Lila's skin problems started a few days ago. Grove and his new group of friends didn't prioritize chasing Lucian anymore; they were more interested in the new strength they got from the mana around them and couldn't stop using magic.

They ignored the spirit beast after noticing that the beast wasn't interested in fighting, and any attack they threw at the beast didn't work. Just by ignoring the beast, regardless of their fear, the beast stopped approaching them.

Lila had tried using healing magic to make the disturbing itch in her arms go away, but it didn't work. She had thought that the healer was talentless and only made her itching worse.

Like every other night since her abnormal itching started, she scratched her arms and went to sleep, only to scream loudly in fear the next morning when she woke up.

"The hell?" Grove said in a tired voice. He pushed the players who had left their sleeping space and rolled over to his during the night.

"M…my…my…arm!" Lila cried out in a scared tone. Her arms weren't itchy anymore, but something was poking out of her skin.

The sight of her flesh that had been turned apart to make way for the tree growing in her arms made Lila feel like passing out. She wasn't bleeding from the opening, but the raw, awful sight of it was disgusting.

"Is that a new magic or something?" sounding dumb, Grove cringes at the sight of Lila's arm.

"Help me!" Lila cried out; she wanted to rip the tree growth out of her arms, but it made her skin crawl with a sick, uncertain feeling that carried the fear of death.

A lot of players were awake due to Lila's loud cries. They kept a huge distance from Lila as though she had a disease that could easily be transferred.

'So it's not a new magic that she's practicing?' Grove thought and immediately called the two healers in his team, forcing them to heal Lila. However, no matter what they did, the tree growth in her arms didn't go away.

"Ahhhh!" Lila screamed as the tree grew out some more, painfully ripping her flesh apart while the healers were still trying to heal her. With a lost mind she pushed them away, "You are only making it worse!" Sucking in a deep breath, she gripped onto the tree growth and tried pulling it out on her own; she screamed and then stopped because of the immense pain. Tears fall down her eyes as she helplessly continues to ask Grove for help.

"It must have been something you ate." Grove said, and his teammates nodded in agreement with his words, "Lately you have been raising your shoulders high all because of your pretty magic trick. I'm sure you felt that you were good enough not to eat the same meal with us that's purified by the healers." His voice was cold and cruel: "You shouldn't have rejected the healers' magic in the first place; now their magic has rejected you." Grove turned around when Lila was about to complain that his allegations weren't true.

Grove smirked to himself at Lila's condition. 'Serve you right, bitch,' he thought. 'For days you have been standing against my position as captain, acting as though you are stronger than all of us.' He separated his teammates and isolated Lila from everyone else.

Abandoning her irreversible condition made Lila depressed. Whenever she tried getting rid of the sad mood by practicing magic, the tree growth in her hand moved to eat up her flesh; it was painful at first. However, Lila has passed the stage when she couldn't feel the pain anymore. Her screams are replaced with crazy laughter, and her skin is completely gone as every part of her is now filled with roots and small growths of branches and flowers. If her teammates saw what she had become, they wouldn't believe it and would think she was a monster and was never human.

Smiling to herself, Lila left the place Grove abandoned her in and followed the pull of magic she could feel; the word 'devoured' echoed repetitively in her head until she got to her destination, the huge rooted tree that was highlighted by mana.

Lila hugged the tree; her ruined soul finally felt at peace as every root that had replaced her body stretched out and slowly became part of the tree until she was fully gone. The only thing left that showed that Lila once existed was the layer of clothes she once had on, but soon enough that too turned into little blooming flowers around the tree. From the side, the spirit beast watches quietly.

"She's gone." Grove dropped the fruit he brought for Lila to eat. He was worried that Lila would come looking for him and the rest of his team out of hunger, and the awful sight of her arm was going to ruin everyone's meal and appetite. "Where did she go?" He asked himself as he studied the leaves that had been shaded on the ground, in the same spot he left Lila in.

Sighing, Grove moved with his team in search of Lila; a frown came to his face when he couldn't find Lila anyway, even after coming back to the huge tree, where they all started from after the ground swallowed them.

"Grove." A male voice called out.

Grove's frowns deepen; not everyone in his team has accepted him as captain even though they listen to his orders.

"There are some other humans out here." The male voice said, spying on a different human group that was on the other side of the huge trees.

Grove let go of the irritation he felt for not being called captain and moved towards what he thought would be Lucian and his team, but it was some other group of humans who were never in the dungeon.

'They are using my mana.' Grove thought angrily, scowling at the sight of the humans using magic. 'I can't let them reduce the mana flow in this place.' He drew out his sword and brought out a huge fireball from his other hand, releasing it at the other human players.

"We mustn't let other players take control of our mana field; it's going to make us weak until we lose our magic. We must kill them!" Grove shouted as he encouraged his team to fight with him and slay other players.

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