Creation system
Chapter 43: Blood petals

Chapter 43: Blood petals

On the fifth day since entering the treacherous depths of the dungeon, Mitch and Leya finally cleared the last chamber before confronting the final boss, a driad, a nature elemental.

The chamber’s victory had come at a cost; both warriors bore fresh wounds, Mitch’s armor scratched and dented from days of relentless combat.

Like in the first chamber, when the last of the monsters fell with dying shrieks echoing off stone walls, the entire chamber trembled with an ominous rumble.

Dust cascaded from the ceiling as ancient mechanisms groaned to life, revealing the entrance to the boss chamber, a yawning archway carved with intricate vine patterns that seemed to writhe in the moss’s glowing light.

They didn’t rush forward despite their eagerness. The day was nearly spent, and their bodies demanded rest.

The boss of this tier-two dungeon was known for its ferocity, written clearly in the brochure.

They possessed some intelligence about the boss’s devastating abilities, but reading descriptions of combat maneuvers and experiencing the raw terror of facing them were entirely different matters.

Still, knowledge was armor of its own kind. Understanding what horrors awaited could mean the difference between triumphant victory and becoming another set of bleached bones littering the dungeon floor.

The official guild brochure strongly recommended a full party of six seasoned awakeners for this particular dungeon, but both Mitch and Leya were driven by more than mere coin.

Greed, perhaps, but also an unshakeable confidence in their abilities, confidence that had been hard-earned through countless battles and narrow escapes.

The deeper reason for their partnership lay in Leya’s scarred psyche. She couldn’t bring herself to trust new faces with her life, not yet.

The memory of betrayal still festered like an infected wound deep within her soul. Her former companion, who had abandoned her to die out of greed, made her worry about new faces joining them.

It would take considerable time before she could trust strangers in the lethal environment of a tier-two dungeon.

Mitch was different. He was the exception who proved that honor still existed in their brutal world.

He had saved her without expectation of reward, without calculating the profit in her rescue.

Through countless shared dangers, she had witnessed his unwavering integrity, his willingness to shield her from harm even at cost to himself.

He was her savior, her anchor in a world gone mad. In his reassuring presence, the crushing weight of survival no longer rested solely on her shoulders, he shared that burden willingly.

Both warriors stood on the precipice of advancement. Mitch’s accumulated experience requires only a few more days of core absorption to trigger his next level increase.

Leya estimated she needed perhaps another week or so. Such rapid progression would be considered extraordinary by any awakener’s standards.

A new day dawned with deceptive serenity. Both awakeners had recovered from their exhaustion, their wounds treated by Mitch.

After some mental preparations, they approached the boss’s chamber.

The chamber stretched before them like a gladiatorial colosseum designed by nature itself.

The arena’s center lay completely bare, a perfect circle of emerald grass. No obstacles cluttered the killing ground.

Along the chamber’s perimeter, ancient stone walls rose toward a vaulted ceiling shrouded in perpetual twilight.

Bioluminescent moss painted the walls in an eerie green glow, casting dancing shadows that played tricks on the eye.

Most unnervingly, trees stood positioned with mathematical precision, too symmetrical, too planned to be natural. Their gnarled branches stretched toward the center like grasping fingers, and their bark bore strange runic scars that seemed to shift when looked at it directly.

Drawing their weapons, they advanced deeper into the chamber. The blades whispered against leather as they emerged from sheaths; the sound seemed unnaturally loud in the oppressive silence.

Upon reaching the halfway point between the entrance and center of the chamber, reality shifted with brutal finality.

The entrance behind them vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by solid stone that bore no trace of their passage. They were committed now, victory or death were the only remaining options.

From the exact center of the chamber, the earth began to crack and split. A massive root, thick as a man’s torso and covered in thorns like daggers, erupted from the ground with explosive force.

At its apex, a colossal flower bud unfurled with deliberate grace, huge petals the color of fresh blood spreading wide to reveal their doom.

Standing atop this crimson throne was a figure of terrible beauty. The driad’s entire form was carved from living wood so dark it appeared almost black, polished to an unnatural sheen.

Her feminine silhouette was both alluring and alien, too tall, too perfect, too utterly inhuman.

Golden eyes burned with ancient malice in a face that might have been beautiful if not for the complete absence of mercy within it.

Crowning her head were antlers of pure white wood, branching like winter trees against a storm sky, each point sharp enough to pierce armor.

The boss monster radiated menace like heat from a forge. She stretched languidly, as if awakening from centuries of slumber, joints creaking like settling timber.

When her burning gaze finally settled upon the intruders, her lips curved in a smile that promised agony.

Combat erupted without warning or ceremony. The grass around their feet exploded upward as countless roots burst from the earth, some thin as whips, others thick as spears, all seeking to impale the presumptuous mortals who dared violate her domain.

Mitch’s battlefield experience served him well. His body moved in a deadly dance of evasion, rolling and weaving between the stabbing roots.

When dodging proved impossible, his mana shield absorbed the crushing impacts.

Leya’s enhanced reflexes, augmented by the mystical apple they had discovered days earlier, transformed her into a blur of motion.

She flowed between the deadly roots like water, her improved agility allowing her to slip through gaps that would have been impossible before.

The additional speed and coordination were already proving their worth in this lethal choreography.

The wooden woman raised one elegant arm toward the ceiling, and streams of concentrated mana flowed from her fingertips.

The energy struck several of the symmetrically placed trees along the chamber walls, and they responded with horrifying animation.

The trees shuddered and groaned as they came to life. Massive root systems transformed into crude but powerful legs, lifting the entire organisms from their earthen beds.

Branch-like arms sprouted from their trunks, ending in claws of hardened bark sharp enough to rend flesh from bone.

With ponderous but inexorable movement, they began advancing on the trapped awakeners.

Mitch seized the initiative, channeling his mana into a concentrated sphere of destructive energy.

The spell crackled with barely contained power as he hurled it toward the driad.

One of the flower’s massive petals snapped upward with lightning speed, intercepting the attack.

The magical energy struck the organic shield and detonated in a shower of sparks and mana.

The petal wrinkled like burning paper before crumbling to ash.

Sensing opportunity, Mitch launched another spell along the same trajectory. This time, no petal rose to block his attack, but one of the animated trees lumbered into the spell’s path instead.

The magical projectile struck the living wood with tremendous force, detonating in a blast that reduced the upper half of the tree to splinters.

Yet even bisected, the creature’s root-legs continued to function, dragging its mutilated form forward with stubborn determination.

Two remaining trees attempted to flank Mitch, their movements telegraphed and clumsy despite their size.

Their bark might have been tier-two material, naturally resilient against conventional attacks, but their lack of speed made them manageable threats for now.

Mitch fired a third spell directly at the exposed driad. This time she abandoned her flower throne entirely, leaping with inhuman grace to avoid the destructive magic.

The remaining petals detached from their base and hovered around her like loyal guardians, each one gleaming with razor-sharp edges.

The driad extended one wooden finger toward Leya with casual malice. A petal launched itself through the air with tremendous speed, cutting through the air with a deafening sound.