The detour around the pulsating field of Gloom Spores was arduous and nerve-wracking. Gregor pushed them hard, keenly aware of the time lost, forcing a path through dense thickets of thorny vines and over slippery, moss-covered logs that seemed placed by malice rather than nature. The air remained heavy, and though they were beyond the range of the shimmering spore clouds, the sweet, cloying scent lingered in the back of their throats, a constant reminder of the danger they had skirted.
Lyra stumbled, catching herself on Renn's arm, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "Gregor… wait… just a moment…"
Gregor paused, leaning heavily against a tree trunk, wiping sweat and grime from his brow. He looked back at Lyra and Renn. Their faces were pale with exhaustion, their movements sluggish. Even his own legs felt leaden. They hadn't rested properly since escaping the Labyrinth, fueled only by fear and adrenaline, and now, the crash was hitting them. Worse, their throats were dry, their lips cracked. The stale, recycled air of the Labyrinth hadn't prepared them for the exertion in the humid forest.
"Water," Gregor rasped, his own voice hoarse. "We need water. Soon." He scanned the dense woods. No obvious streams, no clear springs. Just endless trees and damp undergrowth.
Renn pointed a trembling finger towards a patch of broad, waxy leaves glistening with trapped rainwater. "Maybe…?"
Gregor shook his head. "Don't risk it. Forest water here… often tainted. Parasites, poisons leeched from strange fungi… safer to wait for running water." He pushed himself away from the tree. "Come on. We have to rejoin Saitama's path. Maybe he found something."
They finally cleared the effective radius of the Gloom Spore field, looping back towards the southeast where Saitama's tracks should be. Emerging from a particularly dense thicket, they found themselves back on a clearer trail – marked by Saitama's unmistakable boot prints and the occasional casually snapped branch. He was still moving steadily ahead.
And just beyond, maybe fifty yards further along the path, Saitama was standing beside a small clearing, peering intently at something on the ground. He looked up as they approached, his expression unchanged.
"Hey, you guys made it," he said. "Took you a while. Find any snacks on your scenic route?"
"No," Gregor managed, breathing heavily as he, Lyra, and Renn collapsed onto a mossy log near the edge of the clearing. "Just… thorns. And exhaustion. Did you find… water?"
Saitama pointed towards the center of the small clearing. There, bubbling gently from beneath a cluster of smooth grey stones, was a small spring. Clear water pooled briefly before trickling away into the undergrowth. It looked clean, pure, untainted by the usual Labyrinthine corruption or forest poisons. An oasis in the oppressive green.
Relief washed over the three escapees with near-physical force. "Water!" Lyra gasped, almost weeping with gratitude. Renn scrambled towards it immediately, cupping his hands.
"Hold on," Gregor cautioned, forcing himself to his feet despite his exhaustion. He approached the spring cautiously, examining the stones, the surrounding plants, sniffing the air. No warning signs. No discolored residue, no strange smells beyond damp earth. It seemed… safe. Almost too perfect. He knelt, dipped a finger in, tasted it tentatively. Cold, clean, minerally. He nodded slowly. "Alright. Drink. Slowly."
Renn and Lyra drank deeply, sighing with pleasure. Gregor joined them, letting the cool water soothe his parched throat. Even this small comfort felt like a monumental victory.
Saitama watched them, scratching his head. "So, water's important, huh? Never really feel thirsty myself. Just hungry." He looked back down at what had captured his attention before they arrived.
Curious, Gregor finished drinking and walked over to where Saitama stood. Lying on a bed of moss near the spring were several small, brightly colored frogs. They were beautiful, jewel-toned creatures – emerald green, sapphire blue, ruby red – but they were utterly still, frozen mid-leap or mid-croak, their tiny bodies rigid, eyes wide and glassy.
"What happened to them?" Gregor murmured, nudging one gently with his boot. It felt hard, almost petrified.
"Dunno," Saitama replied. "They were hopping around when I got here. Then this other thing showed up." He gestured vaguely towards the upper branches of a large, ancient willow tree that overlooked the spring.
Gregor followed Saitama's gesture, squinting into the dense foliage and deep shadows. At first, he saw nothing but leaves and branches. Then, he caught a flicker of movement. Something pale, almost translucent, shifted amongst the leaves. He focused, his hand instinctively going to his sword hilt.
Hanging suspended from a higher branch, almost perfectly camouflaged against the dappled light and shadow, was a creature unlike anything he'd ever seen or heard of. It resembled a large, spectral jellyfish, trailing long, diaphanous tentacles that swayed gently in a breeze only it seemed to feel. Its bell, perhaps four feet across, was a semi-transparent membrane pulsating with faint, internal currents of pale blue light. It had no discernible eyes or mouth, yet Gregor felt an unnerving sense of being watched, assessed with cold, alien intelligence. As it shifted again, a fine, almost invisible mist drifted down from its tentacles, dissipating before reaching the ground.
"What… is that?" Gregor breathed, taking an involuntary step back.
"Called itself a 'Whisperwillow'," Saitama said matter-of-factly. "Floated down, told the frogs to hold still because it wanted to 'absorb their fleeting bio-resonance.' Frogs didn't listen, kept hopping. So, it sprayed them with that misty stuff." He pointed towards the frozen frogs. "Now they're holding still. Permanently, looks like."
Gregor stared at Saitama, then back at the floating monstrosity. "It… talked to you?"
"Yeah. Weird voice. Kinda echoey, like talking into a bucket," Saitama confirmed. "Asked me if I wanted to join the frogs in 'serene permanence.' I said no thanks, I was waiting for you guys and still hoping for snacks. It seemed offended."
The Whisperwillow, perhaps sensing it was being discussed, drifted lower, its pale blue light intensifying slightly. The fine mist coalesced, shimmering around its tentacles. The air grew colder, carrying a faint scent like ozone and lilies.
"Its mist…" Lyra whispered from behind Gregor, having finished drinking, her eyes wide with dawning horror as she recognized the description from fragmented old texts. "They say it doesn't just paralyze… it crystallizes the life force. Turns living tissue hard as glass, instantly. An ambush predator of the deepest woods…"
The Whisperwillow emitted a soft, chiming sound, a strangely beautiful noise that resonated directly in their minds, bypassing their ears. **
Several of its long, translucent tentacles detached from the main bell, drifting silently, rapidly, towards Saitama, the crystallizing mist swirling around their tips like deadly vapor trails.
Gregor instinctively yelled a warning, "Saitama! Look out!"
Saitama watched the tentacles approach with mild curiosity. "Huh. Tentacles. Always tentacles with you monster types."
As the first tentacle, wreathed in its instant-petrification mist, reached him, aimed squarely at his face, Saitama simply… blew on it.
Pffft.
A small, almost insignificant puff of air left his lips.
The effect on the Whisperwillow's tentacle was, however, disproportionately significant. The seemingly insubstantial appendage, along with its deadly mist, was instantly shredded, torn apart by the focused micro-gust of wind. It didn't just get pushed away; it disintegrated into fleeting wisps of light and vapor, vanishing completely.
The Whisperwillow froze, its internal light flickering erratically. The mental chime cut off abruptly, replaced by a silent shriek of disbelief and pain that echoed only in the psionic realm. It had never encountered resistance, let alone such effortless, absolute negation.
Before the creature could process this or react further, Saitama casually reached up, grabbed another one of the descending tentacles, and gave it a gentle tug.
Riiiiiiip.
The sound was like tearing wet silk. The tentacle detached from the main bell with surprising ease. Saitama looked at the translucent appendage now dangling limply from his hand. "Kinda slimy," he commented. He flicked his wrist, tossing it aside where it landed on the moss and slowly dissolved into harmless vapor.
The Whisperwillow pulsed violently, its light flashing from pale blue to angry violet. Its remaining tentacles retracted sharply, coiling around its bell defensively. It emitted another mental chime, this one discordant, filled with panic and rage.
It gathered its energy, its entire form beginning to glow with intense blue light, the air around it crackling. It was clearly preparing a much larger, more potent blast of its crystallizing power, aimed directly at the baffling bald entity who dared to damage its ethereal form.
Saitama sighed. "Look, I really don't have time for this. We need to find a town." He cocked his fist. Not for a punch. He just… waved dismissively at the creature, like shooing away a fly.
Whoosh.
This time, it wasn't just a puff of air. It was a silent, invisible wave of pure kinetic force, generated by the seemingly innocuous hand wave. It wasn't destructive in the conventional sense; it didn't explode or tear. It simply… displaced.
The Whisperwillow, caught in this wave, was instantly propelled upwards and backwards at incredible speed. It shot through the willow tree's canopy, snapping branches like twigs, continued ascending through the dense upper canopy of the Deepwood itself, and vanished into the grey overcast sky above, presumably ejected into the upper atmosphere or beyond. The brief glimpse of its rapidly shrinking, panicked form against the clouds was the last anyone saw of the Whisperwillow.
Silence returned to the clearing, broken only by the gentle bubbling of the spring and the distant sighing of the wind in the trees. The frozen frogs remained as silent, glassy testaments to the creature's brief, fatal visit.
Saitama lowered his hand. "There. Pest control handled." He looked back at Gregor, Lyra, and Renn, who were staring at the spot where the Whisperwillow had been, then back at him, their expressions bordering on catatonic. "See? Told you it wasn't a big deal. Now, water break over? Can we go find those shops?"
Gregor slowly closed his mouth, which had been hanging open. He walked over to where the discarded tentacle had dissolved, leaving only a damp patch on the moss. He looked up at the hole Saitama's casual wave had torn through the canopy, revealing a larger patch of grey sky. He looked at the frozen frogs. Then at Saitama, who was now absently trying to skip one of the smooth grey stones from the spring across the small pool of water.
"Right," Gregor said, his voice sounding strangely hollow to his own ears. "Shops. Let's go find… shops." He couldn't process the power scale anymore. It was simply too vast. All he could do was accept it and hope it remained pointed away from them.
Far behind, Kristoph's team finally cleared the extensive detour around the Gloom Spore field, emerging onto the path marked by Saitama's unwavering tracks. The time lost felt significant; the sun, though hidden, was clearly beginning its descent, painting the overcast sky with faint undertones of bruised orange and purple, signaling the approach of dusk.
"Tracks rejoined, Commander," Zenon reported, examining the ground. "They passed through here maybe… an hour ahead of us now? The escapees seem fatigued, their pace slowing before the Tempest's prints."
Elara paused, her senses reaching out. "There's… a strange calmness here. An absence. Usually, this deep in the woods, there's a background hum of minor sprites, wood spirits, ambient life force… but it's been… silenced. Recently." She frowned. "And I detect faint, rapidly dissipating residues of… something ethereal. High-frequency bio-resonance, quickly neutralized. Very strange."
Kristoph glanced around, his hand on his sword. A silenced patch of forest? Ethereal residues? Coupled with the earlier passing of the feral beast… this section of the Deepwood felt increasingly unnerving. "Anything hostile?"
"No active threats detected nearby," Elara confirmed. "Just this… stillness. Like the aftermath of something swift and absolute."
Kristoph nodded grimly. Whatever had happened here, Saitama had likely walked right through it, perhaps even caused it, without breaking stride. "Night approaches," he stated. "We push on. We need to regain visual contact before we lose them in the darkness."
They quickened their pace, moving with renewed urgency, driven by the need to understand the anomaly ahead and the growing sense that the dangers of the Valgothian Deepwood were far from over. The whispering leaves around them seemed to carry warnings on the cooling breeze, hinting at deeper shadows and the things that stirred within them as the light began to fail.