The jungle pressed in around them, its breath hot and damp against their skin. Rain fell in relentless sheets, turning the earth to thick mud that clung to Lin Moyan's boots with every step. The storm had erased all traces of their attacker, washing away the glowing pollen trail until only memory remained.
Jian Luo stumbled, catching himself against a tree trunk. His breathing came in ragged gasps, each inhale whistling through clenched teeth. Dark veins spread like spiderwebs beneath his skin where the harvester's acid had splashed him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of something too dark to be just blood.
Haiyu moved ahead like a shadow between the trees. Her broken wrist hung at an unnatural angle, bound tight with strips of bark and vine. She paused every few steps, head tilted, listening to things the others couldn't hear. The rain plastered her short hair to her skull, revealing scars along her neck that Moyan had never noticed before.
Moyan opened his journal with numb fingers. The pages stuck together, the ink of his sketches bleeding into abstract patterns. Only one thing remained clear - the name whispered by the silver flower. Nyxara. It pulsed in his vision even when he closed his eyes.
The Rootheart shifted in his spine, its presence like hot wires threading between his vertebrae. It spoke without words, its meaning blooming directly in his mind. Nyxara had been the first. The one who planted the seed that became the World Will. The one who started everything.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the jungle in stark whites and blacks. In that frozen moment, Moyan saw them - footprints glowing faintly in the mud, each one radiating a heat that made the rain steam. They led east, toward the heart of the Verdant Abyss.
Jian Luo coughed, spitting something black and viscous into the mud. He grinned, teeth stained dark. Looks like we've got our path. Let's go give them hell.
Haiyu's hands moved in sharp gestures. Too fast. The vines here listen.
Moyan nodded. The jungle had changed around them. The trees stood closer together, their trunks twisted into spirals that made his eyes hurt if he looked too long. The air tasted metallic, like licking a knife blade.
They followed the glowing footprints deeper into the Abyss. The rain lessened, but the humidity grew worse, clinging to their skin like a second layer of clothing. The further they went, the more the jungle seemed to push back.
Vines lashed at their ankles when they weren't looking. Roots twisted beneath their feet, trying to trip them. Even the wind changed direction, driving rain into their faces no matter which way they turned.
Haiyu moved like a ghost through the trees, her good hand flashing signals only Moyan could understand. Left. Stop. Trap ahead.
Moyan felt it too - a growing pressure in his chest, a vibration in his bones. The Rootheart's vines slithered beneath his skin, coiling around his ribs like living armor. It whispered of ancient things, of cycles repeated so many times the grooves wore deep into the world itself.
Jian Luo lagged behind, his steps uneven. His dagger hummed at his side, the sound discordant and wrong. He wiped sweat from his brow, leaving streaks of black where his fingers touched skin.
The trees suddenly parted, revealing a wall of living thorns twenty feet high. The vines pulsed as they grew, their tips dripping amber fluid that sizzled where it hit the ground. The footprints led straight to a gash in the vegetation, the edges raw and weeping sap.
Haiyu froze, one hand raised in warning. The roots here remember everything.
Jian Luo studied his corrupted dagger, the blade now half-blackened. Then let's give them something new to remember.
The air inside the tunnel stung their lungs, thick with the scent of rotting fruit and something sharper underneath. The walls weren't built - they were grown, the vines woven so tight they formed a seamless passage. Bioluminescent fungi provided faint light, their glow pulsing in time with some unseen heartbeat.
Moyan's boots sank into the spongy floor with each step, releasing puffs of glowing spores. The further they went, the louder the whispers grew. Not in his ears, but in his bones, vibrating up through his feet.
The vision struck without warning.
A woman with hair like tangled roots stood in a clearing, plunging a dagger into the earth. Not to kill, but to plant. The blade sprouted tendrils, then roots, then a sapling that grew unnaturally fast. Branches reached for the sky, leaves unfurling like grasping hands. Shadows pooled around her feet as she whispered words that shook the earth.
Moyan staggered, the world tilting around him. Jian Luo grabbed his arm, fingers burning hot even through the fabric. Stay with us, abyss-rat.
The Rootheart's laughter rustled through his mind. Nyxara had never bound the Serpent. She had fed it. Nourished it. Given it a home in this world.
The tunnel opened suddenly into a vast chamber where the vines formed a perfect spiral. At its center stood the Oracle, or what remained of her. Her mask of braided roots had fused to her face, becoming part of her flesh. Her lips cracked open, oozing sap as she spoke a single word that echoed through the chamber.
Welcome home.
The walls trembled. The vines tightened. And deep beneath their feet, something ancient began to stir.