light grey skin. Her roots retracted from the impenetrable bark of Parthra and grew thinner but did not reshape into humanoid feet.

  Caen had not known that the dryads could do any of this. He'd been very certain that they couldn't turn into trees. Much less, trees that resembled Parthra in every way but size.

  “Greetings to you, friend,” the dryad said in a rough but kindly voice. She walked up to him, her roots brushing against the floor like a sweeping gown. “You have completed your climb. Congratulations. The fragment bestowal rites take place once at the end of each cycle.”

  “Four days from now?” Caen asked. “And I can leave and return to this layer?”

  “Unfortunately, not. If you leave, you will have to earn your way back.”

  Caen had no intentions whatsoever of going anywhere. “Thank you for letting me know. I hope it's no bother if I stay here.”

  “Of course not. Please,” she gestured around. “Parthra is open to all.”

  She returned to the location she'd come from and morphed back into a tree, bioluminescent lights covering her form once more. It was curious. Did she have a fragment of her own? And why was she able to turn into a tree that resembled Parthra when the bark of her dryad form was of a different color? Nothing he'd heard in the previous layers had mentioned anything like this.

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  Before he’d discovered his third bloodline, Caen regularly dedicated an entire day to just contemplatively scanning his spirit. That felt like an era ago.

  He settled down and spent the days carefully observing his soul structure and Parthra's.

  There were fruits to eat from the vertical branches, and he slept on a patch of moss.

  He performed a few Flora exercises from time to time. He'd grown very fond of the trusty vine whose affinity he'd Mimicked for most of his time here, but he focused on using his own affinity.

  He spared the time for his stretching routine and physical training, staying connected to Parthra as he did these. A great deal of his waking hours were devoted to watching Parthra's soul structure, as well as observing the connection between him and the ancient tree.

  After weeks of studying Parthra's soul structure, Caen was still out of his depth, but he'd started to make out a sort of consonance: an agreement between both his soul and Parthra's; a harmony of their individual existences in relation to Caen's safety. He remained cautious, for all the good that could do him.

  The impressions of supplication were more prominent now. But he could also feel a sort of inclination on Parthra's part. Towards what? Bestowal of a fragment? Caen couldn't say, but he could hardly contain his anticipation.

  His Flora affinity rising out of abjection so soon was an unexpected boon, but he'd come all the way here to get a fragment. With one, he would be able to protect himself better, as the material was notorious for its formidable resistance to physical force and magical damage.

  Seven other climbers had made their way up to the fifteenth layer. They all mostly kept to themselves, apart from three young women who bore similar enough features to each other to seem closely related.

  The strange dryad morphed in and out of her tree form and came to talk to each newcomer. Several of them were particularly startled whenever she shifted from treeform and back. She always seemed to time it to happen when their backs were turned to her, which made Caen suspect that she was actually enjoying giving the climbers a slight scare.

  At the end of the fourth day, the sky began to brighten very slowly. Caen had been going over his notes.

  A portion of the waterfall parted like a silk curtain, and a group of aged dryads walked out onto the terrace. The one leading them was a dryad unlike any Caen had seen so far, with a striking presence. He had skin as black as Parthra's, and the leaves growing out of his hair were of the same shade and variety as the ancient tree's. Swirls of bioluminescent lights danced on his forehead and in his eyes.

  Caen very carefully refrained from sensing the dryad's soul structure.

  All the same, the dryad met Caen's gaze and smiled warmly.

  Caen shivered.

  The procession of dryads reached the pond and spread out equidistantly around it.

  “Supplicants,” the black-skinned dryad said in a quiet voice that carried to Caen's ears easily.

  No one had referred to the climbers directly as supplicants. It had almost seemed like a sacred word that wasn't used lightly. Yet this dryad invoked it now.

  And Caen could feel something stirring within himself. He connected to Parthra, and for once, its soul structure was completely silent. The aspects of it he associated with sound were still and quiet.

  “Gather,” the dryad said, beckoning to the climbers. They all assembled very quickly around the edge of the pond. The dryad stood before them, bathed in light and facing the rising sun. “You have found favor with one who is incomparable.

  “One whose days are connective and interminable.”

  At the word ‘connective’, Caen felt a strong but harmless vibration run through his entire body, his entire existence. Parthra's soul structure seemed to be amplifying this effect somehow, maybe causing it even.

  Everything the dryad said was punctuated by a stronger vibration, and soon, Caen could not hear anything else. There was a loud, rattling silence that made not an iota of sense to his mind.

  The dryad gestured to the perfectly still pond. And just as something began to break the surface, causing ripples upon it, the world froze. Came to a standstill. Nothing moved.

  The impossibly silent vibrations were louder than ever.

  Caen was suddenly pulled backwards at the speed of thought. Off the terrace and towards the rising sun behind him, traveling a great distance in an instant. For the first time, he truly beheld the vastness of Parthra’s soul in all its majesty.

  And Parthra beheld Caen's soul in turn.

  Caen convulsed.

  Hecouldnot hecouldnot… he could not comprehend it. Could not move. Could not disconnect from the tree. Couldnot couldnot couldnot—his mind ruptured a thousand times, spirit collapsing upon itself as his existence fragmented into pieces.

  LITTLE SUPPLICANT.

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