Outside the trial, far from mirrored halls and divine pressure, the forest waited.
Three figures balanced on the thick branch of an ancient tree, its bark rough beneath their boots, its surface split by thin veins of corrupted red-black energy that pulsed slowly, like an exposed wound refusing to heal. The plan was simple in the way only desperate plans ever were.
Find the core.Destroy it.Survive the difference in stages.
Zane's hand closed around the hilt of his katana.
The blade slid free with a soft, clean sound that felt wrong in a place like this. Catalina was already shifting her weight, mist coiling lazily around her calves, her posture loose but ready. Ray rolled his shoulders, fire flickering at his knuckles in nervous, uneven bursts.
No one spoke for a moment.
The forest didn't feel alive.
It felt aware—not in thought, not in intent, but in the way pressure exists. In the way rot spreads. In the way a wound reacts when touched.
Light barely reached the ground. Towering trees choked the sky, their trunks swollen and warped, bark split to reveal pulsing corruption beneath. The air hung thick, heavy enough to press against the chest. Every breath carried the taste of iron and decay, like blood left too long in the open.
Below them, the clearing began to break.
The earth cracked open with a sound like tearing flesh. Roots burst free—thick, serpentine things that ripped through soil and stone alike, coiling and snapping as something vast forced its way upward. Dirt and broken rock rained down as the corrupted tree rose in full.
It was enormous.
Its trunk twisted into a crude humanoid shape, branches forming jagged limbs slick with defiled sap that hissed when it struck the ground. At the center of its chest, half-buried beneath layers of bark and rot, a crimson knot pulsed steadily.
A core.
A Ravager.
Catalina whistled low, the sound thin against the weight of the clearing.
"Well," she said, mist curling tighter around her ankles, "on the bright side, it didn't drop on us."
Ray laughed, sharp and strained. Flames flared around his fists, then dimmed again as he swallowed.
"Yeah. Fantastic. That thing's only… what, a walking forest with anger issues?"
Zane didn't respond.
He stepped off the branch before the Ravager fully stabilized, boots hitting the ground in a controlled drop. The air shifted around him, pressure bending slightly as he landed. His coat fluttered despite the stillness. One eye remained closed.
The other burned crimson.
Corrupted energy flowed toward him, drawn by something deeper than affinity. He didn't resist it. He let it slide along his senses, cataloging paths, density, weaknesses that were already trying to close.
The Ravager moved.
Roots lashed outward in a violent sweep, tearing through the clearing like whips. Zane stepped forward instead of back. Wind screamed as it wrapped around him, blackened by corruption, twisting space just enough for him to vanish in a violent distortion.
He reappeared above one of the charging roots, katana already moving.
Black lightning ripped downward—not summoned, not called, but dragged from the sky and bent into something wrong. The bolt slammed into the Ravager's trunk, blasting bark and rot outward in a storm of splinters.
The impact shook the clearing.
The Ravager's roar followed, deep and grinding, like stone dragged across stone.
Catalina snapped her fingers.
Mist exploded outward, thick and silver, flooding the battlefield in seconds. It clung to roots and branches, wrapping the Ravager in layers of shifting reflection. Distorted images of its own body shimmered across the fog, angles bending, movements lagging.
"Hey," Catalina called, her voice echoing oddly through the haze, "you ever get tired of looking at yourself?"
Ray didn't wait.
Fire surged from his hands in a wide arc, bright and clean, slicing through the mist like dawn through fog. The flames struck the exposed core, burning away layers of corrupted bark. Heat rolled across the clearing.
Ray grinned, breath coming fast.
"Yes! That's it—just like that—"
A root snapped up from below and clipped him hard. He spun through the air and slammed into the ground, rolling until he came to a stop in a cloud of ash and dirt.
"—Ow," he finished weakly.
He pushed himself up, coughing. Flames around his hands flickered, unstable.
"Okay," he muttered. "Less talking. Definitely less talking."
The Ravager adapted.
Its trunk split open further, corrupted energy surging outward in a dense wave. The mist blackened where it touched, thinning, losing cohesion. Catalina's jaw tightened as she felt the drain—world energy slipping away, devoured rather than dispersed.
"Tch," she muttered. "Rude."
Zane landed in front of the Ravager, boots cracking stone. Black fire coiled around his arm, compressed with howling wind until space itself seemed to strain. He thrust his palm forward.
The attack tore through the Ravager's torso, carving a blazing trench straight through its mass.
For half a second, the core was fully exposed.
Then the wound closed.
Roots twisted inward, corruption knitting bark and flesh back together with brutal efficiency. The forest around them pulsed as if echoing the recovery, branches creaking, energy thickening.
More trees responded.
Massive limbs tore free and slammed down like falling towers. Catalina dissolved into mist just before a trunk obliterated the ground where she stood. Ray threw up a wall of fire, the impact scattering embers and sending him skidding backward, breath ragged.
Zane held his ground.
Black wind roared outward, deflecting debris, but even he felt it now—the resistance, the drag. Corruption thickened, pressing inward, interfering with his control. His crimson eye throbbed as information flooded in: root networks, energy loops, healing rates that outpaced his damage.
The Ravager raised both arms.
Roots erupted from the ground, curving inward, forming a cage. The earth beneath their feet darkened, cracks glowing with sickly red light as corruption spread.
Catalina reformed beside Zane, mist flickering unevenly.
"So," she said, forcing a crooked smile, "still think brute force is your love language?"
Zane didn't look at her.
"This isn't brute force," he said flatly. "It's persistence."
Ray staggered closer, flames dim, shoulders sagging.
"Well," he panted, "whatever you call it, it's eating us faster than we're burning it."
The Ravager didn't advance.
It didn't need to.
Energy continued to bleed into the clearing, pressure rising, recovery accelerating. Their attacks had slowed it. Scarred it. But the longer they stayed, the more the corruption thickened, turning their presence into fuel.
Three figures stood beneath a towering, defiled giant.
Breathing hard.Energy thinning. Resolve fraying but unbroken.
The stalemate held heavy, suffocatingnot because either side had stopped fighting, but because neither could afford to fall first.