The Forest of the Dead exhaled decay like a living, breathing beast, its exhalations thick enough to coat the tongue. Every breath Dave took tasted of rot and old death—moldering leaves, rancid marrow, the metallic tang of blood long congealed. Shadows stretched like claws beneath a sickly canopy that filtered no light, only a greasy, greenish haze. The ground squelched underfoot, blackened leaves and the remains of the fallen fused into a slurry that clung to his boots like tar.
His left hand throbbed, the flesh around the Black Bloom swollen and feverish. The flower pulsed beneath his skin, veins of corruption writhing like burning roots, each throb syncing with the forest's labored heartbeat. No crown, no evolution. Just a curse carved into bone. The Scion clung to his shoulder, her fox-sized body bristling, mothlike wings shimmering with stolen rot that left trails of frost where they brushed his neck.
"Another fool," she sneered, her voice a chorus of rusted hinges. "Kill him faster. The forest grows bored."Her antennae flicked toward the mist, where skeletal branches clattered like teeth.
The Lost Pilgrim emerged as if woven from the gloom itself—tattered robes hanging from brittle bones, their edges frayed into root-like tendrils. His face was a stretched canvas of cracked parchment skin, eyes glowing with the same hellish green light that had seeped from the Hollow Grove's Priest. When he smiled, fissures split his cheeks, revealing blackened gums and a tongue like a desiccated worm.
"You wear the Rotmother's mark," the Pilgrim rasped, his voice the sound of roots grinding against stone. "But you are still a blade. Sharpened. Hollow."
Dave's blade hissed from its sheath, the steel streaked with veins of corruption that mirrored the bloom. "I've killed better monsters than you," he said, the words ash in his throat.
---
The Pilgrim lunged, movements jerky yet unnervingly swift. Vines erupted from the earth, thorns glistening with neurotoxin that hissed where it struck the mud. Dave twisted, rotfire blazing to life in his palm—a conflagration of black-green flames that devoured the vines, their ashes whispering thank you as they scattered. The stench of burnt sap choked the air.
"Tsk. Slow," the Scion mocked, her mandibles clicking in disapproval. "He'll peel your bones before you blink."
The Pilgrim gestured, gnarled fingers curling. Roots stabbed upward, serrated and dripping, impaling Dave's calf. He roared, blood mingling with the mud as he dropped to one knee. Gritting his teeth, he slammed his fist into the earth. Corruption erupted in a shockwave, Black Bloom's life-leech aura flaring like a dying star. The Pilgrim's strength drained—a visible withering of already-desiccated flesh—as Dave's wound knit itself, muscle and sinew crawling back into place.
[System Notification]
Life-leech Activated: 12% Health Restored (Feast on their fear. Grow fat on their decay).
Black Bloom Stability: 89% (Roots dig deeper. Flesh resists less.)
The Pilgrim staggered, ember-bright eyes dimming. "You… defy the forest's balance!"
"Fuck your balance," Dave spat, wrenching the roots from his leg. They crumbled to dust, their whispers cut short.
---
The forest screamed. Not metaphorically—the very air tore as ghostly figures surged from the shadows, spirits of the damned with flesh like melted wax and hollow eyes reflecting Dave's own rot. He swung his blade, rotfire searing through them, but for each one slain, two more oozed from the earth, their wails harmonizing into a dirge that rattled his teeth.
"Boring," the Scion yawned, plucking a spirit from the air. She crushed it in her forelegs, its essence bursting like overripe fruit, and lapped at the residue with a forked tongue. "They're just echoes. Break the puppet, the strings follow."
Dave channeled the Black Bloom's poison into his blade until it hummed, the metal vibrating with the flower's malevolence. When he struck the Pilgrim, the rot spread—a black tide devouring the creature's fungal flesh, reducing it to sloughing, wet clumps. The Pilgrim's bones crackled, collapsing inward like rotten timber.
"You are… a mistake…" the Pilgrim gurgled, one skeletal hand grasping at Dave's throat.
Dave drove his blade deeper, twisting until the creature's spine snapped. "And you're dead."
---
The Pilgrim crumbled, his robes dissolving into spores that stung Dave's eyes. The spirits wailed, their forms unraveling into mist that clung to the trees like cobwebs. Dave collapsed, blood pooling beneath him, hot and insistent. The Black Bloom throbbed like a second heart, its petals now edged in a deeper crimson, veins darkening to the color of clotting blood.
"Weak," the Scion hissed, skittering down to lap at his wounds. Her tongue left trails of frost that numbed the pain, if only briefly. "But tasty. The Rotmother approves."
[System Notification]
Corrupted Souls Absorbed: 47 minor, 1 notable (A banquet of screams. The bloom hungers for more).
Black Bloom Stability: 97% (Symbiosis nears completion. Surrender or sever?).
Warning: Prolonged use may degrade soul integrity (Become the feast, or become the fang).
Dave stared at the bloom, its cold sap trickling down his wrist. The forest's weight pressed against him, a suffocating embrace. "I'm not your weapon," he whispered, though the words rang hollow even to him. The bloom's roots flexed in response, a reminder of the rot threading his ribs.
The Scion laughed, her wings casting prismatic shadows as she took flight. "They always break. Let's see how long you dance."
Somewhere, deep in the earth, something ancient and ravenous stirred.
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