Tristan could kill the shrieking little creatures, but that was only going to waste time. There were two ways out of Deep Cradle, through the wall and through a balcony. He had been too fixated on an exit he had already made to take his chances on the maze-like upper floors.

  Fortunately, the glass-like tubes that contained the stairways were placed at regular intervals. Tristan ran for the nearest one, at least a spiral stairway would make a decent last stand location. The spriggon followed him, screeching at the same volume as always. He had been partially hoping that the exertion would make them short of breath, but then he remembered they didn’t have lungs.

  More tails fell in behind him, though the ones who had the opportunity to intercept him avoided his path. They knew he would treat them as essence reservoirs if he got ahold of them. It was a wise choice, but also the wrong one. His reservoirs were already full and he lacked a place to put the drained essence.

  A mile later he he found a glass pillar and rushed up the steps. He paused, contemplating blocking the narrow path off. He could make a plate of metal that would slow him enough for him to escape. It was worth the thirty seconds of lost time. The metal was easy to make, a quarter inch thick and wide enough to impede anyone at tier zero. Tristan nodded at his handy work, hopefully, there weren’t any spriggon upstairs.

  “Look out,” Vulcan yelled.

  Tristan turned just in time to see an ent armed with a wooden club smash into the wall of the stairwell. To the glasssmith’s credit, the wall did not shatter. Cracks ran through the construction and dust rained down from above as the stone steps were forced to bend in a way they hadn’t been designed to.

  The ent reared back for another swing. Club had been the wrong word, it was a staff that had tree-like roots wrapped around a stone that made it more similar to a hammer. Hammers tended to be good at breaking glass. His distance running speed was right around fifty miles per hour, or seventy feet per second, a speed most would consider fast.

  It was almost too slow. In the half second it took for him to shoot up the stairs, the ent smashed the glass. Tristan used infusion and his tier four talent to shove half his kern into the steps, giving them some properties of metal essence. It held for that vital moment he needed to tumble onto the floor above.

  He poked his head over the hole. The ent below was screaming ent profanities up at him, waving around its club. Tree men were not well equipped for jumping. Even with the extra reach, the makeshift hammer couldn’t get him.

  “Hey Vulcan what’s a rude thing to say in tree,” Tristan asked.

  Vulcan slightly amused sent over a few words that he could use.

  Tristan smiled and yelled, “Tu madre es estupida.”

  The ent paused and looked at him, cocking its head in confusion. Tristan was slightly confused, the ent took the inflammatory statement better than he had expected. The ent quickly realized it was not going to reach Tristan and rushed off, probably to the nearest stairwell. Tristan needed to make it to the wall before the ent caught up.

  “That was anti-climatic, what did I say to him?” Tristan asked as he ran, taking every turn that would put him closer to the cliff face.

  “Your mom is stupid,” Vulcan said, “It's something that bullies say when they think they are safe.”

  Tristan frowned, he could probably be defined as a bully. However, he didn’t particularly care, anyone trying to kill him deserved it. It was true that stopping to vent a bit was childish, especially when he was in a known location within a hostile environment. He nodded when he came to that conclusion and focused on escape.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  One more left turn brought him to a hallway with two distinct types of doors. On the left, were quality wooden doors while on the right were woven ones. They were still better than what the dregs in the Caldera had, but nothing like what the wealthy could afford.

  A few hundred feet down the hall the ent rounded the corned. Its six eyes locked on Tristan, he could tell the creature desperately wanted to smash him. The hall was made for humans a head shorter than Tristan, and the ent was nearly three feet taller than he was. It was a tight squeeze, forcing the ent to hunch over.

  It pointed the crude hammer at Tristan and roared, “Ya no mataras mas!”

  Vulcan translated, “He is going to stop you from killing any others. A bit cocky isn’t he.”

  Tristan had to agree. The hall was lined with vacant residences, even the lord of the Underworld did not possess the raw speed to cross one hundred feet in the time it would take for Tristan to open the door beside him and step through. Nothing the ent could do would stop him from getting away.

  Only Tristan wasn’t sure he wanted to avoid this fight anymore. The ent was a tier higher, and in the cavern one floor down that meant something. One swing of the hammer would splatter Tristan across the ruins, and a few meddling spriggons would make the strike undodgeable.

  Tristan smiled, “Is he really doing this?”

  Vulcan sent a mental shrug, “There’s a good chance that there is a twist that makes it confident. Maybe it's a tier seven?”

  Tristan scoffed, “I could take him even if he was tier seven, at least in this location.”

  “I’m on board, the extra heart will sell for a lot or can be used to develop your anima,” Vulcan answered.

  The ent roared again, it knew that it needed to provoke Tristan. Somehow it was still surprised when he rushed at it. The monster reared back to smash him but succeeded only in hitting its head on the ceiling and hammer on the wall.

  Tristan reinforced his shoulder and smashed into it at full sprint. The ent was heavy but Tristan was moving fast, he struck like a runaway cart. He managed to keep his feet, but the ent went sprawling. It wasted no time in rising again, but Tristan didn’t let it. Vulcan manifested and he blasted the ent with a fireball, laced with combustion.

  He targeted the leaves on its back, the less growth it had in reserve the better. Tristan's hand grew slick with decay as he reached out and grabbed the ents arms. It could not leverage Its strength in this hall, it couldn’t even extend both elbows straight out to the side. Still, it was strong, much stronger than Tristan was.

  His decay ate into the arms, and flames ate into its back. The ent’s body language changed, it went from panicked to confident. Tristan jumped back right as the mask opened down the center, splitting the six eyes. A cloud of dust spewed out, filling the hallway. Tristan covered his mouth, but it was too late, Vulcan had been right, there was a twist. Poison.

  It took him a moment to realize that he felt fine. Better than fine, his kern was refilling at a rapid pace. A quick look inside told him what was happening. Back in the church’s moldy library, he had noticed a similar effect on his essence when his consumption destroyed the biological contaminants in his body. This was exactly the same, just scaled up a few orders of magnitude.

  Tristan shook his head at the plight of the tree monsters. That would have worked on anyone he knew. Luke would have probably survived by electrocuting himself, but he would need a few days to heal. Tristan’s random assortment of skills were good for crafting, and the ability to purify, move, and reinstall forces were the bane of these creatures.

  “Tough luck,” Tristan muttered as he strode through the cloud of spores.

  The ent probably sensed his approach, but it needed to get rid of the combustion-powered fire. It did not know that Tristan was able to drain the vitality right out of it. No spriggon had survived that contact. His decay covered hand landed on its shoulder, sinking in enough to start siphoning away its essence. The other hand used the abundant essence to fill the chest cavity with infusion and decay alloy.

  No screams echoed through the halls. Tristan had started with the vocal organ, he could fight an ent with a club, but one with a spear or a knife might be more of a problem. He did not want to risk more arriving.

  The ent tried to stop Tristan, but it was getting weaker. Its struggles slower. Bark fell to the ground in an attempt to remove the fire, only to be rolled through and pick up the combustion on the raw wooden flesh. Tristan ended it when his hand sank into the mythical beast’s chest and closed around the heart.

  He tore it out, freezing the ent in place. Fire and decay were still consuming it from opposite ends. This ent would not be getting resurrected to fight again.

  Turning, Tristan shoved the heart into his bag and stepped into the nearest residence. It was time to leave Deep Cradle. The balcony was open and the river rushed along below. Looking up, Tristan contemplated climbing, but he had a river. He might as well make a boat and take the free ride to civilization.