Chương 98: 34 - Hunt

64 - Roots And Flowers Roots. The world was all roots. The ceiling, the floor, the walls. Roots everywhere. The table was gone, swallowed by the roots. The chairs, too. In the middle of it, Alexandra and her group stood against Lucius Merinus and his seven surviving subordinates.

"Is everyone good?" Marick asked, as the cloud of dust settled.

"Where's Luce?" Edran asked. Alexandra looked left and right, then behind. No trace of the woman.

"Fuck. She's inside the roots." Louis didn't move.

"I can sense her."

"Is she…?" Louis shook his head.

"Dead."

"Let's get this over with," Lucius said.

"We were in the middle of something when you barged in. In case you hadn't noticed." The roots moved. The wood groaned as it coiled on itself.

"It's tightening around us," Dena said. No one on the other side moved. Lucius stood with his hands behind his back. Waiting. Dustin swung. The axe sliced a root in half, but another closed the gap before it hit the ground.

"Marick. Left side." Marick was already there. He and Edran worked through the roots. Clean cuts. The pile at their feet grew. The room kept shrinking.

"There's no end to them," Marick said. Dustin hit the same root three times before it gave. By the time it dropped, the stump was already moving again.

"We're not cutting our way out," Edran said. The ceiling groaned. A beam cracked somewhere above them. Lucius glanced up, then back at them. Louis crouched and put a hand on the ground, then he closed his eyes. Alexandra tried cutting a root with her sickle. She wrapped her blade around one of the smaller ones and pulled with a slicing motion. The root gave, but only partially. She tried again, and again, finally severing the wood. Her heart was beating hard. She tried her best not to think about Luce too much.

She moved for another root. Dena was standing back, her eyes fixated upon the other side of the room where Lucius and his people were watching them struggle. Arrows were not designed to cut wood. A weakness she was more than aware of. Long ago, her parents warned her off this path. The plains didn't need archers. She watched as even Alexandra was doing her part. Slicing root with efficiency unparalleled for her rank. Louis was still crouching motionless, but the man had proved his worth by killing a Merinus.

She trusted he was doing something, even if she didn't know what. Dustin, Marick, and Edran were still hacking at the roots. They were doing well. Years of experience hunting verdant beasts in the plains had taught them the right moves, the right angles. But the fact of the matter remained. They were losing. Even if they couldn't hold the roots at bay, which they couldn't, eight Gold ranks remained to finish them off. This result wasn't outside of her expectations. Dena knew that going in. It was her last move.

Her one chance at revenge, and she was ready to die for it. She looked at Alexandra slicing another root. Dena was old. Her village was gone, all the people she knew and loved went with it. The roots were growing behind her too. They bumped into her back. She took a step forward. Was there a reason to hold back?

"Don't," Louis said, opening his eyes. She looked at him.

"It's a verdant beast. Blessed. Alex, can you deal with it?" This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Alexandra detached herself from a particularly sturdy root.

"Are you sure? Rank?"

"Silver. The red flower is behind Lucius. Deep within the roots." She frowned. Silver and blessed by the Yshant, it was time to see if her training had paid off. Higher stats, levels to Dark Bolt and Life Curse which should synergize together. Dark Bolt gathered on her fingertip. She'd gotten better at measuring the power she fed into it. Despite Life Curse converting the cost to curses, the initial cast was still channeled through her lifeforce. She wasn't nearly as precise as she was with mana. Not yet.

Without someone to teach her, knowing what to do was difficult. But she was getting better. She stopped right at the cusp of a sickness. She didn't think it would be enough to slay the beast, but it was worth a try. She shared a look with Louis. Then she released the black needle. It flew straight into the roots. They were covering everything around them. Missing was impossible. She felt the pain before her spell had any visible effect. Sickness of empathy was doing its work.

It was like her bones were moving, scratching against her flesh. Nothing comparable to the pain she felt when practicing on goblins. Biological differences. The roots turned brittle. At least, less sturdy than they were before. She moved with her sickle, and saw that she could now sever them in one cut.

"Great job, Alexandra!" Dustin roared, his axe cleaving through entire sections of the beast. Then her hand caught fire.

"What the—" She recoiled, wrapped her hand in the fabric of her pants to douse the fire. She summoned her journal. Inflict Weakness 6 -> 7 Combat Sense 6 -> 7 You are suffering from the curse of spontaneous combustion. What kind of fucked up curse is that?

"What was that?" Dena asked.

"The cost of casting this fucking skill." Louis looked at her.

"That's not enough."

"The beast won't die from it," she agreed, blowing on her hand in an attempt to soothe the burn.

"I could. But who says there isn't another lying in wait. Or more." Dena put a hand on her shoulder.

"You've done your part. Let us Gold ranks do ours."

"Are you sure?"

"We'll need you operational if there are more beasts. Save yourself for the next one," Louis said, standing up. Dena drew the cord of her bow.

"Leave it to me. The bow might not be ideal for verdant beasts, but I've slain my fair share over the years. With the roots weakened…" She aimed. The heart of the beast was buried deep within the compact wall of roots. Dena activated Predatory Sight. A flash of red between coils of wood, barely visible even with her skill guiding her and shifting as the roots moved. Dena breathed out. She'd spent decades on the plains. Decades reading wind, distances, plants.

The bow wasn't ideal for verdant beasts, but it was her path. Her eyes traced the gaps between roots. There was no line where she would avoid them all. But she could minimize how many she'd hit. Her arms steadied. This was her one and only rare skill. A skill she could only afford to use once per battle. The mana consumption was too much. She wasn't a mage. She'd never trained her intelligence more than necessary. Her draw deepened past the point most archers stopped.

She felt it in her shoulder, in the tendon of her forearm. The cord was at her jaw, then past it. She kept going until she knew the bow couldn't take anymore. Life Severing Arrow. The arrow moved fast, straight through a gap in the roots. It pierced through the first root as if it wasn't there. Then into another gap, and another root, until it planted itself dead in the center of the red flower's pistil. It came apart petal by petal. Across the room, their opponents moved closer to Lucius.

Cael stood up and stepped behind him. The bark woman took the other side. Will and the three other Wardens regrouped together further away. Lucius didn't say anything. The roots shuddered. All of them, at once, the whole mass of wood contracting. Then the sound of wet wood splitting. The roots fell. They didn't collapse so much as decompose, turning to ash and goo, splashing on the ground limp. In the middle of it, where the roots had been the thickest, Luce appeared. She was on her side.

One arm folded beneath her. No one said anything. Edran was the first to move. He crossed the room and crouched beside her. Didn't touch her. Just looked. Her eyes were open. There was ash in her hair from where the roots had decomposed around her.

"Focus," Dustin said.

"I know," Edran said. He stood up. Lucius watched. He was quiet for a moment. Then he smoothed the front of his coat with one hand.

"Hm." He turned to Cael.

"It's time. Go." He moved without a word, leaving what was left of the room through the back.

"Running away?" Alexandra said. Lucius looked at her. His expression didn't change.

"We gave so much to this city," he said.

"Time to return the favor." He reached into his coat and produced a small object. Dena couldn't make out what it was from across the room. He held it loosely, almost carelessly.

"What is that?" Marick said. Lucius didn't answer. He closed his fist around it and said a single word too low for any of them to hear. Nothing happened. Then the ground moved. Not like the roots. Deeper. Something beneath the city shifting its weight. Through the gaps in the walls and ceiling, the sky changed color.

"What did he do?" Marick said. Louis was already on his feet, his face stripped of everything.

"We need to stop him," he said.

"Now. We need to—""What did he do?" Marick said again. Louis looked at the sky.

"He called it. The Yshant." He exhaled.

"Every person in this city. It will consume them. That's how it reaches Platinum." Dustin groaned.

"Fuck."

"It's not too late to stop it," Louis said. Outside, somewhere in the streets, someone screamed.