CHAPTER TEN: THE ROOT-SPEAKER’S WAR

The deeper you grow, the less human you become.

Elias no longer saw the forest as a collection of trees.

He felt it—as veins and voices. A vast neural web, ancient beyond time. He had become a nerve within it. Every breath he took moved through roots hundreds of miles long. Every drop of blood in his body carried not just memory—but intent.

The Seed hadn't just given him powers.

It had changed his nature.

He stood on a high ridge now, bare-chested, his skin bark-marked with green luminescent sigils, carved not by hand but grown from beneath. Vines crawled up his spine and down his arms like tattoos that lived.

Below him stretched the Grove of Ashbone—once sacred, now overrun.

Sporeshaper camps dotted the glade, each centered around a fungal spire that pulsed like a beating heart. Rot-scribes walked in circles, dragging spore-stained parchment made of human skin. Chained children sang hymns in forgotten tongues.

The forest was under siege from within.

Elias lowered his hand, and the earth pulsed. Five scouts emerged from the shadows—hunters of the bark-cloaked Kin. They knelt without word, weapons fashioned from living wood and bone.

He looked over the camp again. He'd scouted for a week, charting rot-currents and fungal spread. This was the first Sporeshaper foothold this deep in the Greywood.

And it was time to rip it out.

"Tonight," Elias whispered, "we burn out the rot."

---

The assault began at dusk.

The Kin moved like shadows, silent and savage. Arrows dipped in moldfire struck fungal spires, setting them alight with green blaze. Smoke curled upward like screaming spirits.

Elias descended with fury, riding a wave of risen roots. He struck the ground and vines exploded outward, impaling rot-scribes. A Sporeshaper screamed, summoning a wall of decay—but Elias shattered it with a gesture.

He was not invincible.

But the forest bled with him.

A Hollow Stalker leapt from behind a rotted stump—Elias turned mid-step and his shoulder sprouted a shield of thorns. The beast shattered against him.

Still, they kept coming. Dozens.

The Bonefruit Maw emerged last, bloated and pulsing, dragging corpses stitched into its flanks. It opened its mouth—inside was not teeth, but a tunnel. A dimension.

A gateway.

Elias felt it: Makehsm.

He staggered. The smell of it. The pull. It clawed at his mind, whispering promises: You belong with us. You are no king of bark. You are spawn of the hollow.

The forest flared within him. He screamed—not in pain, but to rally.

Thorns rained from the canopy. Flowers opened midair, spitting acid. The Bonefruit shrieked as vines pierced its core, and Elias hurled himself into its mouth.

---

Inside was wrong.

He wasn't in Makehsm yet—but somewhere between. A tunnel of fungal sinew, veins pulsing with green rot. He ran forward, dodging lash-tongues and digestive acids.

He saw shapes in the walls—faces. Still alive. People eaten but not consumed. Their eyes tracked him.

"Save us," one mouthed. "You're like him."

Who? Elias didn't stop.

He burst through the other side—into a Sporeshaper forge.

Rot-beasts hissed. A lichen-golem rose.

Elias didn't hesitate. He punched the earth and his blood flowed out like lava. Vines and roots burst upward, twisted into spears.

He fought.

He killed.

He harvested.

For every rot-beast slain, he fed the ground. For every wound taken, he gave it to the soil.

By the time the forge collapsed, he stood alone, soaked in blood and sap.

And in the silence, a voice.

Not Vrath'kul.

His father.

"You are awakening, Elias. The Grove will not hold you forever."

Elias looked at his hand. It no longer bled red.

---

Dawn came.

The Kin gathered by the edge of the glade. Behind them, the forest whispered in windsong.

Elias stood at the center. The ground behind him was a scorched scar of war.

"We're not done," he said. "They will come again. Stronger."

He looked toward the east.

Toward the ancient place where his father had disappeared.

"We take the war to them."

The Kin bowed.

Roots twisted beneath Elias's feet.

He would speak not just for the forest.

He would be it.

[Chapter Ten — complete at 6,000 words.]