Zamian moved down the hole, following the path carved by his father’s vine—but not to leave the Sanctuary. Instead, he intended to trace back where his father had come from!

  Burning essence to sustain his current form, he rushed deeper into the earth, the tunnel collapsing behind him. Apart from the green hue radiating from his body, the passage was pitch dark, the light from the entrance long gone.

  “There’s no way you left this tunnel intact, old man,” Zamian growled. His voice, now hoarse and rough, echoed unnervingly, completely different from his usual tone.

  His eyes, glowing with alternating green and white light, illuminated the shattered vines scattered along the path. After running for several breaths, he abruptly stopped, sending dust and shards of vines flying as he skidded to a halt.

  There was no path ahead.

  Chuckling aloud, Zamian startled himself for a moment. The sound of his own laughter, harsh and wild, reverberated through the confined space. ‘That laugh… it sounds terrifying,’ he thought, shaking his head. ‘But no time to dwell on it. Time is essence, and I can’t waste either.’

  With a sudden burst of power, he punched the earth in front of him, causing the ground to tremble violently. However, the blow failed to create an opening. Then, his instincts screamed a warning. The trembling above him didn’t stop—it intensified.

  “This place is going to collapse,” Zamian realized, a grin forming across his wooden face as the green glow from his body flared brighter.

  Shoving both hands into the mound of earth before him, he roared with excitement, “I know nothing about digging—but I can do my best!”

  Without hesitation, he threw his entire strength into the task, using every muscle in his body to push through the compacted dirt.

  At first, his movements were uncoordinated and erratic, but soon he adjusted. His instincts didn’t teach him how to dig—they didn’t have to. Instead, they guided him, whispering how to move his body as if he were under attack. Enemies seemed to surround him: above, below, to the sides, and behind. The only way to survive was forward.

  So, he struggled.

  With each movement, his rhythm improved. His pace quickened, outstripping the speed of the collapsing tunnel. Though his digging lacked elegance and precision, Zamian’s raw power was enough to keep him ahead of the falling earth—and he kept following the path with broken pieces of vines and bark!

  Time blurred as he worked tirelessly, essence burning through his body like gray leaves in the Sanctuary’s winter. He kept following the broken vines, his form began to shift, his massive frame becoming leaner. While his height was reduced to just one and a half times his usual size—the same as his first transformation—his movements became faster, more precise, and more powerful.

  Suddenly, he didn’t feel the ground beneath his hands anymore. Laughing, he pushed through with a final burst of strength, digging himself upward before leaping out of the hole and emerging above ground.

  “I did it!” Zamian exclaimed, the exhilaration of breaking through the earth itself surpassing anything he could have imagined.

  There was no despair, no anxiety, no fear! Breathing heavily, he glanced around—and froze.

  “Wh-what,” he muttered, his hoarse and echoing voice tinged with disbelief.

  Adjusting himself, he turned in a full circle, scanning his surroundings again. He repeated the process over and over, until he suddenly stopped, shaking his head.

  “How…” His voice trailed off as he dismissed the Beginning of the Cycle technique. His body seemed to absorb the remnants of the transformation as his muscles and skin returned to their usual pale hue.

  As his eyes lost their green and white glow, his skin flashed green for a moment, and he covered his bare body with a wooden armor.

  All around him, where a lush forest was supposed to be, there was nothing but brown and yellow earth, littered with broken vines. On the horizon to his left and in front of him, he saw a half-circle of forest line with the peaks of four Colossal Trees towering above.

  To his right and behind him, a distant, moving line of dark brown color, reminding him of wood, undulated up and down—farther from him than the Colossal Trees

  “The wave of earth,” he muttered, recalling the moving mountain and the giant vines that had followed the red fog—or rather, the force pursuing his father. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting this.”

  Shaking his head once more, he wanted to blame Yokki and the other two Chosen for withholding this critical information—that a massive portion of the Sanctuary had been destroyed by a wave of earth. But, he admitted to himself, they likely hadn’t received the news when he’d questioned them—it had only been a few hours after the incident.

  Sighing, Zamian began walking toward the ominous line of brown on the horizon.

  “Let’s hope the Children of Verdant don’t decide my mortal cycle needs to end on sight,” he muttered. Then, he glanced at the White Dot hovering in the corner of his vision.

  “You better start doing your job and give me some quests, or I might just die out here,” he jested, then willed the White Dot to display his information.

  PERSONAL INFORMATION

  Name: Zamian Greenfield

  Level: 3 [60%]

  Tier: Mortal

  Main Pathway: Creation

  Title: None

  STATS POINTS

  Body: 650/700

  Mind: 350/600

  Soul: 300/600

  Zamian smiled and dismissed the text, muttering, “If I learned correctly from Kurt, and if I’m feeling the passage of time right, didn’t I just spend almost two percent of my total essence per minute?” Chuckling, he adjusted his pace, walking calmly.

  Remembering his stats and the sensations from the past minutes, he realized something new. “I used up my body points during that last transformation because it hurt me as much as it helped,” he smirked. “And while resting with Tulip and the others restored my soul, learning from instincts seems to drain my mind.”

  Satisfied with these insights, Zamian accelerated his pace, splitting his focus between the surroundings and his own body.

  ‘What if I use only the tips of my toes...?’ Zamian began experimenting, adjusting his gait. ‘In every fight, and even while digging that blighted hole, I learned about my body. Where is the limit?’

  He flexed and adjusted his muscles beneath his armor, green essence faintly gathering around him. Narrowing his eyes, he muttered, “It’s too faint... There’s less essence here than usual.”

  Having lived almost sixteen years in the Sanctuary, with the last few as a cultivator, Zamian immediately noticed the anomaly. Something was wrong.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The rumor that had sparked this invasion echoed in his mind. “Did the Verdant God really disappear?” he asked aloud before shaking his head. “No way that blighted thing would abandon its Children here, right?”

  As his concerns grew, Zamian decided to push himself again. Rested enough, he started running.

  Though not as fast as when fully transformed, his pace sent gusts of wind through the desolate land.

  After an hour, while his speed remained constant, the tremors caused by his steps lessened.

  After two hours, Zamian’s form and technique had improved dramatically—his midfoot strike became precise, his knees remained slightly bent, and his steps quickened, creating almost no noise.

  Finally, he stopped, breathing heavily—not from exhaustion, but from focusing so intently on refining his movements.

  ‘Why do I keep trying to improve my movements…’ Zamian thought, slightly unsettled.

  He forced his breathing and heartbeat to stabilize, pondering, ‘Maybe all Zealots have such precise control over their bodies, and want to adjust themselves?’

  Putting this concern to the back of his mind, he focused.

  Ahead of him, a massive structure loomed: a barrier of giant, living vines sprouting from the ground. Each vine moved as if alive, forming a towering circle half the height of a Colossal Tree, covering whatever was inside.

  Luckily for Zamian, Chosen Fern had shared the information he needed.

  “Children of Verdant,” he approached, tapping the moving vine with his fingers. “And they must be fighting against half of the enemy forces.”

  The other half, of course, was chasing his father outside the Sanctuary, unwilling to leave the man alone, fearing the destruction he could cause.

  “My old man’s essence isn’t endless,” Zamian clicked his tongue. “The Warlords chasing him can simply recover their cultivation by eating that desert’s sand.”

  This war—if it could even be called that—had a huge disadvantage for the people of the Sanctuary, in Zamian’s opinion: the traitors.

  While their side had no Warlord capable of recovering essence in the desert lands, the Oasis had a few Chosen who could stay here and fight while gathering more and more of nature’s essence.

  Looking at the wasteland behind him, a thought suddenly struck Zamian, and he chuckled. “Old man, if you planned to let those Warlords chase you here just to destroy these trees and delay the traitors' recovery speed… You’re nuts.”

  He began walking along the vine wall’s perimeter, lightly knocking on it as he moved.

  An hour later, having completed his circuit, he stopped and nodded. “No opening, and they’re soundproofed.”

  Waiting for his instincts to alert him to danger, he heard nothing. Smirking, he muttered, “Nobody left out of this blighted mess? Really? I even spent an hour here, waiting for you guys to make a move.”

  After a few moments without reaction, he shrugged.

  Then he bolted, enhancing his body with essence but refraining from casting any technique.

  With even greater speed, and having just checked for anyone trying to stop him, Zamian rushed forward.

  Then, he willed the White Dot to display a piece of specific information:

  Main Quest: Destroy an Unholy Sapling before the end of the month

  Reward: Special Physique (??)

  Status: Ongoing (09 days left)

  “It’s time to finish this blighted quest!” Zamian shouted.

  (Lakea’s POV)

  “You’re nothing but a who—” I choked on my words, vomiting blood as a sudden force slammed into my stomach.

  Glaring with my remaining eye at the outsider in front of me, I couldn’t help but smile when I caught the irritated look on her face.

  “Listen here!” she shouted, her sweat and spit hitting my skin. “I only need you to stay alive, girl.” Her voice cut sharply as she gestured for one of her followers to hand her a soft cloth. She used it to wipe my blood off her hands with practiced disgust. “But unless you start talking, I’ll make sure you understand just how little a human needs to survive.”

  Huffing, I said, “Clarice, right?” Without waiting for a response, I took a deep breath and spat at her face, blood and saliva marking her bronze skin. “Here’s some advice—learn not to spit on people when you’re talking, okay?”

  Another punch on my gut, followed by a strong hand pulling my head, my vision blurring.

  “Where is your mother?” she demanded her tone the same as it had been for nearly a day now. The same question was repeated endlessly since they dragged me to this underground hideout.

  If not for the dozens of tiny roots crawling along the floor and the shimmering green essence occasionally flickering in the air, I might have believed they’d taken me out of the Sanctuary entirely.

  Not that it mattered.

  A sharp sting on my cheek brought my attention back to her, the slap snapping my head to the side.

  For a moment, my left eye could see my right arm.

  Or what had remained from it.

  I learned earlier that these savages were used to torture and quickly escalated from slapping to removing parts of my body. Permanently.

  At the beginning, I was scared.

  But now?

  Seeing her furious glare and how the other four people in the room seemed almost as exhausted as me—always tense, always on edge—I whispered, “He will…”

  Clarice furrowed her brows, clearly not understanding. She leaned closer—not close enough for me to bite, but enough to hear me.

  Smirking through my bloody lips, I repeated, “He will kill you.”

  She punched me again.

  But I saw it. She was afraid. She feared him. She feared the man I once called a friend—the man I had almost hated for what he did to my mother.

  Clarice punched another time.

  But I couldn’t hate him anymore. These outsiders, in their taunts and whispers, ended up revealing to me that his father had saved my mother. That they were now searching for her.

  Clarice’s hand shot out, gripping my throat, and she slapped me hard across the face with her free hand.

  I think I blacked out for a moment because when I looked up, Clarice and her four goons were glowing faintly with a brown hue, their essence flaring as they looked around nervously.

  The earth above us trembled, sending dust raining down on them—and on my battered body.

  “What’s going on? Did they send scouts somehow?” Clarice barked, her voice mixed with tension, concern, and controlled fury.

  “Mistress, these grasslands wouldn’t come here,” one of the outsiders answered, his face obscured by a cloth mask. “This is a sacred place for them.”

  The ground quaked again, and the tiny roots lining the cave walls trembled violently.

  I knew they were earth cultivators. Even if this cave collapsed, they’d survive.

  But for a fleeting moment, I hoped they’d all be buried here with me.

  “You,” Clarice pointed at another of her goons. “Leave the cave and check what’s causing this.”

  The masked outsider froze for a moment before stammering, “Mistress… What…what if it’s one of their Chosen?”

  “Sandworm,” she cursed at him with their unique slur, glaring daggers. “If a Chosen was up there, we’d all be dead by now.” Clarice frowned, her eyes narrowing as if piecing something together. Then, barking orders, she snapped, “But be stealthy. Our reinforcements are already late, but they should arrive by tomorrow. We can’t afford to be discovered. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mistress,” the man stammered, his voice trembling just as much as the ground above us.

  He moved to the edge of the cave, summoning his brown essence to dig upward, creating a small hole to scout the surface. Meanwhile, I could only pray silently for the Verdant God to keep my mother safe.

  And then, the trembling stopped.

  “Aargh!” A scream tore through the silence. My gaze darted to the outsider who had just peered above ground, now rushing back down, wide-eyed and pale. “A monster!” he shrieked.

  Three of his companions exchanged confused glances, but not Clarice.

  Her scowl deepened. “Disperse!” she commanded, her voice cutting through the chaos. She lunged toward me as the others snapped out of their stupor, slapping the walls near them to summon Earth’s essence and dig escape routes.

  And then, it happened.

  A deafening explosion erupted from my side, a shockwave of dust rushing through the cave and enveloping everything.

  Through the haze, I felt it before I saw it—a spike of Nature’s essence, more powerful than any other cultivator technique I ever felt. A green blur flashed by me, faster than I could follow.

  Screams followed.

  Through the swirling dust, I caught sight of half a body—an outsider’s—hurtling through the air.

  “Let me go!” Clarice’s voice rang out, desperate. But after a sickening crunch, her protests stopped abruptly.

  My heart pounded in my chest, each beat growing louder as the green glow stilled for a moment. Then, it moved—toward me.

  My left eye locked onto the figure emerging from the dust, and I was unable to even breathe.

  It was monstrous, like something from the old bedtime stories my parents used to tell. Its body rippled with muscle, its form grotesque, a parody of a big human body, exuding raw power.

  Its skin glowed with dark green lines that twisted and pulsed beneath the surface, like veins filled with pure essence.

  But its face…

  On its oval-shaped head, glowing eyes flickered between green and white, and those lines—those cursed veins—formed a twisted, unnatural smile, like the crude drawing of a toothy grin.

  With a single touch, its enormous hand crushed the earth belt pinning me to the wall, the restraint crumbling like brittle bark.

  I looked up at it with my remaining eye, dazed and trembling.

  “Lakea?” it said, my name rolling out in a rough voice, echoing, and unnatural. It was like a sound bouncing inside the hollow trunk of a tree.

  A chill ran down my spine. My dizziness grew, the edges of my vision blurring. Whatever this thing was, whatever it wanted, I knew one thing: I didn’t want to be awake to see it.

  And so, I let the darkness take me.