Zealth had no time to celebrate surviving the beams. He needed to move safer.
Outside, the skulls kept firing.
Green mana beams cut across the hollow, slicing stone, burning moss, and carving glowing scars into the ruined chamber. Zealth threw himself toward the opening as another beam struck behind him, showering his back with hot fragments.
"Nope," he hissed, dropping to his knees. "I refuse to be killed by fruit with eyes."
He shoved Cinderbrand ahead of him and crawled into the gap.
The opening beneath the Rotbound Tree of Death was narrow—too narrow for a proper stance, too low for dignity, and too dark for comfort.
The smell inside was worse.
Rotten sap.
Wet soil.
Old bone.
The air pressed against his face, thick and sour. Roots scraped his shoulders. His armor caught against the rough bark, forcing him to twist sideways and drag himself forward inch by inch. The flame from Cinderbrand flickered ahead of him, painting the narrow tunnel in unstable orange light.
Behind him, a beam struck the entrance.
The roots shook.
Zealth clenched his teeth and pulled himself deeper.
"Wonderful," he muttered.
He had just managed to squeeze past the narrowest part when the root above him moved.
Not shifted.
Attacked.
A black spike shot downward.
"Oh, shoot."
Zealth rolled onto his side. The root stabbed into the dirt beside his ribs, deep enough to spray damp soil across his face.
He froze.
Then another spike thrust from the left.
"Already?"
He tightened his grip on Cinderbrand and slashed.
Fire met black bark.
The root split with a wet shriek, dark sap bubbling along the burning cut. It recoiled into the wall, twitching like a wounded limb.
Zealth crawled forward fast, no longer caring about silence.
The narrow entrance opened into a larger space beneath the base of the tree—a vast hollow chamber tangled with roots, thick vines, and hanging cords of skulls. The ceiling was low in places and impossibly high in others, formed by the underside of the ancient trunk. Massive roots curved down like pillars, while smaller ones hung like spear tips from above.
Zealth barely got one knee under him before they attacked again.
Roots shot from every direction.
One stabbed toward his stomach.
He twisted away, feeling it scrape across his armor. Another lashed from behind, wrapping around his ankle. Zealth kicked hard, but the root tightened, thorns biting into the metal.
"Can't you even give me personal space," he snapped.
He swung Cinderbrand down.
The flame cut through the binding root, and it released him with a hiss. Black sap splattered against the ground, steaming where the sword's fire touched it.
Three more roots thrust at once.
Zealth moved.
Barely.
He ducked beneath the first, parried the second with the flat of Cinderbrand, and cut the third before it could pierce his chest. The impact pushed him backward into a wall of bark. The wall pulsed beneath him.
He immediately regretted leaning on it.
A root burst from the surface beside his head.
Zealth dropped flat.
The spike passed over him and punched into another root across the hollow.
"Okay," he breathed, rolling away. "The wooden walls are also angry."
The Rotbound Tree groaned above him.
The sound rolled through the hollow like a mountain waking in pain. Skulls hanging deeper inside began to clatter softly, their jaws knocking together in rhythm.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Zealth pushed himself up and kept moving.
Going back meant the mana beams.
Staying still meant becoming fertilizer.
So deeper it was.
A terrible choice, but he was starting to feel Jupiter01 had a personal talent for offering only worst.
The farther he went beneath the tree, the sharper the roots became. Near the entrance, they had been thick and crushing. Here, they narrowed into spear-like points, black and polished, their tips wet with dark sap. Some hung from above like waiting blades. Others slid across the ground with slow, searching movements.
Zealth cut where he could.
Dodged what he had to.
Parried what came too fast.
Cinderbrand's flame was the only reason he survived. Every time the sword bit into root or vine, fire spread across the wound, forcing the tree's limbs to recoil. Without it, he would have been skewered in the first few seconds.
A root stabbed toward his thigh.
He cut it.
Another hooked around his arm.
He burned through it.
A thorned vine snapped toward his throat.
He leaned back until it grazed beneath his chin, then sliced upward, severing it in a spray of black sap.
The sap struck his cheek and hissed against his skin.
No true pain.
Only dull heat.
Still, Zealth cursed.
"Even your blood is rude."
His armor flashed warnings at the edge of his vision.
Armor Integrity: 52/100
Then—
50/100
Then—
48/100
"Don't count down so proudly," he growled at the panel.
The root-tunnel widened suddenly into a hidden hollow near the heart of the tree.
There, the air changed.
The rot smell deepened, but beneath it came something warmer.
A yellow glow pulsed through the darkness.
Zealth stopped behind a curtain of hanging vines.
Ahead, wrapped in layers of black roots, sat a massive crystal-like stone. It was shaped like a rough topaz, large enough to fit a child inside. Its golden light beat slowly, like a heart trapped in amber.
Zealth stared.
"The core?"
That was the first thought.
It had to be. A giant cursed tree, a glowing stone under its base, guarded by roots sharp enough to file complaints—dungeon logic pointed one way.
Break the core.
Kill the tree.
Maybe escape.
Maybe survive.
Maybe get something worth more than his repair bill.
He stepped closer.
Then noticed a figure inside the crystal.
His breath caught.
A person.
A boy floated within the golden stone, curled inward, arms wrapped tightly around something held to his chest. The crystal glowed yellow, but the boy himself gave off a faint green light. His hair drifted around his face as if he were underwater. His expression looked asleep at first.
No.
Not asleep.
Trapped.
A system panel flickered above the crystal.
Rotbound Farmer
Supreme Undead
Status: Bound Core
Zealth stood still.
"Farmer?"
The word sounded wrong in the hollow.
Not a demon.
Not lich.
Not king.
Farmer.
A boy farmer sealed inside the heart of a skull tree.
Zealth's grip tightened around Cinderbrand.
"This game is sick."