God's Tree-Chapter 201: The Trial of the Hollow World

There were people here.

Sort of.

They looked human—faces, limbs, eyes—but their expressions were blank. Their movements simple, repeating. They built things. They cooked. They planted trees and sang songs without words. None of them spoke. None acknowledged his presence unless he engaged them first.

Argolaith observed for a long time.

Days.

Then weeks.

He watched them go through their cycles—work, rest, creation, silence. They lived simple lives with no war, no hunger, no ambition.

They were complete… but empty.

He tried to speak with them.

Some mimicked his speech. Others just tilted their heads and smiled.

So Argolaith did something unexpected:

He joined them.

Not to blend in.

Not to trick the trial.

But to understand.

He helped build their homes. Crafted tools. Created art. He taught some to cook more complex meals using the herbs and ingredients in his ring. He built a library out of blank pages, drawing diagrams of the world beyond.

Months passed.

And with each sunrise—yes, this strange world had sunrises—the people began to change. Slowly. They asked questions. Mimicked more complex emotions. Expressed joy. Wonder. Confusion.

And Argolaith, patient as the void itself, helped them all the while.

Not out of necessity.

But because it felt right.

Still, one question nagged him every time he looked back at the sky and saw the Heartroot spinning ever so faintly in the far distance—

Was this a test?

Or a trap?

He didn't know.

Until one morning, a child who had never spoken before walked up to him, placed a flower in his hand, and said:

"You can go now."

Argolaith blinked.

The world shifted.

Everything around him shimmered like dust caught in starlight. The people began to fade. Not in fear—but in peace.

He looked down at his hands.

Not a wrinkle.

Not a scar.

He hadn't aged a single day.

The void preserved all.

Even memory.

He stepped to the edge of the floating planet once more. The path was still waiting for him below, winding endlessly toward the cosmic tree at the center of this fractured reality.

He leapt.

And landed, silent and sure.

Then, without looking back, he began walking again.

He walked.

Always forward.

Always through silence.

Always toward the impossible crown of the Heartroot.

The void remained unchanged around him—endless, whisperless, timeless. And yet within his mind, echoes stirred like ripples against still water.

Argolaith thought of the miniature world he had left behind.

Of the quiet people.

The simple days.

The child who had said, "You can go now."

At first, he had believed the world was a trial—meant to test patience, empathy, or resolve.

But now…

Now he wasn't so sure.

What if that world wasn't meant for me?

What if it was part of the tree's burden?

The thought burrowed deeper the more he walked.

The Heartroot did not simply exist. It supported stars, held fragments of collapsed realms, and bound space itself with roots that no mortal could measure.

And perhaps… it dreamed.

Perhaps the worlds adrift in this void weren't challenges.

Perhaps they were memories.

Or worse—orphans.

Cradled by the tree. Kept alive in the places where time could no longer reach them.

Worlds too broken to thrive, but too precious to forget.

Argolaith's fists clenched slightly as he walked.

How long has the Heartroot been carrying these?

He didn't have the answer.

But he didn't slow either.

The tree was closer now. Its great trunk like a wall across the realm, its crown lost in shadow and starlight. He could feel its gravity, subtle and constant, pulling at the edges of his soul.

Then—without warning—he saw another world.

Floating far ahead, just off the path. A globe of fractured landmasses and scarred oceans. A jagged halo of stone shards and burning debris spun around its equator like a ring of ruin. Lightning surged between broken mountains, and clouds boiled in unnatural colors.

It was a world of violence.

Of anguish.

Where the last one had been simple and incomplete—blank—this one was screaming. Alive with fury and despair, even from a distance.

Argolaith slowed.

He could hear it, somehow.

The clash of blades. The roar of beasts. The cries of dying empires.

A world torn apart—and still tearing.

He stared for a long moment, chest rising and falling steadily.

Is this another trial?

Or a wound?

Whatever it was, it didn't reach out to him. Didn't call him. It simply existed, suspended in the dark. A monument to a story that hadn't ended properly.

Argolaith turned his gaze back to the Heartroot.

And did not stop walking.

But the questions stayed with him.

How many worlds had the Heartroot seen collapse?

How many had it tried to preserve?

And when he reached it—if he reached it—would it give him its lifeblood?

Or ask for something far greater in return?

He didn't know.

But his steps did not falter.

The void might stretch on.

The worlds might try to distract.

But his destination remained the same.

And the tree—

The ancient, grieving, immortal tree—

Still waited.

He had walked for so long that even thought had quieted.

The void no longer pressed against his mind.

The stars no longer looked strange.

The nothingness beneath his feet had become as familiar as earth.

And then, without warning or fanfare, he reached it.

The Heartroot.

It loomed beyond comprehension.

A pillar of woven bark and root the size of moons, pulsing with energy that shimmered across space like auroras drawn by blood. Its base stretched out in impossible directions, coiling through entire solar fragments, twisting through ruptures in the void.

It wasn't planted in the realm. It was the realm.

Its breath was gravity. Its pulse was time.

Argolaith stood before it, silent.

And then, without speaking a word, he reached out.

Not with his hands.

Not with his voice.

But with his soul.

I am here, he thought.

Not to take. Not to steal. But to help. To understand. To ease the weight you bear.

The moment the thought formed, he felt it:

A shift.

A vast stirring.

Like a mountain waking from slumber.

The Heartroot responded—not with language, but with presence.

It pressed into his mind like wind against stone, yet there was no pain. No resistance.

Only a reply.

"You are heard."

He breathed in, unsure when he'd stopped doing so.

"You have walked the silence."

"You have passed illusions, temptation, memory, and void."

"But the root does not give freely."

Argolaith nodded slowly, gaze rising to the infinite trunk.

"Then tell me what I must do."

The tree's pulse deepened.

The stars dimmed around them. And the void pulled back like a curtain of light—revealing thousands of floating worlds, small as castles or great as cities, each orbiting the Heartroot like children circling a parent.

And then—the words came:

"Three trials."

"The first: Teach."

"There are one thousand worlds within my branches—fragments of lives preserved, half-formed minds, peoples born from broken realms and saved from destruction. Their knowledge is fractured. Their purpose forgotten. You must teach them—not to follow, not to worship—but to become."

Argolaith's throat tightened.

"How long?"

"Time moves faster here than in Morgoth. One week there is fifty years here."

He froze.

"It will take you centuries."

"But I'll… age?"

"No."

The voice curled gently.

"The void will keep you whole. But your soul will remember every year. Every lesson. Every life."

Argolaith looked out toward the drifting worlds.

Some glowed softly.

Others flickered.

Some were dark, cold, waiting.

His fists clenched. Then slowly relaxed.

"Then I'll begin."

The Heartroot was quiet.

Then—warm.

"You are the first to say that without question."

And with that, the first world descended toward him, its orbit guided by unseen hands.

A new people waited.

And the long trial—

the first of three—

began.