The root-fetus writhed in his grip like a living heart of madness. Its surface split and reshaped constantly—limbs forming and dissolving, mouths opening and closing, veins of sap pulsing with stolen Qi. The moment Oliver forced his Yang Qi inside, its true nature revealed itself.
It was hungry.
The treasure latched onto him, tendrils stabbing into his palm, racing through his arm like barbed worms. His Qi didn't suppress it—the damn thing devoured him. His veins bulged, swelling with sap instead of blood, as if the fetus were drinking his very essence.
"Kh–ghhh!" Oliver staggered, a strangled sound tearing from his throat. His body convulsed as roots burst from beneath his skin, piercing muscle and bone. Crimson flame guttered inside him, fighting desperately against the invading green.
The treasure didn't want to be claimed—it wanted to claim him.
Visions flooded his mind: roots choking skies, forests of flesh and bark, corpses strung up as nutrients for an eternal tree. He saw himself hanging there among them, drained, a puppet dangling from wooden strings.
But Oliver's grin returned, cracked and bloody. "You think… I'll lose to a plant?"
His free hand clamped down over the writhing fetus, crushing it to his chest. His Yang Qi surged like a broken dam, burning everything it touched—blood, flesh, even his own marrow—forcing flame down into the roots that invaded him. Sap hissed like boiling fat. The fetus shrieked, a psychic wail that split the forest.
The clash raged inside him. Qi burned, roots constricted, his body tearing itself apart as man and treasure fought for dominance. For a moment, his outline blurred, as if he truly might be consumed—half his body turning to wood, his veins branching like vines, his bones cracking into bark.
Then—silence.
The fetus went still, its sap hardening under his grip. Its will broke. The berserk roots across the battlefield collapsed, lifeless. The wooden clones fell, twitching into fragments.
Oliver dropped to his knees, breath ragged. His sword clattered against the soil.
He looked down at himself and nearly laughed. His skin was no longer whole—patches had become bark. Roots threaded through his arms and ribs, pulsing faintly with sap instead of blood. One of his eyes gleamed a faint, unnatural green. Muscles twitched with wooden cords woven through them, replacing what his flame had burned away.
Half man, half plant.
His laugh was hoarse, wild, almost feral. "…Ha. Mine. You're mine now."
The fetus had stopped struggling, nestled against his chest, a knot of wood branded with his Qi. But its presence remained inside him—heavy, unyielding, whispering with alien hunger.
Oliver coughed, sap mixed with blood spilling from his lips. He wiped it away with a savage grin, dragging himself upright. Every step felt foreign, his new body groaning like creaking timber, but he refused to falter.
The treasure was his. But the cost had been written into his flesh.
The battlefield was unrecognizable.
The once-verdant grove had been reduced to a wasteland of split trunks and smoking stumps, trees blackened and still smoldering from the heat of Oliver's crimson blades.
Roots that had once belonged to the alpha macaque stretched in every direction like veins ripped from a giant corpse, coiled and hardened into grotesque statues of wood. Some thrashed even in death, twitching violently as if the earth itself still mourned the beast's fall. Pools of sap-like blood glistened among shattered stone, and the air reeked of burnt bark, ash, and iron.
Oliver stood in the middle of it, gasping.
His skin bore streaks of unnatural green where tendrils had fused into muscle. Along his arms and ribs, wood pulsed like veins, glowing faintly as if alive, as though the root fetus had left its imprint branded into his very body. His bones ached; parts of him no longer felt like flesh. He was half human, half plant, trembling with the aftermath of nearly being consumed.
All his blades had dissolved back into fragments of Qi, but his grip remained tight, knuckles white.
The clones had died out only after the treasure was forced under his control. Their corpses littered the grove—wooden husks with cracked skulls, bodies stiff like puppets that had their strings cut.
And then—silence.
He turned, his breathing uneven, searching for the women he was with.
Luna stood a short distance away, her flank torn and bleeding from when the vines had lashed wildly. She had fought hard, her horns still stained with shattered wood and the flesh of the original macaque horde, but she swayed unsteadily, exhaustion dragging her chest low. Her tail flicked weakly, and though her golden eyes still glared with defiance, her legs trembled with every breath.
"Oliver…" she whispered, her voice trembling as she stumbled forward, fear and awe blending in her tone.
Takara sat on the ground, her clothes in tatters, hair plastered to her face with sweat. Her arm had been struck by one of the root's lashes, leaving a swollen, purpling welt, and shallow cuts streaked across her thighs where debris had flown. Her breathing was rough, and the earlier flush of her cheeks had been replaced by a pale, dazed look. Yet when she met Oliver's gaze, she gave a breathless laugh.
"You're a damn… monster," she said softly, half in awe, half in disbelief.
Kaede and Sana struggled for breath in the settling silence, caught in the wreckage that surrounded them. Both were alive—but battered, strained, and scarred by the chaos.
The grove, once filled with glowing ferns, had been reduced to a scarred ruin. The heavenly and earthly energies had been torn apart, replaced by the lingering, unstable aura of the root fetus now pulsing faintly within Oliver's core.
Oliver chuckled darkly. "I guess it's fine to smoke the ferns," he muttered under his breath, "since we haven't died after a bunch got burnt."
The girls stared at the boy who had single-handedly brought down an entity akin to a miniature natural disaster. They couldn't help but marvel at him—despite the death and destruction, he hadn't once forgotten what he came here for.
Grimacing, Oliver tried to wrench the fetus shell from his chest, but it clung tighter, its roots writhing as they burrowed into his flesh and sank deeper toward his spirit sea.
"I guess you're not done merging, are you…" he murmured, steadying himself. He opened his spirit sea and dampened the rhythm of his foundation treasure, coaxing it to accept what it perceived as a hostile intruder.
The shell responded instantly. It sank into him faster, the bark-like growths coating his skin paling, softening, and finally smoothing back into a more human texture—though faint green undertones of plant Qi lingered, together with unseen vegetation sprouting inside his core. He looked mostly human again.
Drawing in the smoke of the burning ferns, Oliver felt his dantian replenish at a frightening pace, inhaling plant, wind, and earth Qi directly. A crooked grin tugged at his lips. "I win—"
The words broke off. His mind turned light, unmoored, and his eyes darted toward the girls—only to freeze.
In the shadows stood her. The same girl who had hidden in his wardrobe. His eyes widened, but he had no chance to speak before his body collapsed.
The girls screamed, panic flashing in their eyes; instinctively, some clutched their noses as the air grew thick and oppressive.
Thud! Thud!
His heart pounded like a war drum, every beat threatening to tear his chest apart. The root fetus dug deeper, latching to his core with parasitic hunger. His meridians convulsed, spirit sea trembling under the weight of a force that refused to be suppressed.
"Oliver—!" Luna's voice cracked, her hand reaching forward only to recoil at the sight of his skin splitting.
Pain scorched through him like molten iron.
Bark crept across his flesh, crawling veins of green spreading outward as if his very body were becoming soil. He screamed, the sound raw and jagged, as roots tore violently from his sides, curling and twisting like serpents before slamming into the ground. They dug deep, thickening, locking him in place.
The grove shook.
The lingering smoke of burnt ferns swirled chaotically as a tree erupted from his body—its trunk splitting from his chest, wood and bone entwined, sap oozing from the seams. Golden-red liquid spilled from its roots, sticky and pungent, sealing Oliver beneath as though burying him alive.
The tree groaned, its bark tightening, pulsing with the rhythm of Oliver's heartbeat. From its branches, bulbous shapes began to form. At first, they were no more than swollen knots of wood, but with each pulse of his Qi, they expanded, skin thinning until they resembled great peaches of translucent crystal. Inside them, golden-haired infants floated in liquid that shimmered like liquefied moonlight.
Kaede clutched Sana's arm, trembling. "This… this isn't natural. We… we need to do something." Though she said it, she had nothing to use—the swords he had lent them had disintegrated along with the others.
Oliver's consciousness dimmed, but his agony only deepened. He felt every fracture of his bones as the bark overtook him. His lungs burned with sap, his flesh fused into wood, his soul stretched thin—split between himself and the unnatural life swelling above. His vision blurred, yet through his fading sight he saw the girls' horrified faces, their mouths moving but voices drowned beneath the roar of blood and Qi in his ears.
The first of the fruits swelled larger, cradling his main consciousness. Inside, he floated as a newborn, his body tiny yet divine, golden hair swirling like sunlight through water. He gasped—not for air, but instinctively, as the liquid nourished him—his tiny fingers clutching half a dozen paper talisman.
Above, the other fruits quickened, each infant-shape opening eyes the color of faint Asura. They blinked in eerie unison, their gazes unnaturally aware for something only just born.
Oliver shuddered from within the largest fruit, his thoughts echoing through the tree and its children. Clones… no, fragments… extensions of me…
The branches creaked, swaying though no wind blew. Sap dripped heavily from the roots, pooling over his original body sealed beneath it and the scattered teleportation talismans. The ground itself seemed to breathe with the unnatural birth.
Kaede's lips parted, whispering in disbelief. "He's… multiplying."
Sana, pale and trembling, pressed her hands to her chest, unable to stop staring at the peach-like fruits. "Are those… are those him?"
The infants' eyes glimmered. The grove, ruined and smoldering only moments before, now felt colder, as though something alien had taken root in its heart.