"
The roots didn't just rise—
they struck.
Like serpents, like spears, like the vengeful fingers of a buried god, they erupted from the prison floor. Stone cracked. Glass bloomed into jagged petals. The air filled with the sound of snapping sinew and screaming men.
One guard was impaled mid-shout, rustflowers bursting from his mouth. Another was dragged under, his final breath a wet gasp as roots coiled around his ribs and pulled.
Sarnel stumbled back, her halo sputtering, its light warping unnaturally.
"You wretched—"
Kael didn't let her finish.
The flower in his palm had become a living weapon, its vines lashing out, carving through steel and flesh alike. Blood—black, gold, rust-red—splattered the walls, feeding the roots.
Feeding him.
[Root System Synchronization: 34%]
The bear lunged again, tearing through two guards in a single swipe. Its muzzle dripped with something thicker than blood, its scars pulsing like dying stars.
Kael didn't know if it was an ally or just another predator drawn to the chaos.
Didn't care.
Sarnel raised her scalpel-blade, its saint-steel singing a broken hymn.
"You think this is a victory? You're still in my garden, Hollow Seed. And I prune what doesn't belong."
She slashed the air—
—and the nearest roots screamed, withering to ash.
Kael felt it like a knife between his ribs.
But the flower in his palm laughed.
A dark, wet sound, like petals unfurling in a corpse's throat.
Then—
Crack.
The ceiling split.
Vines thicker than cathedral pillars crashed down, smashing through walkways, crushing cells, tangling around Sarnel's legs before she could dodge. She snarled, hacking at them—but for every one she severed, three more took its place.
Kael stepped forward.
The roots parted for him.
The prison was alive now.
Breathing.
Hungry.
Sarnel's goggles shattered as a vine cracked across her face. She spat blood, voice raw.
"You don't understand what you're awakening—"
"Don't I?" Kael grabbed her by the throat, the flower's vines slithering up his arm, pressing against her rust-eaten halo.
"You planted me here. Watered me with pain. Did you really think I wouldn't grow?"
Her pupils dilated—black blooms trembling in the storm-light.
Then Kael squeezed.
The halo buckled.
And the world—
—shifted—
[Warning: Temporal Echo Detected]
—a throne of swaying stems.
A crown of thorns.
A voice (his? Kane's? Someone else's?) whispering:
"They fear what they bury."
The vision shattered as Sarnel wrenched free, her halo snapping in half. She fell back, gasping, one hand clutching the broken circlet.
"You're not the first to try and burn this garden down," she hissed.
"You won't be the last."
Then she vanished—swallowed by the shadows of the collapsing prison.
Kael didn't chase her.
He turned instead to the bear, to the roots, to the prison unraveling around him.
The flower in his palm pulsed.
[Root System Synchronization: 67%]
The bear growled, its crown-scars burning brighter.
Kael grinned.
"Let's go."
And the garden moved with him.