Chapter 27: The Serpent’s Seed

**The Spire-Tree's Corruption**

The Spire-Tree's once-harmonious glow now pulsed with a sickly green hue. Its roots, previously healing the city's wounds, began burrowing deeper into Neo-Kyo's underbelly, cracking open ancient vaults of dark matter. Citizens reported nightmares of a child's laughter echoing through the roots.

**New Threat**:

- **The Blight**: A parasitic moss spreading from the tree, turning flesh into crystalline statues. A street artist's mural—depicting the team as heroes—froze mid-paint, her hand crumbling to dust.

- **The Whispering Roots**: Voices from the tree pleaded: *"Find the Gardener. Stop the Seed."*

#### **Mira's Transformation**

The reborn child, now aged rapidly into a teenager, ruled a cult of hybrid children called **The Sprouts**. They camped in the Spire-Tree's hollows, their eyes glowing serpent-green. Mira offered Lin Shen a fruit from the tree—a pulsating orb of condensed time.

**Mira's Ultimatum**:

- *"Eat it, and see the Cycle's truth. Refuse, and watch your city rot."*

**Lin Shen's Vision**:

- A future where the Spire-Tree devours all realities, with Mira as its arbiter.

- A shadowy figure—**The Gardener**—carving the first Core from the serpent's fang.

#### **The Gardener's Trail**

Ghosthand traced the Blight's origin to the **Chrono Wastes**, a desert where time shattered during the Worldroot's collapse. The team found a buried temple adorned with murals of a hooded figure sowing seeds into black soil.

**Key Discovery**:

- **The Gardener's Journal**: A holographic log revealing the serpent was *grown*, not born. *"We fed it our fears. Now it hungers for more."*

The temple collapsed, burying the team in sand. As Lin Shen struggled, a hand clad in thorned vines pulled him free. The Gardener hissed: *"You've doomed us all."*