Chapter 5: The Worship That Grows

The Shrine did not wait to be discovered—it reached out, like a hand pressing through the soil of the subconscious. Dendro visionaries claimed they had seen it in dreams: a monolith smothered in moss, breathing light through the jungle canopy. They answered its call as pilgrims, reverent and trembling. But shrines do not dream. They remember.

The Dendro stumbled upon it by “accident,” though no accident guides entire clans through impossible terrain to the heart of an ancient, forbidden ruin. The structure pulsed—faint at first, then violently—with every chant they offered. Sacred rites became sacrificial. Old gods were replaced with newer, hungrier ones.

They brought offerings—blood, bark, bone—and in return, the jungle darkened. The Void fed on faith as easily as it did flesh. And where worship began, transformation followed. The Dendro had not reawakened a god.

They had given the Void a mouthpiece.