Chapter 38
Written by Bayzo Albion
A towering tree lurched from the fog, its root-claws tearing the soil. Bark like dragon scales gleamed with silvery sap, a blank wooden face staring serenely. Vines slithered around it, whispering with ancient malice—until one stilled, tasting the air and turning toward us like a predator scenting prey.
I gripped my axe tighter, palms slick against the worn handle, the wood's grain biting into my skin like a promise of blisters to come. Felling a sapling was sweat enough; this abomination? Its bark shimmered with metallic sheen, unyielding as plate mail, and those vines undulated in eager anticipation, lashing the trunk like eager hounds on a leash.
My cocky double strode forward—bold as brass—and paid the price in a heartbeat. Vines lashed out in a whirlwind blur, the air keening with their passage. They ensnared him, cinching tight with a crackle of splintering bone and magic, compressing until he burst apart in a haze of dissipating ether, leaving only the acrid ozone of spent spells.
I leaped back, the vine's tip whistling past my ear close enough to stir my hair. In mid-swing, it rigidified into a spear, its barbed point weeping thick, venomous resin that sizzled on the leaf litter, etching smoking craters into the humus.
"You're utterly useless," I hissed through clenched teeth, flattening against a boulder whose mossy chill seeped through my shirt.
A muffled echo reverberated in my skull: *Hey, my HP's in the red! You get that? I'm glitched out on the loading screen between respawn and oblivion!*
"Looks like I can't even trust my own shadow anymore," I muttered, eyes locked on another vine spearing the rock inches from my head. It punched deep, fracturing stone with a resonant *crack* that vibrated up my spine, sending chips flying like shrapnel.
*Chill,* he shot back, his tone a lazy drawl despite the circumstances. *We're in paradise, remember? Lies here are harmless—no flaying skin, no shattered bones, no empires toppled. Worst case? A twinge of awkwardness... and a bruise or two on the ego.*
My focus snagged on a glaring flaw: the behemoth itself lumbered with ponderous sloth, root-claws thudding into earth like the footsteps of some primordial giant, deliberate and earth-shaking. But its appendages? They danced to a frenzied rhythm all their own—snapping through the air at blinding speeds, trailing luminous green wakes like comet tails laced with poison. The dissonance was hypnotic, terrifying: a sluggish body puppeteered by hyperactive strings.
"This thing's way out of my league," I admitted to the empty air, ice prickling down my spine as sweat traced cold paths between my shoulder blades.
And then, from behind me, that cloyingly saccharine laugh bubbled up—like honey poured over broken glass. The Forest Queen materialized from thin air, perching on a stout branch with the effortless poise of royalty claiming her dais. Moonlight—or was it dawn now?—gilded her silver tresses, turning them into a cascade of molten starlight.
"Give it a go," she cooed, her voice a velvet caress laced with barbs, twirling a lock of hair around one elegant finger. "Or do brave warriors like you only strike at the defenseless? Here's a queenly hint: strike from the shadows. Even trees have chinks in their armor... if you know where to peer."
Her "advice" was salt in the wound—useless as a screen door on a submarine. Before I could spit a retort, she snapped her fingers. The air *shimmered*, folding in on itself, and a dome of azure translucence snapped into place around us. It hummed with restrained power, aurora-veins pulsing softly, crackling with static that raised the hairs on my arms. A hundred meters across, seamless as a soap bubble—and utterly inescapable.
She lounged on her perch like a cat in cream, legs swinging idly, the picture of indolent sovereignty. Her gaze held a volatile brew: curiosity sharp as thorns, cruelty bubbling like overripe fruit.
"Now... entertain me," she drawled, the words a playful purr undercut by the guillotine's edge. "Show me your mettle before this darling guardian lops off your fool head."
*Well then...* I thought, knuckles whitening on my sword's hilt as resolve hardened in my veins like cooling steel. *Let the dance begin.*
The arboreal titan sensed me on a primal wavelength—vibrations in the soil, the whisper of displaced air, the faintest crunch of twig under boot. Yet its spatial awareness was a joke, fragmented and foggy; to it, I was a symphony of scattered echoes, not a cohesive threat. That blindness was my lifeline, thin as spider silk.
My double and I—we were ghosts in the machine now, orbiting the colossus in a lethal waltz, disrupting its cadence with feints and dodges. Vines whipped like enraged vipers, carving silken trails of venom-green luminescence through the mist-shrouded air. They hissed on impact, superheated lashes that scorched the ozone, but I spotted the tell: their inner glow dimmed with each assault, crimson magic hemorrhaging like vital fluids from a flayed vein. Strikes landed with cataclysmic force, yet lagged by a breath—grazing air where I'd been a heartbeat prior, embedding in bark with meaty *thunks* that showered us in fragrant splinters.
I darted behind colossal trunks, ancient sentinels whose girth swallowed me whole, baiting the tendrils into frenzy. They smashed home with seismic fury, bark erupting in explosive shards that peppered the ground like wooden shrapnel, the shockwave rippling through the earth in a low, resonant groan that set my teeth buzzing. In those stolen pauses—the vines recoiling, dazed—I surged forth, my crude wooden sword flashing in precise arcs. Carved on a whim from a fallen bough, it hummed with unexpected synergy against this foe, slicing through fibrous armor with a sigh like wind through reeds—far deadlier than my honed axe, which I'd leveled through countless chops. Wood called to wood, an elemental accord, severing coils in sprays of viscous sap that steamed on contact with air.
"Clever, if predictable," her voice drifted down, syrupy poison from her throne-perch, where she reclined with chin on fist, appraising the spectacle like a jaded patron at the coliseum. "A smart weakling—the most vexing breed. Like a gnat nipping at the one spot you can't quite scratch."
I bit back a retort, hunkering behind my latest bulwark to gulp ragged breaths, lungs burning with the tang of pine resin and scorched greenery. The vines labored to knit themselves anew: severed stumps oozed adhesive gum, groping blindly to reform barbs, but each iteration faltered—slower, sloppier, like a body in shock refusing to clot. The monster faltered too, its once-fluid grace devolving into lumbering spasms; root-claws erupted from the loam not with predatory snap, but convulsive heaves, gouging furrows that wept dark soil. Life ebbed from it in visible waves, draining into the insatiable hush of the woods, leaving only echoes of rage in the shuddering leaves.
– – –
The penultimate vine slapped the earth with a wet *thud*, coiling in futile death throes. The beast emitted a guttural keen—a fusion of rotting timber's creak and a mortally wounded beast's final bellow—its trunk spiderwebbing with fissures from which oozed a molasses-thick resin, pooling in sluggish rivulets that hardened into amber tears on the forest floor.
One more swing, and it'd crumble. Victory teased at my fingertips, sweet as forbidden fruit.
But the Forest Queen? She offered no coup de grâce, no intervention—just a cryptic smile that curled her lips like smoke from a hidden pyre. In her eyes gleamed a deeper game, shadows shifting behind the veil, whispering that this skirmish was mere prelude to the symphony's crescendo.
"Bet that wooden freak's got some gamey meat on it," my double purred upon respawn, eyeing the faltering hulk with carnivorous hunger, as if it were a spit-roasted haunch fresh off the coals, juices dripping onto glowing embers.
"We never even sampled that stone golem's innards," I countered, swiping sweat from my brow with a grimy forearm, the salt stinging like accusations. "And honestly? Doubt a plant's packing 'meat'—though in this madhouse, even rocks occasionally twitch and plot."
The final tendrils thrashed once, feebly, before thudding into silence, stripping the titan bare. It quivered, emitting piteous creaks like a soul bartering for one last dawn. A flurry of calculated strikes—and it toppled, shattering into a cascade of jagged limbs and pulp, from which trickled a golden, honeyed sap that perfumed the air with notes of vanilla and decay.
> **Interface:**
> [Victory over Treeling Offspring (Level 1)]
> [Acquired: Timber Flesh (50 kg)]
> [Acquired: Sturdy Natural Cordage x5]
> [Experience: +100]
> [Compatibility Detected: Magical Stone + Wooden Sword]
> [Upgrade Available: Extra Skill for Wooden Sword (10%)]
"Hell yes," I muttered, selecting without hesitation.
> **Interface:**
> [Sword Gains Extra Skill: "Verdant Regeneration"]
> [Description: Weapon gradually mends its wounds over time.]
The blade in my hand thrummed faintly, as if stirring from slumber—eager, alive, ready for the shadows yet to unfold.
I startled, a jolt racing through me as warm fingers grazed my shoulders, light yet insistent, sending an unexpected shiver down my spine.