Clayton experienced a sense of déjà vu as he rembered the contents of the recent system notification that appeared before them.
’How naïve of ,’ he shook his head. ’Did I really think the third trial to beco a Verdant Warden Awakened would have been so straightforward?’
To him, it was just a year or so ago though history said it was three centuries, but he never forgot the experiences of Trial I that traumatized him.
Living all your life as a human just to see yourself as a plant all of a sudden.
The trauma, the challenges, and his spite that pushed him to survive all of it all... he would never forget it.
Those days were so of the darkest of his life, but they were also what enabled him to truly embrace himself and who he was. Afterall, sotis, it was only when faced with death that your true self materialized.
And once again, Clayton faced a similar situation, the escalation of the system just as victory seed so close.
The wind was dry and thin. It carried dust, the bitter sll of old tal, and the sweet rot of long-dead roots.
"Haha," he laughed. "It feels like old tis".
"Damn, to think of such tis as the good ol’ days, gods, am I still sane?"
Well, in all honesty, he stopped being sane after Trial I, and returning to see that the world as he knew it was gone and long lost to history.
’Well, it’s not like I didn’t prepare for a scenario like this’.
’Though I didn’t want this, it was part of my expectations in the worst case scenario’.
If there was good point to take ho from the current situation though, it was the fact he was no longer dealing with an ethereal objective.
He was no longer dealing with mories, wars of the past, and resolving a conflict between Verdant Lords who were once friends, or enemies?
Well, it didn’t matter.
What mattered was that Clayton and his companions were back in familiar territory... facing Behemorphs in battle.
Clayton led them up a broken ridge of fused stone and bone.
From there, the battlefield opened like a scar that never healed. It stretched for miles, maybe more, exposing landmarks filled with the animated corpses of giants, fallen titans of wood and iron, ribcages of trees as big as bridges, and machines with jaws like fort gates.
Every shadow hid sothing that could kill them.
The temple? It lay far off, rising from the center like a cracked crown.
The top had caved in, but the ringed body still stood. Pillars leaned, and a faint green shimr clung to its inner ring.
"That green shimr has to be where the portal is," squinting her eyes, Veyra said. No one doubted her; they trusted her eyesight.
Clayton took a deep breath. Ho was inside that ruin, but between them and it were monsters.
"Verdant Warden," Torren murmured, pointing with his chin. "The two on the right are both Verdant Warden Rank Behemorphs. One is a Thorn Crown, while the other looks... mixed, a dual rank maybe?"
"They’re bioch grafts," Veyra said. "See the plates under the bark? That’s not natural growth".
"Look left," Kaelin whispered. "There’s a Pri Synchron there". His voice had a slight shiver to it, hiding his dread as he pointed left.
"It’s walking a loop," he continued. "It’s slow, but these are Behemorphs we’re talking about, not Elephants of centuries ago. Anything that big can sprint, don’t be fooled by its appearance".
No one argued with him, no one tried to be brave either. This was not a fight they could swagger through.
Mira bit her lips and then said it plain. "If we charge, we die."
Clayton nodded in agreent.
As for Harrick, he adjusted his grip on his spear, keeping his eyes on the temple. "It feels like we woke up inside a siege with no walls and no allies."
Soren clenched and unclenched his hand on his Emberblade. He was restless, but he understood. "We can’t afford to charge recklessly".
Clayton took it all in, the movent, range, cover, the heights, the ravines, and the plateaus. He watched the patrol patterns, and he counted the ti between turns. He tracked where the birds refused to fly.
He also marked the places where bones piled higher, the kill zones where they clashed against each other, the territorial dens, and the feeding grounds.
Then Clayton exhaled through his nose.
"This isn’t a trial of strength," he said. "It’s a trial of intelligence. We can’t outmuscle this field. To survive, we must outthink it."
Torren slid his Pyreaxe across his shoulder. "You have a plan?"
Clayton pointed.
"If you pay attention, you’ll see that there are four tiers between us and the temple," he said. "The first tier is the fringe with packs of Scavengers, Verdant Warden Rank loners that test the edges".
"We pick our way through them; no noise, no heat, and no long fights".
"The second tier is the belts, the territory lines. The Behemorphs who patrol, mark their territories, and answer challenges. We do not challenge them, instead, we pull them off their posts".
"To have a chance, we have to make them fight each other".
"The third tier is the basin".
"The big ones feed there and drag kills toward the temple. It will be crowded here, it will stink and that was give us a window to slip through," he looked at them. "We take the window, and we do not linger".
"The fourth tier is the ring, the temple’s shadow. These are where the Pri Synchrons claim as their territory, the true text".
"Well, expect nothing to be fair here, the odds are stacked against us".
Kaelin’s mouth tugged at one corner. "So... a walk through hell with breaks?"
Clayton shrugged. "A walk through hell with anchors, not breaks".
He knelt and pressed his palm to the ridge where three thin Seedpikes slid from his wrist, then burrowed into the stone. Roots spidered out from them, thin and shy, with no glow.
He forced them to be small.
"Seedpike one," he said. "This is where we rally in case we scatter".
Mirra watched the roots sink. "You can reach them from a distance?"
"If I’m not jamd by a Pri," Clayton said. "I’ll tune each Seedpike to a different beat. Stay alert, and you should feel the pull if you get lost."
"Good," Harrick said. "Set more".
"We will," Clayton said. "But not too many. Every anchor has a mark of my domain, and that makes it a scent. The field can sll us if I get greedy".
Veyra had her bow half-strung.
She spoke without looking at the group. "I can see three roosts that can work as sniper nests, we’re cooked if we get pinned. High ans visible, and visible ans dead".
"To be effective, I need short bursts of line-of-sight to see and also moving cover, not towers. I can’t afford to stay in one place".
"Then we make cover," Torren said. "We’ll create controlled collapses, drop ribs on patrols, turn a pass into a choke, and make the field small".
"Careful with heat," Kaelin said. "You cook the wrong seam and the whole ridge lights like a beacon."
Torren grunted in acknowledgent. He took the warning, even if he didn’t like it.
As for Soren, he rolled his shoulders. "I’m the shield if anything jumps us. Pull them into if it goes bad and I’ll burn space while you run."
"No heroics Soren," Clayton said, looking at him. "Be smart, nobody stands alone".
Soren grinned. "I know".
Clayton stood and pointed again, mapping with his hand.
"Path one," he said. "It leads down the left of the ridge. There’s a chute in the rock, and it makes a narrow lane a Verdant Warden can’t fit without scraping. If we ti it with the Pri’s nap ti, we can slip while it looks east".
"Path two," he said, tracing further. "We cut through that jawline".
"See the machine skull half-buried? It’s hollow, and a crawlspace runs out the back into a silt bed. We can move through it".
"Path Three?" Veyra asked.
Clayton pointed at the right where thorn thickets tangled around a sunken ch spine. "We don’t use it, it has too many Behemorphs contending for territory there".
"The Behemorphs own it, and we don’t want to be caught in their territorial battles, not when it’s that concentrated".
The others nodded in understanding.
But then Veyra’s gaze flicked to the temple again. "What’s the core idea, Clayton?"
Clayton took a deep breath. "We make the field fight itself".
"We bait belts into the basin, we make the basin roar and pull the ring, and we use that drag to slip past. If we get stuck, we light a different fuse".
"Thorn Crowns hates Spore Crowns, and Ash Crown hates both. We use the hate to create discord that’ll let us slip pass them".
Torren blew out a breath. "So we play orchestra in a cliff of knives".
"Yes," Clayton said, his eyes gleaming calculatedly.
Reviews
All reviews (0)