The journey through The Path of Veils was not particularly long.
And yet—
it felt endless.
The deeper we walked, the less distance seemed to matter.
The gates repeated endlessly through white fog.
Red pillars.
White petals.
Silver trees.
Again.
Again.
Again.
At some point, I stopped feeling as though we were approaching somewhere.
It began feeling more like the world behind us was slowly disappearing instead.
Nobody spoke much.
Even I found myself unable to break the silence.
Not because conversation was forbidden.
But because the atmosphere itself seemed to resist unnecessary sound.
The path demanded quiet naturally.
Like entering a sacred hall too vast for ordinary voices.
Then finally—
the fog ahead thickened completely.
For several moments, I could see nothing at all.
And then—
the mist parted.
Yggdra appeared before us.
I stopped walking immediately.
The city did not look real.
It looked remembered.
Elegant wooden structures stretched across a wide sacred valley surrounded by soft hills hidden beneath drifting white fog.
Dark polished wood.
White stone roads glistening faintly with dew.
Curved rooftops rising like wings above silent canals.
Everything symmetrical.
Everything impossibly calm.
No wagon wheels.
No horses.
No shouting merchants.
No drunken travelers.
No men.
Only silk brushing softly against stone.
Water moving quietly through narrow canals.
And footsteps so light they barely sounded human.
Then I saw it.
The World Tree.
At first, my mind genuinely failed to understand what I was looking at.
The trunk alone resembled a mountain emerging from the earth.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Its silver-green branches vanished completely into endless white mist high above the city, so enormous that perspective itself became difficult to process.
The leaves glowed faintly beneath the fog like distant stars hidden inside a living sky.
For the first time in many months—
I felt truly small again.
Not frightened.
Not threatened.
Reduced.
Like suddenly remembering humanity occupies only a tiny corner of something immeasurably older.
Around us, Moonfen Sisters moved silently through the city streets beneath drifting fog.
But unlike Lunaveil—
the atmosphere here felt different.
The Moonfen Sisters of Lunaveil had been warm.
Welcoming.
Deliberately comforting.
The women here felt…
higher.
Not cruel.
Not arrogant.
Simply aware of their own place within this sacred city.
Many wore beautiful white fox masks that concealed part of their faces.
Whenever they passed near travelers, some would briefly lower the mask just enough to reveal a soft smile before hiding it again almost immediately.
The movement happened so gracefully it barely felt real.
And occasionally—
only for an instant—
I thought I saw things that disappeared the moment I focused on them.
A faint outline behind the fog resembling tails.
The brief silhouette of pointed ears hidden beneath dark hair.
Then nothing.
I could no longer tell whether Yggdra encouraged imagination—
or dismantled certainty.
Eventually we were greeted by four Moonfen Sisters waiting near the entrance district.
These women differed even further from those in Lunaveil.
Their movements resembled shrine rituals more than ordinary hospitality.
Every bow precise.
Every step measured.
Every glance controlled.
Even their silence felt ceremonial.
They spoke among themselves in a language I could not understand.
The sounds flowed softly like music carried underwater.
Beautiful.
Completely unreadable.
I quietly asked Ryn what language they were using.
Ryn answered without taking her eyes off the shrine maidens.
“The higher noble spirits of the Moonfen do not use Common Tongue.”
Then after a brief pause, she added quietly:
“That does not mean they cannot understand it.”
Only then did she finally glance toward me directly.
“Mind your tongue.”
The warning felt unusually serious coming from her.
By then, even Ryn herself seemed different.
More formal.
More controlled.
Still professional.
Still composed.
But visibly tense beneath it all.
The others felt it too.
The nervousness from before had returned completely.
And this time—
I could do nothing about it.
No speech would survive here.
No dramatic shouting about lions or immortality.
Yggdra would simply stare silently until the performance exhausted itself.
So we followed the shrine maidens quietly through drifting white fog toward the Moon Shrine.
Toward the place where negotiations regarding the Voidscale would begin.
And while walking beneath the shadow of the World Tree, I slowly realized something uncomfortable.
Places like Lunaveil were built to welcome outsiders.
Yggdra was not.
It merely tolerated our presence long enough for purpose to be fulfilled.
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