The final mile to the Heart Tree was a gauntlet of the grove's most refined horrors.
The forest floor was no longer earth but a lattice of interwoven roots that pulsed with slow, viscous life. The air grew thick with pollen that carried whispers—not sound, but direct neural impressions of fear, longing, and despair left by previous travelers.
Turn back, one whisper hissed against Kai's temples.
It's a trap, sighed another.
Join us. It's peaceful here, murmured a third, sweet as poisoned honey.
Kai's empathic dampening filtered the worst of it, turning the psychic assault into background static. Lena and Anya weren't so fortunate. Lena walked with her hands over her ears, tears streaking her dirty face. Anya's jaw was clenched so tight Kai could hear her teeth grinding.
Vex's group moved with grim focus. They'd lost two more in the night to "root-snatch"—the pulsing lattice had come alive, dragging the screaming victims down into the dark between the roots. Now they stepped only where the roots were thinnest, following a path only Vex seemed to intuit.
"Thermal sensing," she explained when Kai asked. "The roots give off less heat where they're dormant. Cooler path is safer."
Her ability was more than expressive—it was sophisticated. Kai's threat simulation revised her rating to Extreme-High. She was arguably more dangerous than Silas, just more pragmatic in her application of power.
Slot counter: 156/200
Forty-four slots left. The counter was climbing faster now as survivors neared the end.
The terrain shifted again. The massive trees gave way to a field of crystalline flowers, each blossom the size of a dinner plate, their petals razor-sharp and reflecting the fractured sky in dizzying patterns.
"Don't look directly at them," Vex ordered. "The patterns induce seizures. Walk single file, step exactly where I step."
She began picking a winding path through the field. The flowers didn't move, but they hummed—a low, resonant frequency that vibrated in Kai's bones. His ability flagged it: Sonic defense mechanism. Disorients prey.
Halfway across, a scream tore through the hum.
One of Vex's people—a young man with gill-like slits on his neck for filtering toxins—had stumbled. He'd looked at a flower cluster too long. Now he was convulsing on the ground, his body spasming as the crystalline petals leaned toward him, drawn by his movements.
"Leave him," Vex said, her voice flat.
"We can pull him out!" another fighter protested.
"Touch him during a seizure and you'll get pulled in too. The flowers respond to motion and electrical impulses. He's generating both." She didn't stop walking. "He's already dead."
They watched as the man's thrashing brought him into contact with a petal. It sliced through his arm cleanly. Blood, shockingly red, sprayed across the white crystals. The flowers reacted instantly, hundreds of blossoms turning toward the scent, their humming rising to a piercing shriek.
The man was pulled apart in seconds, a red haze settling over the crystal field.
Population: 831/1,003
Lena vomited. Kai analyzed. The flowers' reaction time, their sensory range, the kill radius.
Anya grabbed Lena's arm, pulling her along. "Don't look. Just walk."
They reached the far side, the horrific sounds fading behind them. The group was silent now, the cost of the final mile written on every face.
Ahead, the Heart Tree dominated everything.
It was larger than it had seemed from a distance. Its trunk was wider than a city block, its bark a mosaic of silver, gold, and deep umber that shifted in the strange light. Its branches didn't just hold glowing fruit—they held structures. Platforms, bridges, what looked like dwellings, all grown from the living wood. A vertical city in a tree.
A path of smooth, white stone led to a vast archway at the base of the trunk. And there, standing before it, was a figure.
Humanoid, but unmistakably not human.
It stood eight feet tall, its body composed of polished wood and woven vines, with glowing amber sap flowing in visible channels beneath its surface. Its face was smooth, featureless except for two deep-set cavities where eyes might be, glowing with soft white light. It held a staff of living wood that ended in a blossoming flower.
Analysis: Grove Guardian. Advanced corrected entity. Possibly original system construct or fully assimilated human. Threat level: Unknown (potentially immeasurable).
The Guardian didn't move as they approached. But when Vex's group was within fifty feet, it spoke. Its voice was the sound of wind through leaves, of roots shifting deep in earth, translated into words.
"Halt, applicants. Present for evaluation."
Vex stopped, her people fanning out warily. "We seek sanctuary."
"Sanctuary is earned." The Guardian's head didn't turn, but Kai felt its attention sweep over them. "You are 17. Sanctuary slots remain: 44. Not all will pass."
"What's the evaluation?" Kai asked.
The Guardian's focus settled on him. The pressure of its attention was physical—a weight on his shoulders. "The Heart Tree examines not what you are, but what you are becoming. It measures compatibility with the Mending. Step forward, Broken One. You are first."
Kai felt a collective tension from the group. Vex gave a slight nod. Go.
He walked forward until he stood ten feet from the Guardian. The air here smelled of ozone and rich soil.
"Extend your hand," the Guardian instructed.
Kai complied. The Guardian reached out with a hand of woven vines. Its touch was cool, dry, strangely gentle.
A shock went through him—not pain, but a sudden, overwhelming flood of data. Not his own. The Tree's.
He saw the system's purpose in kaleidoscopic fragments:
A dying world, not from war or famine, but from stagnation. A species that had stopped evolving, stopped reaching, stopped dreaming.
A solution: The Mending. Not a punishment, but a catalyst. A forced evolution.
Arenas as pressure chambers. Corrections as guided mutations.
And the Broken… anomalies. Mutations the system didn't design but couldn't prevent. Wild cards. Either the next step… or a fatal error.
The vision ended as suddenly as it began. Kai staggered back, his mind reeling.
The Guardian remained still. "Your adaptation deviates from prescribed paths. You see patterns, predict outcomes, sacrifice connection for efficiency. The Tree asks: For what purpose do you seek this power?"
Kai's voice was rough. "To survive."
"A shallow answer. Survival is a prerequisite, not a purpose. The Mending seeks to build something that survives. What will you build?"
The question hung in the air. Kai had no answer. He'd been too focused on the next minute, the next threat, to consider an after.
The Guardian waited a moment longer, then stepped aside. "You may enter. But know this: The Tree will continue to ask. And one day, you must answer."
A section of the archway shimmered, becoming permeable. Kai looked back at Lena, at Anya, at Vex's uncertain group.
"Go," Vex said. "We'll follow."
Kai stepped through.
The inside of the Heart Tree was a revelation. The trunk was hollow, a vast cylindrical space rising hundreds of feet upward. Spiral walkways of living wood wound around the inner wall, leading to the platforms and dwellings they'd seen outside. Light came from glowing moss and thousands of the luminous fruits hanging from the ceiling far above.
But it was the people that struck him.