They stayed inside that tree for hours.
After the descent of that monstrous, many-eyed being, Creed, Amara, Lilith, Tierra, and yes, even their unwilling plant companion, remained as still as statues in the pitch-black belly of the great tree.
The draining of the treen had gone on and on... and on. It was like a dark ritual, one that didn’t care about ti or rcy.
The soul-wrenching screams of the treen being pulled into the sky and withered into husks had beco a horrible background noise, like the world’s worst music playlist on repeat.
Every few minutes, the sound would rise to a fresh crescendo, and all of them would go stiff, afraid that sohow the many-eyed horror had sensed them.
There were even monts—agonizing monts—where Creed felt as if sothing was watching them.
Like one of those hundreds of glowing eyes had locked onto their tree, squinting through bark and shadows.
But just when it seed like it might find them, the sensation would vanish. As if it had lost interest... or had simply missed them by a hair.
Eventually, the screams stopped. The pressure lifted like soone had finally allowed the world to breathe again.
And above them, the darkness began to fade, gradually turning from an inky pitch-black sky to a faint gray, and then to the golden hue of late afternoon.
The air, once heavy with dread, began to feel breathable again. Still, not one of them moved.
Creed didn’t even blink toward the door. Not yet.
The group and their treeman roommate stayed huddled in that tree for several more hours.
It was the kind of silence where you could hear your own heartbeat and every creak of the bark felt like a scream.
Only when they began to hear faint rustlings outside—the slow, cautious movents of other treen venturing out from their own hiding spots—did Creed finally speak.
"I think... it’s actually gone," he said softly.
Lilith peeked toward the bark door. "Should we... test that theory? Or let you do it first?"
Creed raised a brow. "Why ? I value my life, thank you."
But eventually, they all made their way to the door. With weapons drawn and hearts pounding, they pushed it open and stepped into the light.
The forest looked different now. Still eerie and twisted with oversized vines and looming trees, but sohow less oppressive.
As if the malevolent presence that had soaked the air was finally gone. Even the treeman erged behind them, slowly and cautiously.
For a second, Creed half-expected it to go back into murder mode; roaring, summoning vines, and trying to smash his face in with a root club.
But instead, the creature looked around... then sighed. Or whatever a treeman’s version of a sigh was. Its shoulders slumped, its vines hung low, and it just... walked off.
Quietly. No threats. No revenge speech. Just a slow, defeated shuffle into the deeper parts of the forest.
Creed watched it go, a weird feeling stirring in his chest. "Man," he muttered, "that poor guy. We killed his friends, destroyed his house, made him run from an ancient sky monster, and now he’s walking ho like he just got fired from his job."
Amara raised an eyebrow. "Feeling sympathy now?"
"Not sympathy," Creed said. "Just... mild regret. Like when you crush a bug but then realize it was just chilling."
Returning to the raft spot felt like coming back to a safe zone in a video ga.
Sohow, miraculously, the raft was still there—untouched, undamaged, and bobbing gently in the river as if it hadn’t just witnessed the apocalypse.
They wasted no ti jumping back aboard. Creed gave the command, and the raft pushed forward once more, drifting away from the cursed region of the forest.
They moved in silence at first, each person glancing over their shoulder every few minutes like they were expecting a hundred glowing eyes to peek out from behind the trees.
But the danger seed to be behind them now. And as they cruised down the river, they began checking their maps via their dinsional bracelets.
"Sa direction," Amara confird, tapping her glowing screen. "The river is leading us directly toward the final trial spot."
"Still no other participants," Creed muttered, glancing up. "Just us."
That made all of them quiet again. Creed leaned back, his expression thoughtful.
"This rift... is massive. The fact we haven’t seen a single other person ans either they’re all dead, or this trial field is the size of an entire continent."
"Or both," Amara added dryly.
Creed chuckled, rubbing his temples. "And whatever that sky horror was... If it can cover this whole place with its body, we’re dealing with sothing ancient. Sothing probably not even supposed to be here."
But for now, the danger had passed. The raft drifted calmly along the river, and the girls, clearly exhausted, began to relax.
Tierra curled up beside Creed, resting her head on his thigh like a sleepy cat, while Lilith had absolutely no concept of "boundaries" and draped herself over his other side like a blanket with legs.
She snuggled closer with a content sigh, her hands casually playing with his belt buckle.
Creed stiffened. "Lilith. We are in a trial. In front of people."
"But I’m tired," she whispered, poking his chest with a finger. "And hungry. Sooo hungry..."
She leaned close and moaned softly into his ear, "Feed , Creed."
That did it. Creed’s face turned bright red, and his brain short-circuited like a toaster in a thunderstorm.
All thoughts of cultivation or ancient mysteries were wiped clean. He could practically hear the blood rushing southward.
’God help ,’ he thought wildly. She’s too seductive. ’Is this part of her combat strategy? This should be illegal!’
He slapped her hand away from his belt for the fifth ti. "Not. Here," he hissed, eyes darting toward Amara who—of course—pretended not to see but had one eyebrow ever-so-slightly raised.
Just when Creed thought he might lose control and either throw himself into the river or surrender to Lilith’s madness, the raft suddenly began to slow.
The water shallowed, the width began to thin, and up ahead... the river ca to an end.
They had arrived?
Creed narrowed his eyes at the dense forest ahead.
With a soft sigh, he tapped his dinsional bracelet, and a glowing, semi-transparent screen floated in the air in front of him. Ti left in the trial: 27 hours.
"Great," Creed muttered, rolling his shoulders. "Still got just over a day to fail the trial very miserably or stumble into glorious success. No pressure."
The others stood beside him, peering ahead. Lilith, arms crossed under her chest, tilted her head. "Think we’re getting close?"
Amara scoffed. "We’ve been thinking that for hours. I’m starting to believe this forest has no end."
Creed grinned. "Then we cut through like butter."
The next ten hours passed in a tense and strange mix of excitent, danger, and ninja-level sneakiness.
Thanks to Lilith’s scouting skills—which involved her zipping into the treetops like an electrified squirrel—and Tierra’s mysterious spatial techniques that let her vanish and reappear miles ahead like a ghost, they managed to avoid several full treen hideouts.
So of these hideouts were massive, whole colonies of plant warriors marching and snarling and probably waiting to barbecue any humans that got too close.
Creed didn’t like those odds. Especially since he still had wood shavings in his boots from their last big battle.
But not everything could be avoided.
Roughly six hours into their march, they stumbled across a half-empty treen base.
The place was already partially destroyed, like soone else had made a ss before they arrived, but Creed being Creed, insisted on investigating.
He was developing a theory, after all. And like any good scientist with a death wish and a superiority complex, he needed data!
"Jackpot," he whispered when he kicked open a vine-woven door and found another trio of glowing chests buried in the floor. Inside?
Exactly what he was hoping for: more golden crystals. Hundreds of them, glimring like bottled sunlight.
Creed’s eyes glead. "That makes two bases. Sa identical chests. This isn’t a coincidence."
"What do you think they’re for?" Tierra asked, spinning one crystal between her fingers.
Creed gave a smug shrug. "No idea. But the trial clearly doesn’t want us to get them easily. Which ans they’re very important. Maybe for the final ranking? Or a boss chanic?"
"Or maybe you just like shiny things," Lilith teased.
"I am a simple man," Creed said. "But I like useful shiny things."
With their loot secured and the treen base thoroughly dismantled with liberal amounts of explosions and magical fire (Lilith had a lot of fun), they pressed on.
The forest didn’t get any kinder. The terrain was uneven, the humidity was worse than a sauna inside a volcano, and bugs the size of sandwiches kept flying past their ears!
Amara in particular was losing patience by the minute.
"This place is ridiculous," she snapped, swatting away another vine. "How wide is this forest? We’ve been walking for hours and the trees never end! Are we even close to the edge?"
Creed was about to reply with sothing witty—probably involving math and hope—when Amara suddenly froze mid-step.
So did everyone else.
Because the forest had stopped being quiet.
It was now loud. Very loud. Explosions echoed from up ahead. Crashes. Screams. Clanging tal. Roars.
The distinct sound of soone getting punched into a tree. Then another explosion. Then yelling. The kind of yelling you only heard when magical geniuses were going absolutely nuts.
"What the hell is that?" Lilith whispered, her expression sharp.
"Sounds like... war," Tierra muttered.
Creed’s eyes narrowed. "Or a party with terrible guest manners."
He turned serious, slipping into his usual calculating mode. "Could be a final blockade. Maybe the treen are guarding the final exit. Either way, get ready. We’re heading straight toward that chaos."
Weapons were drawn. Sources were prid. And they moved, silent and deadly, through the last stretch of trees.
As they neared the sound, the thunder of battle only grew louder. The earth trembled beneath their feet. The air buzzed with energy. And then, after what felt like an eternity—
They broke through the forest.
And their jaws dropped.
Before them was a massive beach, stretching wide with sparkling golden sand and bright green grass.
The river behind them fed into the sea—yes, an actual sea—and the water was a shimring blue, so clear it looked like liquid crystal.
The sun reflected off the gentle waves, and in the distance were three gigantic ferries, each one as tall as a castle and easily wide enough to hold hundreds of people.
It should’ve been beautiful.
But the beach?
Was a warzone.
Thousands—literally thousands—of young geniuses were fighting each other in an all-out brawl.
Techniques flew like fireworks. Swords clanged against spears. Soone flew overhead screaming sothing about vengeance while riding a giant flaming bird.
Another person got blasted through a sand dune. There were elental explosions, magical shields, summoned beasts, aerial duels, and sowhere in the madness, Creed swore he saw a guy juggling knives while dodging lightning bolts.
"...What," Amara said flatly.
"What in the actual hell?" Lilith blinked.
Creed took it all in, eyes wide, mind racing. "Looks like... this is the final checkpoint. And only a few people get to board the ferries."
"Survival of the fittest," Tierra murmured. "Classic battle royale setup."
"So we made it to the end of the forest," Creed said slowly, scratching his head, "only to walk right into a giant, magic-infused version of a food fight... where the food is us."
The four of them just stood there, watching a dude mold a boulder into the shape of a sword, then use it to block a dragon made entirely out of fire.
Creed sighed and rolled his shoulders.
"Well, ladies," he said, stepping forward and drawing his black and gold spear, "let’s go crash the party."
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