CHAPTER 57 — "The Ash of What We Chose"
> "The Root takes... and it never intends to give it back."
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Scene 1 — "We Step Together"
The sky is colorless.
Root energy stains the wind, twisting it into something foul.
At the edge of the battlefield, they stand — shoulder to shoulder. Silent.
A Root-fleshed howler spots them — shrieks — and charges.
Gift doesn't blink.
Gift: "No more waiting. We burn or become Root. No in-between."
They step forward as one — not to survive. But to finish what began long ago.
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Scene 2 — "Soundless Storm"
Chaos doesn't announce itself — it devours.
Root-fleshed swarm like locusts — but worse. Smarter. Faster. Starving.
FLASH!!!
Jakku breaks the line first — he's a storm of Ether. His blades dance — 24 dead before they can even react.
Gift moves without emotion. Every motion is execution. No wasted steps. 24 more fall — they don't scream. They simply stop existing.
Maiku roars — fists cracking bone and bark. He punches through a Root Beast's skull — splinters fly. 27 down.
Still, the Root keep coming.
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Scene 3 — "Burning Math"
Reen bleeds numbers.
Mid-combat, she calculates trajectories. Patterns. Flaws.
Five fall in thirty seconds — each death, a solved equation.
Then — mistake. A Root Beast slashes her side open.
Blood sprays.
Reen collapses to one knee, wheezing. Eyes glassy.
Reen (whispering): "Left foot pivot... neck unguarded... every 6 seconds..."
Her logic — even dying — saves them.
The team shifts formation. The weakness becomes massacre.
Reen rolls to cover and starts bandaging herself. Pain becomes background noise.
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Scene 4 — "His Turn"
Matthew breathes. The battlefield disappears.
One Root Beast. Massive. Breathing hate.
Matthew steps forward — calm. Collected.
Power coils around him — controlled, awakened.
He doesn't roar. He executes.
Seventeen kills. Each strike surgical. Focused.
He's no longer fighting to survive.
He's choosing to master his fear.
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Scene 5 — "Crack of Power"
Then — stillness.
Air stops. Sky dims.
A new figure walks out, slow... deliberate.
The Root Avatar.
His body is a cathedral of rot. Vines twitch like nerves. Faces swirl in his chest.
He speaks like memory bleeding through time.
Root Avatar: "You fed me well."
The battlefield mutates. Gravity shifts. Time cracks. Breath feels heavier.
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Scene 6 — "Feast of Corpses"
The Root Avatar kneels. Begins devouring fallen Root-fleshed.
Their essence funnels into him — a grotesque communion.
He grows — warps — twists.
His face splits into a jagged grin. Vines writhe like tongues.
The ground mutters.
The sky leans away.
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Scene 7 — "Crushed Hope"
They attack.
Together. Everything they have.
Blades, fists, Ether — landing.
David's Law, Rin, Sky-Fire, Dragon powers and Calculations.
It almost feels like victory.
Then — change.
Root Avatar lifts his hand. Five arrows form — tips shaped like screaming faces.
He draws a root bow. Aim: all of them.
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Scene 8 — "The Jump"
Time seems to halt.
A weight bends the world.
Lorian arrives — aura crushing gravity itself.
He dives — intercepts the arrows.
Impact.
Lorian(to Maiku) : "I told you I would play my part."
Three pierce flesh. One lodges in his stomach.
He drops to a knee.
Lorian: "You're not allowed to die here."
He screams:
Lorian: "RUN!!"
The team hesitates.
Maiku: "No…"
But Lorian's gone — charging the Root Avatar.
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Scene 9 — "The Shattered Sky"
The crew flees.
Grief chasing them harder than the Root.
Maiku looks back — refuses to let go.
Gift grabs him.
Reen, half-dead, lights firebombs, igniting the path behind them.
Tendrils burn. She collapses. Matthew lifts her.
Their escape is pain stitched with silence.
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Scene 10 — "Perseverance vs. Root"
Lorian slams into the Root Avatar.
He lands a hit. Real damage. Impales him with a dagger.
Root Avatar: "You're not bad… for someone already dying."
Then — vines, thorned like blades, whip.
SLASH.
Chest torn open. Blood arcs like a comet.
Lorian's thoughts drift:
Lorian : "Maiku. Jakku. Gift. Matthew. Reen. You're the ones. I believe. You guys are the ones who will free this world from the fury of the Root. I trust and I know we will be saved."
He roars, pushing back with everything.
Lorian: "You will die, you bastard!!!"
The Root Avatar impales him — and holds him high... then devoured.
DEAD.
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Scene 11 — "The Cry That Broke the Wind"
Far enough to be safe. Too close to forget.
They stop.
Maiku collapses.
Screams into the dirt.
Maiku: "He said I'd outlive him... not like this…"
His grief becomes a soundless quake.
Wind stops.
Even the world listens.
No one interrupts.
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Scene 12 — "Lorian in Shlum Veharmonia"
Lorian wakes.
Fields of soft green. Flowers—untainted.
He breathes — really breathes.
Freedom.
Peace.
Calm.
Florin and others rush him. Arms wrap around him.
Tears fall. Not just his.
Lorian: "I don't deserve this…"
They say nothing. Just hold him.
He relaxes and feels at peace.
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Scene 13 — "Echoes Remain"
Reen sleeps. Bandaged. Breathing faintly.
Matthew sits beside her.
Matthew (whispering): "He bought us a chance. I won't waste it."
Jakku scans the horizon.
Jakku: "He'll come back. Somehow."
He says it out loud — but doesn't believe it.
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Scene 14 — "The Root Grows"
Cut to battlefield ruins.
Flames, corpses, ruin.
The Root Avatar walks — blood-soaked.
One of Lorian's blades still in his shoulder.
He pulls it out.
Root Avatar (softly): "This pain… is delicious."
The Root pulses. Larger. Closer.
Final line:
> "A friend sacrifices himself. To protect the chosen ones who might... save the world."
Narrator (voice like worn stone, ancient and weathered, yet grieving):
> "Chapter 57 — 'The Ash of What We Chose'... is not a tale of triumph. It is a requiem. A storm whispered in blood and sacrifice. A cry — unanswered — against the endless hunger of the Root."
> "They stood not for victory. But for ending. For memory. For the dying spark of something worth saving."
> "Gift. Jakku. Reen. Matthew. Maiku. They fought as one — not because they were strong, but because they had no choice. Because standing still meant extinction."
> "The battlefield did not mourn. It devoured. The Root doesn't rage — it consumes. It adapts. And with each pulse, it remembers your fear."
> "Reen bled for the equation. Matthew moved for purpose. Jakku danced with death. Maiku refused to bow. But it was Lorian... who gave the one gift the Root cannot calculate — hope through sacrifice."
> "His body may have broken... but his stand stitched the final thread of meaning into their fight. Not for glory. Not for vengeance. But for tomorrow."
> "And so he fell. Screaming defiance into the mouth of annihilation."
> "Even in death, the Root feasts."
> "But the echo of his scream... it moved something. The wind paused. The world listened. And in the stillness, we understood: the cost of choosing to stand. To burn. To not become Root."
> "Now, the Root grows again — swollen, fed, and watching. But so do the chosen. Marked by pain. Armed by loss. Carved by the one who stayed behind."
> "The ash of what they chose still drifts in the wind. And from it... a fire waits to be reborn."
> "Lorian is gone. But his choice... is not."
> "And that... is how legends begin."