"Perish as the rest of your kind have," declared Li. "Under the purifying light of the moon."

Li, his arm raised towards the sky, the fusion energy compacted into his hand, unleashed the killing blow.

"[Fusionboost: Moonbeam]"

A pillar of orange light, so bright that it was almost white, shot upwards from his hand. The light pierced through the dark smog, punching straight through the dome of smoky darkness above. 

It was as if the sun itself had been unleashed into the midst of night, and when that light dimmed as the pillar faded away, the smoke in the skies completely parted away. The smog of the smoke had gathered so strongly that it was hard to even remember that it was, in fact, day. But in an instant, night became day, the azure blue skies and golden sun of Soleil revealing themselves.

For what must have been the first time in nearly fifty years, natural sunlight fell onto the Chattering Woods. 

But day broke for only a moment.

White smoke so hot that it warped the air shimmered from Li's hand as the fusion energy waned, but now that the pillar of energy had been released, he no longer felt the burning damage of the fusion seed within him.

In fact, he could feel the seed dying, crumbling away into golden specks now that it had exhausted itself.

All that energy, so potent that it could break apart even Li's form, had gathered into a celestial event. 

As the seed crumbled apart, the bright sun of Soleil began to darken. From one end to another, darkness began to creep over the sun. Everything began once more to darken, but not with the all-consuming, devouring darkness of the smog, but instead with the faint, natural dark of night.

Or, more specifically, the dark of a solar eclipse as the moon covered the sun.

The Dark beast arm by now had only begun to regenerate its hand, but it suddenly froze. It looked up, eyes growing on its wrist as they beheld the eclipse. It looked at the moon, visible for the first time since the darkness of the smog had covered the lake, and it seemed to be spellbound, the many eyes widening in surprise. 

Li brought his hand down, towards the dark beast creature, and the moonbeam fired.

Unlike regular moonbeams that came from his own body, this one instead came directly from the moon. From the heavens, it looked like divine judgement was laid down, a great pillar of silvery white light beaming down onto the amalgamation.

The amalgamation did not shriek or scream. Instead, as the moonlight illuminated its body, rapidly burning and disintegrating it, it seemed almost to try reaching out to gently grasp at the moon. It closed its eyes in content, the purifying moonlight reducing its immense stature to rapidly dwindling nothingness.

The fusion boosted moonbeam did not end at simply destroying the abomination as well. It continued to shine on the lake of dark beast matter, completely purifying it to reveal that there actually was regular water, blue and still, now free of the dark beast rot.

Li exhaled as he brought himself down to the ground with his wings. The solar eclipse ended, cutting off the moonbeam, and as the moon slid away from the sun, light came back to the world, and with it, bursts of color. He saw as grass began to grow around the now cleansed soil. The corrupted trees were renewed with pure life, their blackened leaves slowly becoming greener.

With the dark beast rot gone, the forest was returning back to its natural state.

Li smiled, feeling untwisted life grow unfettered around him.

Now, there was only the matter of linking to the heart of the forest here. Though purified now, it would still have a record of the dark energies that once flowed through it. A scar that he could look at and, hopefully, use to attune with his eldritch side.

"It's…over?"

Li turned around to see the heroines emerging from the forest.

Faye had Launcelot's unconscious form around her back while Ava and Celeste were looking around, astounded at the changes in the forest not only in appearance, but in presence as well: gone was the oppressive feeling of foreboding, giving way to the gentle kind of stillness that was familiar to forests.

"Not yet," said Li. He looked to the lake. Deep within it, he knew the heart of the forest lay, and that was what he was here for in the first place. "I must tend to the forest's heart, but battle wise, yes, you should all be safe now."

"And are you okay?" asked Faye. Li traced her gaze and he realized she was looking at the still visible cracks in his skin where dimming remnants of energy glowed.

"It looks bad, but I am fine," said Li. He motioned to Launcelot. "And he will be, too, if you are concerned. I cannot sense any damage in his body. His mind is simply exhausted from using up magical energy to defend me."

Faye gently put Launcelot down on the newly grown grass. "So, he was not useless, after all," she said, smiling. 

"No. Far from it. Give him my thanks when he wakes up." Li began to walk towards the lake, his boots stepping into the water as he prepared to submerge.

"Thank you," said Faye quietly to Li as she put a hand to Launcelot's face. It was evident from the way she said it that she was not someone that said those words often.

Li gave her a nod before he went into the water. The shallow end of the lake ended rapidly, leading into depths that he quickly swam through, his strength and agility pushing him further and further down.

The waters around him began to rapidly darken as he went down, the sunlight above unable to break through after a certain point. There was no life in this lake, likely because it had been corrupted, making its waters calm and still.

Soon enough, Li reached the lakebed. 

It was a surprisingly small space. It was a flat circle of stone, and at its center, there was the corpse of a young human girl that had fused with the rock at its torso. Its arms and chest were sprawled out across the rock, and surprisingly, it was in good condition with intact skin, but its face had wasted away into an unrecognizable, sunken in mass.

The corpse of the hero, Li surmised as he touched down to the lakebed.

There was power emanating from this stone circle, humming faintly throughout its rocky body. Old, ancient power. The power of a forest heart, one that indicated that the energy of life flowed from this point outwards, sustaining the rest of the forest.

Li sat cross legged onto the stone circle, right beside the corpse. As his body made contact with the stone circle, it began to light up. Tendrils of bright green energy flowed out from Li, snaking their way throughout the circle in a pattern reminiscent of roots.

He closed his eyes, feeling his being spreading throughout the circle and interfacing with it. He focused, and he could hear it now. The beating of the forest's heart. How it hummed in slow but steady intervals throughout the rock.

Hearing that heartbeat, feeling it flow throughout his body, his being, he began to know and understand the nature and history of this forest. How it spread its life around. Where it clustered its trees.

Where creatures died, where creatures were born.

But that information, though beautiful, was not what he was here for. He was here for the ugly scar that had marred the heart's essence, for that was the key through which he would be able to enter into a source of eldritch power.

He reached his hand out to touch the corpse in front of him. Before his hand could lie upon the waterlogged, decayed skin, he wondered for a moment.

What would it be like? To access a source of eldritch power? To meld with it as closely as he was now melded with the heart of this forest? He had no true idea, and because of that, he was hesitant.

Nervous, even.

But he had to do this inevitably in the future. He had to come to terms with his eldritch side, knowing how its energy, when it coursed through him, made him something cold, something terrible. He had to be able to regulate that not only for himself, but now for his people.

He touched the corpse's face- the scar upon the forest's heart - and then, there was darkness.