Not a single word wasted.
The moment Ren's shout faded into the quiet echo amid the mist, Yuna lunged forward, swift as lightning slicing through the tense air.
No hesitation. No delay. No fear.
She dashed across the chaotic battlefield with a grace that was almost unreal.
Her petite figure glided like a whisper of wind, yet every step she took carried the sharpness of a blade.
Her eyes gleamed with absolute focus, cutting through the surrounding chaos with unerring precision.
Roots lashed out wildly, crashing down like furious serpents.
But she was always one beat ahead.
She didn't just dodge, she danced within danger.
Every lean, every step back, every leap was executed so flawlessly it seemed as though she wasn't avoiding attacks at all, but orchestrating the flow of battle itself.
They couldn't touch her.
Each strike landed just inches away, grazing empty air.
She passed through like a breeze that could never be caught, not slowing even for a second.
And then..
In the blink of an eye..
She was right in front of it.
And for the first time since this battle began.
The tree trembled.
But before it could strike.
Yuna's step faltered.
A single beat out of rhythm. A sliver of imbalance. A mistake so minuscule it could barely be seen.
But in this battle, even that was enough.
Enough to turn opportunity into catastrophe.
Enough to end them.
Ren's eyes widened, breath caught in his throat as he saw it.
The roots...
They weren't striking wildly anymore.
They were no longer chaotic, thrashing tentacles of rage.
They were waiting.
They had always been waiting.
They didn't need to chase. They didn't need to ensnare amidst the chaos.
They only needed to wait.
And when the moment came...
They struck without mercy.
Roots sprang from the ground like hunting serpents that had locked onto their prey.
They didn't just bind.
They consumed.
They coiled around Yuna's ankles, giving her not a moment to react.
A harsh yank.
A downward pull.
She fell.
In the span of a single heartbeat, Yuna shifted from a warrior ready to strike to prey being dragged into a deadly mire.
The ground beneath her was no longer ground.
It opened its jaws.
An invisible pit. A bottomless abyss. A gateway to the farthest depths of the world.
The roots tightened, pulling her down inch by inch.
Yuna struggled.
She clawed at the earth, eyes wide, body straining against the pull.
But the more she fought, the tighter they coiled.
The more they crushed.
The deeper they dragged her down.
"YUNA!!"
Nautilus screamed.
But she couldn't answer.
She was sinking.
She couldn't move forward anymore.
Not even a single step.
Ren saw her small hands gripping the earth, but the roots kept slithering up her arms, wrapping around her fingers, swallowing the last traces of light.
No... No way...
No way.
No way.
No way!
Are they going to die?
Here?
Like this?
No.
No!
But...
In that moment of despair, a cold flash of light burst through the darkness, slicing through the suffocating silence.
Steel shimmered, sharp, sudden, like the invisible blade of a god tearing the air apart.
A piercing sound rang out.
Whip!
The air was torn to shreds.
Ren didn't see it right away. But he felt it.
A killing intent brushed against his skin, laced with the chill of a weapon swung with deadly resolve.
A blade…?
No.
A short sword.
It spun through the air, flying with terrifying speed, like a whirlwind of steel screaming through the night.
Moonlight reflected off the metal as it twirled, casting silver flares with every rotation.
Unwavering. Unflinching. Unforgiving.
A blade of death.
A howling spiral of destruction, tearing straight toward the tree.
Then...
The blade shot forward like a silver streak, slicing through the sky with monstrous velocity, and just as its tip was about to pierce the trunk.
Where there should've been the sharp clang of metal meeting wood.
It stopped.
Frozen midair, as if halted by an invisible hand.
No impact. No contact. No sign it had ever landed a blow.
And then...
A scream tore through the air.
Not the sound of wood splitting. Not the cry of a beast being struck.
Something far worse.
A sound so horrifying it didn't just pierce the ears, it clawed through every nerve in the body, shredding the soul itself with its grotesque wail.
It echoed through the entire forest, shrieking through the leaves, bouncing off ancient trunks, stretching into endless reverberations, as if the pain would never end.
Then, a trail of red pixels dripped from where the blade touched the unseen force, falling to the ground, staining the dark, damp earth with unnatural color.
The space around them shook. Warped. As if an invisible veil had been ripped open, bending the very laws of this world.
Nothing could stay hidden anymore.
A shadow fell.
Not from the treetops, but from the tree itself, like it had been forcefully torn from the wood it had clung to for so long.
A vague, twisted entity, shapeless, unstable, as if it had never belonged to this world, had never had a true form.
And now, it had been dragged out from its refuge.
Dragged into the light.
Forced to reveal itself.
Ren and the other two didn't have time to look.
No time to be curious, no time to slow down even for a second. No time to wonder, to try to understand what had just been dragged down from the tree trunk.
They could only feel it.
The roots that had once tightened around them had loosened.
The suffocating pressure down to their bones, the merciless pull that felt like it would rip their flesh apart—suddenly vanished, as if a beast had dropped its prey from its fangs.
The roots twitched. Trembled. They lost the horrifying strength that had dominated just seconds ago.
No need for words, no need for orders, the three of them broke free at once.
Ren spun around hard, yanking his legs out of the coiling roots, the slippery sensation making every nerve in his body tighten like a drawn bowstring.
Yuna, though her legs were still numb, pushed herself up, gritting her teeth through the pain as she tore away from the retreating roots, now writhing like wounded serpents.
Nautilus, his heart still pounding, breath fractured from tension, had a sharper gaze than ever. He backed away immediately, eyes locked onto the creature torn from the darkness, not with curiosity, but with absolute vigilance.
None of them saw it clearly.
None of them knew what it truly was.
But that didn't matter.
What mattered was... now was the time to run.
But...
Ren stopped short.
Run where?
Run where, when they were still trapped inside this forest, a natural labyrinth with no exit, where every tree looked the same, where each step could lead them back to where they started, where shadows slipped through the leaves like whispering phantoms?
Run where, when he still hadn't dispelled the effects of the Hollow Brand, a hidden curse clinging to his body, like invisible chains binding him to the darkness, draining him little by little of life without him even realizing?
A chilling shiver ran down his spine.
An illusion.
No... hallucination.
It wasn't just a fleeting image in his mind. It surged in like a flood, sweeping everything away, flooding every sense, twisting and warping the world before his eyes, cracking reality like glass about to shatter.
Horrifying visions. Elongated shadows across the ground. Whispered voices with no source echoing by his ears, all intertwining, fusing into something too real to be false, but too terrifying to accept.
Ren froze.
So did Yuna and Nautilus.
But unlike him, they didn't even seem aware of it.
Their bodies still stood there.
But their eyes were blank. Hollow. Unfocused.
As if their inner will had been drained by something.
As if their souls had been torn from their bodies.
Puppets with no strings.
Empty husks, left behind in a world already fallen.
Sinking.
Consumed.
And then....
Ren felt it.
Not with his eyes. Not with his ears. But through every nerve stretched tight, every blood vessel squeezed in fear, every breath becoming more ragged.
A dull pain spread from deep within his chest, not sharp like a fatal wound, not burning like an open gash, but heavy and oppressive, like a cold, deathly hand reaching out from the darkness, gripping his heart, crushing every beat.
The air thickened, as if he wasn't breathing oxygen anymore, but something heavier, darker, something seeping into every crevice of his lungs, turning every breath into torture.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Wrong.
As if reality itself was warping. As if an invisible fog blanketed everything, but it wasn't mist. No.
It was...
Darkness.
Not the ordinary darkness of night. Not the absence of light in a room without lamps. But a darkness with consciousness.
It was alive.
It slipped through the cracks of reality. It slithered around them like a stalking predator. It was here.
Unseen.
Unheard.
But felt.
An invisible entity, like a shadow lurking at the edge of vision, watching.
No, waiting.
Ren tried to move. To run. To escape.
But his legs felt heavy, as though invisible chains were dragging down his ankles, as though his whole body was sinking into a bottomless abyss where light could never reach.
His breath grew labored.
The air was no longer air.
It lived.
It whispered.
It devoured.
Everything twisted before his eyes, warping, spinning like a mirage bent by reality itself, but amidst the chaos, one thing remained constant. One figure never disappeared.
He couldn't look at it directly.
But...
It could see him.
It was watching him.
It had never looked away.
And then...
A voice spoke.
Not in sound.
But in thought.
A voice slithered into his mind, weaving through every fold of consciousness, cold as a blade at the back of his neck. A whisper not from outside...
But from within.
"Fall."
"Just fall."
"And I will show you..."