Chapter 14: Chrysalis of Rot
Chapter 14: Chrysalis of Rot
Pain was a living thing inside my skull.
It pulsed with every heartbeat, sending black veins crawling across my vision. The parasite in my eye socket writhed, its needle-like legs scraping against bone as it burrowed deeper.
(System Override: Emergency Evolution Initiated)
(Decay Veyra Level 8 → 9)
(Mutation Threshold Crossed: 20% Worldroot Symbiosis)
I screamed—or tried to. My throat was packed with wet roots, their tendrils forcing their way down my trachea. Across the chamber, Joren and Lina hung from the ceiling in cocoons of pulsating vines, their faces twisted in silent agony.
The branded instructor leaned over me, his dagger tracing the new fissures splitting my chest open. "Beautiful," he murmured. "The Grand Elder was right—you are the perfect vessel."
(Soul Rot Analysis: Parasite attempting neural integration. Resistance: 39%)
I had one chance.
With the last of my will, I pulled on the only clean energy left—the memory of Elder Wen's dagger, still clutched in the instructor's belt.
(Earth Manipulation Level 7: Metal Resonance Activated)
The blade twitched.
The dagger flew true, shearing through the instructor's wrist before embedding itself in the far wall. He howled, clutching his stump as black ichor sprayed across the roots.
They hissed where the blood touched, recoiling like scorched flesh.
(Discovery: Instructor's blood is toxic to Eclipse roots.)
The cocoon around my head loosened just enough to gasp: "Joren! Burn him!"
A muffled roar answered. Orange light flared through the vines as Joren's fire—now laced with the same black veins as mine—erupted from his cocoon. The roots holding Lina crisped to ash. She fell, rolled, and breathed out a windblade that severed the instructor's other hand.
(Teamwork Synergy: Fire + Wind + Decay = Temporary Corruption Immunity)
I collapsed onto all fours, coughing up clumps of dead roots. My left eye was gone, replaced by something... else. Something that saw in wavelengths of decay.
(New Sense Unlocked: Rot Vision - See corruption flows as glowing veins)
The instructor staggered back, his stumps spraying that precious black blood. "You don't understand—Eclipse is already—"
Lina's dagger took him through the throat.
We drank from his corpse like animals.
Not the flesh—the *blood*, catching it in cupped hands before it could evaporate. Each sip pushed the roots further back, clearing our minds.
(Temporary Buff: Eclipse Resistance - 3 hours remaining)
Joren flexed his black-veined hands. "Why does his blood help?"
I turned my rot vision toward the dead instructor. His body was a latticework of glowing corruption—except for his heart, which pulsed with clean crimson light.
"They're not parasites," I realized. "They're grafts. The Grand Elder figured out how to fuse human and mountain essence."
(Cross-Reference: Verdant Dawn Harvest Ritual + Eclipse = Hybridization)
Lina wiped her mouth. "So we're drinking... mountain blood?"
"Uncorrupted mountain blood." I stood, testing my new vision. The chamber's walls now glowed with infection trails—and one, faint clean path leading downward. "The dagger showed me. Wen hid something below."
Joren relit his flames. "Then let's dig."
The tunnel sloped into a cavern so vast even rot vision couldn't see the ceiling. Rib-like arches of fused bone and stone curved overhead, dripping sap onto a central dais.
There, encased in a chrysalis of crystallized blood, floated the Grand Elder.
Or what was left of him.
His torso had fused with the roots, his ribcage splayed open to cradle a pulsing green orb—the mountain's stolen heart. Tendrils connected it to dozens of cocoons suspended from the ceiling, each holding a twitching cultivator.
(Alert: Harvest Ritual in progress - 87% completion)
Lina gagged. "He's eating them?"
"Not eating." My rot vision zoomed in on the orb's surface, where faces pressed against the glassy interior. "Consolidating. He's becoming the mountain's new heart."
(System Warning: Direct confrontation impossible. Eclipse corruption saturation: 99%)
Joren cracked his knuckles. "So we blow up the orb."
A voice echoed from behind us: "That would kill every connected cultivator."
We turned.
Elder Wen's ghost stood in the tunnel mouth, his form flickering like a guttering candle. "The tools," he whispered. "You brought them?"
I lifted the compass, whistle, and dagger.
Wen smiled. "Then let me show you *real* earth magic."
Wen guided us to three blood-etched circles on the floor.
"Place the tools," he instructed. "Then bleed into the sigils."
(Risk: Blood sacrifice required. Estimated cost: 30% vitality per participant.)
We didn't hesitate.
As the dagger, whistle, and compass touched their respective circles, the cavern shuddered. The Grand Elder's chrysalis cracked open one eye.
"No." His voice vibrated through the roots. "You'll kill us all!"
Wen ignored him, positioning us around the symbols. "The compass binds. The whistle calls. The dagger cuts." He met my gaze. "But only a child of decay can sever the infection without killing the host."
I understood.
Stepping into the central circle, I drove Wen's dagger into my palm—and pulled, splitting my flesh from wrist to elbow. Black blood gushed onto the sigils.
(Decay Veyra Level 9 → Mutation: Worldroot Integration)
The roots *screamed* as my blood raced through them, a reverse infection purging the Grand Elder's influence. The orb darkened. Cracks spread.
The Grand Elder thrashed. "STOP! You don't know what you're—"
Joren blew the whistle.
The sound didn't travel through air—it vibrated through *stone*, shaking the cavern with seismic fury. Stalactites rained down as the compass's needle spun wildly, binding the Grand Elder in place.
I plunged both hands into the orb.
(Final Ability Unlocked: *Harvest Reversal)
The last thing I saw before passing out was the mountain's heart *pulsing*—and the Grand Elder's body turning to petrified wood.
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To Be Continued...