"Rulu, where did you go? Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting here?" Kallen said to Rulu with an impatient look on her face. Rulu had just returned to the street where they had agreed to meet up. C.C. and Six-Tail were also there with Kallen.
"Sorry, Kallen. Let's go now." Rulu's expression was somewhat grave. He glanced at Kallen, then set off in the direction they had been heading before.
Kallen fell into step beside him. "Rulu, C.C. told me you found the person you were looking for — is that right?"
"Yes, I found them." Rulu's tone was utterly calm, as though he were speaking of something entirely unrelated to himself.
Kallen asked again: "And did you take care of what you needed to do?"
"I did." Rulu answered briefly. Whether intentional or not, he had been avoiding Kallen's gaze the whole time, as if he were afraid she would keep pressing him.
"I see... that's good then..." Kallen sensed that Rulu didn't want to talk about it, so she let the matter drop. C.C., too, tactfully made no further mention of what had happened earlier.
The group pressed on, making their way through the streets of the vast city. Nothing went wrong along the way, and roughly an hour later, they passed through the city without incident, exiting through another gate on the far side and stepping out into the open space beyond.
They hadn't walked much farther when the surroundings shifted again. The city behind them vanished, and a strange, enormous thing appeared nearby — a great silver-grey tree of extraordinary size. Its trunk was as thick as a mountain, and its emerald canopy spread as wide as the clouds in the sky. The sight was breathtaking.
"What an enormous tree. It must be at least a hundred stories tall." Kallen craned her neck to look up at the towering tree, whose crown disappeared completely out of sight.
"C.C., we must be getting close to our destination now, right?" Rulu gazed steadily at the colossal tree in the distance, his emotions showing little turbulence. After everything he had been through today, his nerves had grown somewhat numb.
"Yes. Follow me." C.C. said, and started walking toward the great tree. Rulu and Kallen asked no further questions and followed after her toward the towering giant.
After a while, they reached the base of the tree, which loomed before them like a mountain. "We're here," C.C. announced, and came to a stop beside the massive trunk.
"This is really our final destination in the Sanctuary?!" Kallen's eyes went wide as she looked around, searching for anything unusual nearby. Rulu, too, scanned the area — but apart from the immense tree, there was nothing else around them at all.
"C.C., where exactly is the thing we're looking for?" Rulu asked.
"Right here." C.C. placed a hand on the silver-grey trunk beside her, which rose like a wall.
"You mean... what we're looking for is inside this tree trunk?" Rulu reached out and touched the bark. It was ice-cold to the touch, with a texture as hard as metal. Beyond that, he sensed nothing out of the ordinary.
Kallen swung her lance and drove the tip hard into the trunk. But the wood was unyieldingly tough — the lance left not a single mark.
"Kallen, what are you doing?" Rulu said.
"Didn't C.C. say what we're looking for is inside this tree? I was trying to see if I could poke a hole in it. But the trunk is as tough as metal — looks like that approach won't work."
Rulu was at a loss for words. "Kallen, how can you be so dense? Something that important isn't going to be obtained that easily."
"Then what do you suggest?"
"Well... why are you asking me? Just ask C.C. directly."
Both Rulu and Kallen turned their eyes to C.C. She explained: "Here's the thing — under normal circumstances, no one can directly draw upon the knowledge and power stored within this tree. To access it, you need a medium to channel it out and transform it into something a human can absorb and comprehend."
"Then where do we find this medium?" Rulu asked.
"You don't need to find it. It's already here."
C.C. said this while fixing Rulu with a peculiar look. Rulu seemed to grasp what she meant: "You're saying the medium is you, C.C."
"You guessed correctly."
"Then what are we waiting for? Help me obtain that knowledge and power."
"Let me finish first." C.C. said, unhurried. "While I'm helping you access the power and knowledge stored here, we must maintain absolute focus and cannot be disturbed in any way — not even by speaking. If we are, there is a very real chance our attempt will fail."
"I see..." Rulu thought for a brief moment, then turned to Kallen: "Kallen, take Six-Tail and move away from here. Keep at least thirty meters between us. Don't communicate with us or approach us in any way, and don't let any other living thing come near us either."
"What a hassle. Fine, I'll go stand watch over there." Kallen said, and stepped away from Rulu. Six-Tail, following C.C.'s instructions, went with Kallen.
"Can we start now, C.C.?" Rulu looked at her with an urgent expression.
"Not yet. There are a few more things I need to tell you."
"Then say them quickly. You know we can't afford to waste any more time."
C.C. said: "The knowledge and power contained within this tree is immense. When you attempt to receive it, your body and mind will sustain tremendous strain — it will leave you extremely weak and cause you great suffering. If you cannot endure it, there is a real possibility that you will lose your sanity, or even die. So before we begin, I must ask you one more time: are you certain you want to obtain this knowledge and power?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Rulu answered: "Things have come this far. Do you really think there's any point in asking that?"
"I suppose not. Very well — sit down on the ground and lean your back against the tree."
Rulu immediately sat down, crossing his legs, his back resting against the great trunk. C.C. sat down facing him. She gazed at his face with an expression of solemn gravity, then cradled his head in her hands, leaned forward, and pressed her lips to his forehead.
"This is..." A sensation like an electric current ran through Rulu's entire body. His vision blurred, and a cascade of visions flooded his mind — strange symbols and characters of all kinds appeared before him. Though he had never seen any of them before, somehow he could understand their meaning, and from them he absorbed knowledge he had never possessed.
It was as if he had glimpsed the very essence of life, comprehended the sweep of history, and grasped the meaning of the universe's existence. Time seemed to stand still. Rulu was submerged in an ocean of boundless knowledge, hungrily and ravenously absorbing everything contained within those symbols and characters.
But as he drank in that vast knowledge, a burning sensation began to spread through his entire body. At first it was barely noticeable — but with each passing moment it grew more intense, until at last Rulu felt as though his whole body had been set ablaze.
"Ugh — what is happening..." Rulu couldn't hold back a groan. He felt as though he were trapped in a sea of fire, flames all around him, consuming his body, tearing at his nerves. At the same time, the strange symbols and characters came pouring into his mind in an unstoppable torrent, forcing themselves into his neural pathways. Rulu felt his head swelling as if it were about to burst. The agony was overwhelming.
Rulu looked as though he were being subjected to some brutal torture. His face was contorted in extreme pain. His eyes were open, but they were vacant and unfocused. His entire body shook with convulsive tremors; the muscles in his face twitched uncontrollably, and his hands thrashed about in aimless, involuntary spasms.
"Hold on, Rulu." C.C. murmured softly. She pressed her palms firmly against his temples and used her body to pin his against the silver-grey trunk, keeping him from writhing away from the tree in his agony.