Season 1. Chapter 81: Minister land beast

Chapter: Cinders in the Green Maze (continued further)

The quiet didn't last long.

A faint tremor passed under their feet—subtle at first, like a heartbeat beneath the soil. Then another, stronger. Pebbles shifted. Dust trickled from the bark of nearby trees.

Oliver's head snapped up. He didn't speak—his body language was enough. His hand dropped to his sword again.

Nico's ears perked. "That's not wind."

Zack stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes narrowed, threads around his wrists rising slowly like smoke in water.

Then came the sound: a distant, grinding churn. Like stone being crushed under something heavy.

"...Ground's pulsing," Oliver muttered. "You feel it?"

"Now I do," Nico said, stepping back.

Then a shadow broke the treeline to their right.

At first it looked like a boulder rolling free from a slope, but it was moving with intent. Covered in thick soil and moss, the creature pulled itself from the earth, small but dense—its rocky hide jagged, covered in green lichen and cracked obsidian veins.

It wasn't massive like the ones they'd fled before.

But it was still a Land Beast—a mini-form, perhaps a juvenile or splinter creature. Maybe sent ahead.

Its stone-plate body clattered and hissed as it moved. Two forelimbs scraped the ground, leaving molten gouges where its weight dragged, and glowing cracks pulsed along its back like a rising volcano.

And it was headed straight toward them.

"We've been tracked—" Oliver snapped.

"No—it's territorial!" Zack hissed. "It doesn't care who we are!"

The Mini Land Beast opened its jaw—a crevice of flame—and let out a throaty, gravel-like roar that echoed through the trees.

"Plan?" Nico barked, already beginning to charge a fireball in one hand.

Oliver unsheathed his sword again. "No fire—this thing feeds on heat."

"Perfect," Nico groaned, flames instantly vanishing. "That's all I am!"

Zack's eyes flicked across the terrain. "We're boxed in... we need to draw it out of the grove."

"I'll pull it," Oliver said sharply. "I'm the only one with iron—it hates the vibration. You two move left, uphill. Circle back if I don't signal in two minutes."

He didn't wait for approval. He stepped forward, blade low, and dragged the flat of his sword against the stone.

SKRRRRRIIIIIIIII—CHH!

The Land Beast twitched. Its molten eyes focused entirely on him now.

"Yeah," Oliver muttered, eyes narrowing. "Come on, you little landslide."

Then he took off running, iron blade in one hand, the creature bellowing behind him and giving chase—earth cracking under its gait as it thundered after him into the deeper woods.

Nico and Zack stood in the fading trail of dust and steam.

"…He better not die," Nico muttered.

Zack folded his arms, watching the trees close behind Oliver. "He won't. That idiot reads terrain like a bard reads poetry."

"Still," Nico said, tail twitching nervously, "this forest is packed."

Zack gave him a slow look. "This whole forest is going to be infested with them."

And then they moved—uphill, silent, eyes sharp, praying Oliver's gamble bought them time.

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Chapter: "The Warning in the Weeds"

Location: Forest Edge, Early July, Caelus Calendar

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The sky was pale blue—too calm. Too still.

Oliver crouched behind a mossed rock, the white mask strapped to his face once more, iron sword faintly humming with heat. He peeked through the fern cover.

> CRACK. CRUNCH. SHLUKK.

A mini Land Beast—its body like a thicket stitched over with bones and bark—lumbered across the clearing. Behind it, two more emerged from the treeline. Their eyes glowed dim yellow, like dying lanterns. Their legs dug like plows, leaving vine tracks as they moved.

Nico was next to him, kneeling. Sweat on his brow. His fingertips sparked with impatient fire.

> "There's way more of them than last time…" Nico muttered. "What the hell?"

Zack emerged silently from behind a tree, his black coat fluttering slightly from his sudden void step.

> "They're early," Zack said, voice cold and unreadable.

Oliver glanced at him, brows furrowing. "Early?"

Zack crouched. "This shouldn't be happening until late August. Duskwane month. But this... this is a sign. The natural cycles are breaking pattern."

Nico tilted his head. "You mean this is like... early summer thunderstorms happening in spring?"

Zack nodded slowly, eyes scanning the ground. "The Land Beasts emerge with the Mysticoins Freeze and soil-based anomalies... This is the system reacting early. Something or someone is tampering with the land."

Oliver's Investigation notification flicked in his peripheral.

> ▸EVENT FLAGGED: UNSEASONAL LAND BEAST MIGRATION

▸HINT: "The soil screams before the forest burns."

▸STATUS: Ongoing anomaly — track root spread direction.

> "Great…" Oliver whispered. "Now the forest is warning us?"

Suddenly—a burst of foliage as one of the mini Land Beasts leapt—

Nico instantly reacted, his hands bursting into flame.

> "BACK OFF, TREEFREAK!"

He launched a wide arc of fire that collided with its chest—BOOM—burning bark and snapping vines. The creature screeched like a wooden whistle in a storm before collapsing, smoldering.

> "Got it," Nico said, flexing. "That's number four today."

> "Five," Zack corrected, stepping past. "You missed the one behind the roots."

Oliver stood, sighing. "And there's probably dozens more nearby."

They paused.

The forest around them pulsed... as if alive. Dozens of pairs of faint glowing eyes blinked within the foliage. Not attacking yet—but present. Watching.

> "We need to tell Riven," Zack said. "This isn't random. This is the land awakening too early. Something is speeding up the season's wrath."

> "The Duskwane Disaster…" Oliver muttered. "It's already creeping in."

Nico stared at the creatures, some beginning to dig and snarl into the ground.

> "This isn't gonna be some wilderness arc, is it?" Nico groaned.

> Oliver: "It's the Camp Arc. We're literally camping in an evolving apocalypse."

> Zack: "With rules, politics, and a time bomb."

The wind howled suddenly.

And the trees… they shook—not from the breeze, but from something deeper.

> The land was alive.

And it was waking up too soon.

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