From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 105: Roots

Leon drove the tip of his blade deeper, using the weight of his body to force the edge downward. The soil parted with a wet crunch, and again, that hollow, unnatural ring echoed out. It wasn’t just a buried stone. It resonated—alive, aware. Like something was listening.

"Help me clear it," Leon said, yanking his blade free.

Mira dropped to her knees beside him, scraping the earth with both hands. Tomas crouched, grimacing from the pain in his shoulder, but joined them anyway. The soil came away too easily, more like rotted cloth than dirt. Foul air hissed upward with every scoop, thick with decay and iron.

Minutes passed. Then their fingers struck it.

A surface, curved and slick.

Leon cleared more of the dirt away and stared.

It was a sphere.

Pale grey. Veined with faint red lines. The markings pulsed slightly, like a heartbeat. It was the size of a helmet and embedded directly beneath where the monolith had stood. Not carved. Not placed. Grown.

"It’s not a shrine," Mira whispered. "It’s a seed."

Leon’s eyes narrowed. "Then we kill it before it sprouts."

He reached into his pouch and pulled out a shard—a burn crystal, small and potent, meant for collapsing tunnels or rupturing barriers. Mira looked unsure.

"Are you certain? That thing might be anchoring the entire forest’s corruption."

Leon didn’t flinch. "Then we’re cutting the root."

He placed the crystal directly on the seed’s surface. It hissed. A tremor passed through the ground.

"It knows," Tomas muttered. freeweɓnovel~cѳm

Leon triggered the shard.

The explosion wasn’t loud.

It was deep.

A thud more than a blast. Like the air collapsed inward. Soil burst upward, and the sphere cracked. A viscous black liquid sprayed from the wound, hissing as it struck the trees. The roots around the clearing writhed like severed limbs.

Mira covered her mouth. "I think It’s bleeding."

The seed shuddered. Then split entirely.

A scream erupted from the forest.

Not from a mouth. From everything.

Branches snapped. Bark split. A wave of force swept outward, knocking them back. Tomas hit a stump and rolled. Leon shielded Mira as dirt and splinters rained down.

Then, silence.

No more whispers.

No more breath.

Mira sat up first. Her face was pale, but steady. "The link’s gone."

Leon stood and scanned the treeline. The trees were still again. Just trees.

Tomas spat blood, but grinned. "Was that it?"

Leon shook his head slowly. "It was one."

Mira pointed to the broken husk of the seed. It was already decaying, turning to ash like the creatures before.

"That means there are more."

Leon nodded. "And they’re growing."

He turned toward the fading path out of the clearing.

"We head east. Warn the others. And we don’t stop until we reach the next root."

None of them argued.

Behind them, the forest didn’t follow.

But it was listening again.

The trail east was different. Lighter, but wrong in its own way.

Where before the trees loomed like sentries, now they leaned away, as if recoiling from what the trio had done. Sunlight pierced through gaps in the canopy that hadn’t been there before, dappling the forest floor with uneven gold. But nothing moved in the light. No birds, no insects. No wind.

"Too quiet again," Tomas muttered, wiping dried blood from his chin. "Feels like we walked into a memory of the forest, not the forest itself."

Mira’s gaze didn’t leave the path ahead. "Not a memory. A reset. That seed was a core node. With it gone, this part of the forest is trying to revert. It doesn’t know how."

Leon didn’t speak. He was thinking.

Something about the seed gnawed at him. The way it had pulsed. The faint red veins. How the scream had torn through everything, not just the trees. It hadn’t just been a defense mechanism. It had been a signal. A cry.

Or a call.

They moved fast.

Hours passed in uneasy quiet. The land sloped downwards, the soil becoming damp underfoot. A trickle of water appeared—then a stream. Clear, cold. It was the first sign of normalcy they’d seen in miles.

Tomas stopped to refill his canteen. "Should we risk drinking it?"

Leon dipped a finger in. The water was cold, but no film clung to the surface. No smell. "Test it first," he said. "Mira?"

She knelt by the stream and touched her rune to the water. It pulsed blue, then held steady.

"Clean," she confirmed. "No corruption. For now."

They drank quickly, silently.

It wasn’t until they were moving again that Leon noticed the carvings.

Low on the tree trunks, barely visible beneath the moss, were faint etchings. Spirals. Arcs. Loops with hooked ends. At first, he thought they were just old wardings, maybe another hunter’s failed barrier.

Then he saw the blood.

Not fresh. Not even liquid. But the grooves had been carved after the bark had absorbed the blood. Something had etched them in while it was still wet.

Mira paused at the same spot and squinted.

"These aren’t human marks."

Leon traced a loop with his gloved hand. "No. But they’re intelligent. Intentional."

Tomas shifted nervously. "Then someone—or something—has been using this path. Recently."

They didn’t speak after that.

The next clearing came with no warning.

No monolith this time. No bones.

Just a tree.

Massive. Dead.

Its trunk was split down the centre, like something had clawed it open from within. The bark was blackened, but not burnt—infested. Rotted from the inside out. Fungal threads reached up into the branches, coiling like veins. In its hollow core, something twitched.

Leon raised a hand and motioned them to stop.

The movement inside was subtle. Wet.

A shape pressed against the interior bark—then another. Thin limbs. Dozens. No larger than a man’s forearm, but fast. Crawling, pacing, waiting.

Mira whispered, "It’s a nest."

Leon nodded once. "And it’s full."

Tomas reached for his bow. "We torch it?"

Mira shook her head. "We don’t know how far the rot goes. Fire might spread the corruption instead of ending it."

Leon turned his gaze to the branches. "No spores. No mist. Whatever’s in there—it hasn’t woken fully yet."

"Then we move around?" Tomas offered.

Leon hesitated. His instincts screamed to destroy it. But logic held.

"Not now. Not without knowing what we’re facing."

They gave the tree a wide berth, boots silent against the moss. The limbs inside never struck out. They just... watched.

Or listened.

The further east they went, the clearer it became: the forest was mapped by roots, not roads. The corruption ran like a nervous system—seeds, shrines, nests. Connective points. Each one they found gave more shape to the network.

They came upon a stone wall near dusk.

Old. Weather-worn. Overgrown with ivy that hadn’t rotted. The kind of wall meant to keep something in—or out.

Beyond it, the forest changed again.

Flat ground gave way to dense, descending ridges. The trees weren’t dying here. They were thriving—taller, greener, but too perfect. Spaced evenly. Too much light. Too much stillness.

A single road cut through the centre.

Not dirt.

Stone.

Worn with travel.

Leon stepped closer, then knelt and ran a finger across the surface.

Tracks.

Bare feet. Deep. Clawed.

Mira crouched beside him. "It’s not just the forest growing roots anymore."

Leon stood.

"It’s sending them."

And somewhere ahead, the next seed pulsed.

Waiting.

They didn’t rest that night.

Even though the trees here stood tall and open to the sky, the stillness pressed against their ribs. The scent of life had returned—moss, pine, damp bark—but underneath it was the sour edge of something waiting.

They moved single file down the stone road. Cracks in the path were filled with weeds that didn’t sway. Trees creaked without wind.

Then, lights.

Faint. Flickering.

Tomas ducked low. "Campfires?"

Leon narrowed his eyes. "Too even. Too spaced."

They crept forward. What they found wasn’t a camp.

It was a line of torches.

Dozens. Set into the earth at regular intervals. Lighting the road for something that had already passed—or was still coming.

Leon crouched and touched one.

Still warm.

He looked ahead. The torches stretched all the way down the slope.

Mira’s voice was tight. "Something wants to be seen."

Tomas gripped his blade. "So we go in loud?"

Leon’s face hardened.

"No. We go in smarter."

They followed the torchlit path in silence, each step landing heavier than the last. The slope steepened until the trees parted in a long, shallow basin. What lay at the centre wasn’t just another clearing—it was constructed.

Stone pillars circled a wide pit. Cracked, but deliberate. Symbols had been carved deep into their faces, old ones, tangled with both human script and something older. The torch line ended at the rim.

Leon raised a hand. They stopped short of the drop.

Below, shadows moved.

Mira stepped beside him. Her eyes were glowing faintly now—light magic, drawn instinctively.

"What is this?" Tomas whispered.

Leon didn’t answer yet. He was watching.

The pit was deep—maybe thirty feet—and lined with carved ridges like tiered steps. But the floor wasn’t stone. It was roots. Braided together, tight. And in the middle, sunk low into the earth, was another seed.

Bigger.

Twice the size of the last. Its surface was cracked—not by force, but by age. Something inside it pulsed softly, as if breathing. Around it, shapes knelt. Dozens. Hooded. Hunched. Alive.

Mira’s hand went to her knife. "Worshippers?"

Leon frowned. "No. Look closer."

Tomas squinted, then swore under his breath. "They’re not praying. They’re growing."

It was true.

From each back, a thin root extended—buried into the seed’s flesh. Not impaled. Connected.

Leon’s voice dropped low. "They’re feeding it."

A shift below. One of the kneeling figures turned slightly, and for the first time, Leon saw its face.

Or what used to be one.

Bone. Empty sockets. But not dead. The jaw twitched. A tongue moved. No breath, but the veins still throbbed faintly under half-decayed skin.

"They’re not worshippers," Mira whispered. "They’re offerings."

Leon’s fists tightened. "Then we cut the ritual."

He reached for another burn shard—then paused.

"No," Mira said, already guessing. "That one’s too large. You saw the reaction from the small one."

Leon nodded grimly. "If we blow it, it might wake the rest. Or worse—spread the corruption before it dies."

"So we go down?" Tomas asked, not hiding the dread.

Leon didn’t speak. He just checked his blade and stepped toward the edge.

But before they could descend, the seed pulsed again.

This time, a wave of red light shimmered across the pit.

The kneeling things stirred.

Their heads rose. Slowly.

And turned toward the ridge.

Toward them.

Leon didn’t move. Mira’s knife was already drawn, glowing white.

Tomas whispered, "They can’t see us. Not yet."

"Not see," Leon muttered. "Sense."

Below, the seed’s surface cracked wider.

And a limb pressed against the inside.

Not like the creatures from before. This was thicker. Bone-armoured. The bark cracked with the sound of splitting ribs. And then, it stopped.

Stillness again.

But the pit was no longer dormant.

Whatever slept beneath the roots had heard them.

Leon stepped back.

"We leave. Now."

And this time, the forest didn’t just listen.

It watched them go.

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