Fergal's boots hit the ground hard as he sprinted behind Cara, his five goons a step behind, each of them a blur of muscle and weapons.

The walls of the Mournspire Pine were thick with age, and the tunnels were oppressively dark and winding, but the faintest glimmer of pinkish-purple—dozens of umbilical cords almost blending into the floor—kept them on track. Fergal's mind was sharp, focused on one thing only: keeping Cara safe. The Plagueplain Doctor had given him the job, and it wasn't one he took lightly. A Finger of the Repossessor wouldn't fail orders. Not ever.

Every few paces, they'd run into small groups of halfling Myrmurs. Guarding the path to their hearts, no doubt. They weren't much of a threat. Fergal didn't even have to lift a finger. His goons slashed their way through, morphing weapons flashing in low lantern light, and then Liorin on Tongueless' back would slap the bark walls, creating a wall of vines behind them to stop any stragglers from pursuing them.

These smaller Myrmurs weren't even close to being as fast and as strong as the ones outside—probably because they were still growing or in development—but they were still Myrmurs, after all, and they'd give Cara a nasty bite if she wasn't careful.

Each time one came particularly close, he made sure to take the lead, cleaving through the little bastards with a quick, brutal swipe of his spider arms. A swing here, a twist of a stab there, and the Myrmurs were ripped in half, only to slowly regenerate and stagger away behind the seven of them. Fergal didn't bother watching them claw to their feet. It was no fun watching immortal wretches stand up after he'd killed them by all rights.

"Stay close to me, older sister," he said, his voice low but sharp. "If we get separated here, there's no finding you again."

He felt Cara glancing at him from behind, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, but she didn't slow down. "I've got it," she said casually, sounding almost too calm for the mess they were wading through.

He grunted in response. They pushed on, faster now, the thudding of their boots against the dirt matching the pounding in Fergal's head, and the smell of wood and rot thickened as they approached the heart of the tree.

After what felt like five minutes of pure sprinting through the dark, the tunnel expanded into a vast tree hollow, and they screeched to a halt near the entrance. This hollow was enormous—far bigger than the one the Petalborn had built their village in—but that didn't matter much, because the bark walls were cluttered to the brim with giant, pulsating, pinkish-purple hearts.

They were strange, fleshy things. Like mushrooms, only infested with more mushrooms that made them look rotten and crawled with mold.

There's quite a lot of them, too.

This is at least… forty hearts?

Fifty hearts?

Is it normal for there to be so many of them?

His eyes scanned the hollow, calculating, but before he and any of his goons could recover from the shock of seeing so many Myrmur hearts for the first time in their lives, the shadow of a halfling jumped at them from a crack in the wall next to them.

Its spear jabbed at Cara's head, and Fergal noticed it a bit too late. He and his goons tried to intercept, but—

Cara was faster.

In one smooth motion, she grabbed the Myrmur in the face and slammed it into the ground. The way she did it was different from how Fergal had defended her from that hound a month ago in Old Banks' manor—it was more controlled and elegant, but just as lethal. She crushed the Myrmur's head under her hand, and he saw its eyes going wide as its body went limp.

Fergal skidded to a stop, his own eyes flickering between the fallen Myrmur and Cara, who was already wiping the slime off her hands with a calm expression. Liorin and his goons exchanged incredulous looks as well. For her part, though, Cara turned her attention back to the wall of hearts, and without missing a beat, she pulled out her first pouch of the powdered 'symbiote elixir'.

The first heart she sprinkled the powder onto was the one connected to the twitching Myrmur beneath her feet, and the reaction was immediate. The heart began to shriek—a high-pitched, horrid noise that sounded like it was about to explode—and it convulsed and warbled as the powder soaked into it, its shape trembling violently.

"... I may not have a Symbiotic System like the rest of you, but I am a Bharnish," Cara said coolly, flashing Fergal a wink as she glanced over her shoulder. "Someone's gotta keep Gael in line whenever he goes on a drunken rage and picks fights with vagrants outside the clinic. I don't need your protection, sweety. Stop ordering me around."

And for a split second, Fergal's heart skipped a beat.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Just for a moment.

Because Fergal had seen his share of violence from all across the city, and that elegant turn and grab wasn't Bharnish in nature.

That was the 'Grave Reversal' technique from the Mortifera Enforcers' official combat art.

How do you know that art?

He exhaled softly through his nose after another moment.

… So it's not just the Plagueplain Doctor.

I should've known something was off when you could read my ledgers better than me.

Then Cara pulled out even more pouches from the Plagueplain Doctor's satchel, and she jerked her head at the neutered hearts someone had to destroy.

"Get smashing, boys."

Gael's chest heaved as his back pressed up against a wall of vines.

The two of them had been holding the line for what felt like hours. The tunnel was stifling with the heat of crowded bodies, but the constant press of the horde had forced them to keep moving backwards, keep defending, keep enduring. They couldn't back up any further. They'd already blocked and ducked and dodged their way a hundred meters back to the end of the tunnel, and Liorin must've been making walls of vines to stop stragglers from pursuing Cara's group, because they were now backed up against a wall and there was no more room for retreat.

He felt the pressure mounting in his chest. He felt his heart hammering against his ribs. They were about to be overwhelmed.

Then, just as the closest halfling opened its mouth to screech in front of them, its voice got caught in its throat.

Gael blinked as the Myrmur's hands flew to its chest, its face contorted in pain.

One by one, the other Myrmurs followed suit as well. Their strength faltered, their speed dropped, and some of them even staggered back while dropping their makeshift spears and blades.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

"... Cara's done it," he said. "Their hearts are getting pulverized."

Maeve lowered her umbrella beside him, and they continued leaning against the wall of vines, their breaths coming fast and shallow. It was a momentary reprieve—they were still drenched in sweat and covered in blood, most of it not theirs—but instead of just standing back and playing defense until the Repossessors could come back as reinforcement, the Exorcist held out her fist at him.

He frowned at her outstretched hand for a moment.

A gesture?

From her?

He hesitated, of course. The Exorcist was offering him something this friendly?

…

But, after a beat, he cackled. A wild grin tugged at his lips. Maybe it was the bottle of 77% alcohol he downed right before the fight, or maybe it was the sheer exhaustion and fatigue and pain from getting nicked by a thousand spears the past ten or so minutes, but somehow, someway, Maeve's fist didn't seem like something he had to be wary of.

He'd known since the very beginning that she was simple to a fault, and that she was wholly incapable of hiding anything actually important.

"Why the hell not?" he muttered, and he bumped her fist harder than she expected. "In Bharncair, if there's a will..."

Maeve gave him a sharp look, but the faintest flicker of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

Now, they could wait for Fergal to come back with his five goons, but why wait that long?

Gael was still irritated that he'd spent so many days in the forest without anything to really show for it, so he had to vent it all somehow.

While the horde of halflings staggered back like drunken men, their movements sluggish and erratic—weak prey, sitting ducks—the two of them kicked off their wall of vines and charged.

The first Myrmur didn't know what hit it. Gael's blade lashed out with a sickening crack and tore through its side, bisecting it in half. Maeve followed with a stab from her umbrella, punching it through the face of another halfling before tearing it upwards, ripping its head from its neck.

Slaughter.

They slashed, spun, and tore through the horde like hot knives through butter. If Gael wasn't slashing, ducking, or chucking his sharp-edged top hat at a halfling, he was letting his hungry man-eating flower sweep through the horde and chomp through half a dozen legs at once. If Maeve wasn't stabbing, blocking, or drilling her way through the horde with her swirling umbrella, she was firing beam after beam of poisonous blood at those trying to cling onto the walls and ceiling, shooting them down before they could ambush the two of them.

Blood sprayed in every direction. Insides were crushed, organs were pulverized, and though they were definitely losing tons of points by destroying the Myrmurs so recklessly, Gael laughed—wild and free—as he fought, adrenaline roaring through his body.

Whoo!

This shit's more of a high than ten bags of pure Brain Destroyer injected in my veins!

The Myrmurs didn't stand a chance. They were weakened, confused, and stumbling—their hearts shredded far and away—so the scent of black ichor filled the air, thick and coppery, as the two of them bashed through skulls and crushed fake bones under their boots. Gael even took a swig from his bottle mid-swing, savoring the burn of the alcohol before smashing the bottle against a Myrmur's face.

Before long, only one Myrmur remained. They'd cut their way a hundred meters across to the mouth of the tunnel, and now the final halfling stared at the two of them, its eyes wide with terror, before turning tail and attempting to flee towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

It was a good attempt.

Gael sheathed his blade and pointed his right hand at the retreating Myrmur, pressing his pinky to his palm. His oversized man-eating flower shot out again, and this time, he didn't even bother looking as the flower eviscerated the Myrmur from head to toe, chomping its flesh into bits before regurgitating the hard chitin parts.

The fight was over.

In the aftermath of the slaughter, the tunnel was thick with silence, the only sound their heavy, ragged breaths. They stood facing each other, both drenched in sweat and blood, but for a moment, all they did was stare—and then, without a word, they grinned at the same time.

They exchanged a high-five as they stumbled past each other, and both of them collapsed forward, their exhaustion catching up to them in a wave.

… Whee.

Fun.

While he rested on his side, hearing the wall of vines at the back of the tunnel parting to let familiar footsteps rush through, his eyes flicked down to one of the Myrmur carcasses near him. Without moving, he started rummaging through its bloody mess of exposed internal organs, sinking his fingers into its mushy insides until he pulled out something small, glowing faintly.

He held it up to the sunlight and grinned madly.

"Finally," he whispered.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.