Millions of hot yellow tendrils of divine energy flow through the enormous fruit in my Greater form's hand.
It looks like a meter-tall peach that glows with a golden radiance, vibrating and humming, bending reality around it, making it seem heavier than my entire orange core.
However, at the same time, it feels as if it's as light as a feather, almost trying to float above my greater form's hand.
Ember's voice echoes through my mind in our link.
"That fruit has an absurd amount of higher frequency threads coursing through it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just as potent as an entire yellow core..."
We approach the treeline again, and I widen my scope of perception to try and locate the lizard we just fought, but nothing comes back into my senses. The forest before me seems as if it's empty.
"What exactly are you implying? It will give me power... but is it safe to consume?"
There's a moment of silence, and I think back to the extreme surges of power and energy the insect creatures gained when they took a single bite of this fruit.
They grew in perceived strength and speed for fractions of a second, and it would take multiple other insects to subdue them.
I nod and take a deep breath in and out as we soar between the trunks of two impossibly tall jet-black trees, then bring the golden fruit to my Greater form's mouth.
In a single bite, the fruit disappears inside my energy form's mouth, and a burning hot sensation forms in my real body's heart.
I hear Ember's wings fly in the air, and my heartbeat syncs up with this motion.
My gaze spreads out through the seemingly empty forest again, then what feels like a hot spark of electricity surges through my body. It flows up through my chest, into my brain, and out through my eyes, blinding my vision with a yellow light. The yellow light instantly disperses and gives me a new burst of advanced perception similar to my enemy detection skill, however it can see everything including the trees, rocks, and even individual divine threads floating through the air.
A pulse of golden yellow energy flows from my forehead and spreads through the forest as we glide into it.
Everything that lurks in these trees becomes visible to me.
There are hundreds of buzzing insects and dozens of mutant chameleons stalking their prey.
The yellow light in my chest, brain, and eyes continues to expand and it gets hotter and hotter, making my body glow like a sun.
My self-regeneration skill works at full power as the yellow tendrils of energy wrap around every fiber of my greater form, however, it's clear this energy is far too intense for my body and orange core to fully contain if it keeps growing in intensity like that.
A line that Ember spoke earlier when we first entered this construct comes to mind when he warned Dane that if he were to eat a red fragment, he would be burned from the inside out and explode on the spot.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The rate of growing fire in my chest and overwhelming growing heat intensity throughout my body and greater form makes me believe that exactly that is about to happen.
However, Ember said to focus on the task at hand and he'd handle keeping everything under control.
I take another deep breath as the golden thread wraps around my greater form's sword.
Then, I pinpoint exactly where the creature we left lurks. Its tail is wrapped around a branch on the opposite side of the tree we left it on, and I still see a slit in its throat where I managed to attack it last.
Its eyes are closed, and it seems to believe it's fully camouflaged behind this tree.
In my temporarily enhanced vision, I watch streams of golden thread flow from the lizard at a steady rate and disappear into the darkness of the branch it rests on.
Ember swoops beneath the branch and we take the same path through the trees and out into the open air to see the clouds again.
The deceased lizard's body dissolves on my sword as the intensity of the yellow fruit's energy fades and is left behind as a trail of golden threads in our flight path.
Both Ember and I now have a small percentage of our bodies and orange cores flowing with these shimmering yellow threads. The large yellow stone that falls from the monster's disappearing corpse marks our first kill and major step of progress toward conquering these dark forests and seeing where they lead to even higher above in this construct.
Now that I know how they operate within their territories, and have successfully managed to safely consume one of their fruits, I'm confident I can do it again. The only real unknown danger that lurks in the back of my mind is the infinite darkness that resides within each of these glossy obsidian trees.