Chapter 392: The Gardener Shows His Roots

I charged like an idiot.

In my defense, I was working with approximately zero good options and a rapidly dwindling window of "not dead yet." The preserved figures moved to intercept, their glass-like bodies refracting the knife’s silver glow into a hundred tiny stars. Beautiful. Creepy as hell.

I swung the bat at the nearest one.

It shattered like a champagne flute dropped on concrete.

The figure exploded into crystalline fragments that dissolved into golden dust before hitting the ground. The Arborist’s smile finally cracked, replaced by something that might’ve been surprise.

"Oh," he said. "You have the First Tree’s gift."

I didn’t waste breath on a response. Already moving, bat in one hand, knife in the other. The preserved figures converged, and I found myself suddenly regretting every life choice that led to this exact moment. Fighting immortal plant zombies with sports equipment. Real peak Hunter behavior right here.

My Protection from Arrows screamed warnings half a second before glass fingers reached for my throat. I ducked, felt the air displace above my head, then rammed my shoulder into the thing’s midsection. It weighed nothing. The impact sent it flying backward into two others, all three shattering on contact.

More dust. More golden motes floating in the air.

Behind me, Cel’s ice erupted in waves. I heard glass breaking and her sharp gasp of exertion.

"There are too many," she called out.

She wasn’t wrong. For every figure we destroyed, two more stepped forward from the darkness at the chamber’s edge. The Arborist stood watching, hands clasped behind his back like a professor observing a particularly interesting experiment.

"This is pointless," he said. His voice carried easily over the chaos. "You cannot destroy them faster than I can manifest them. You will tire. You will fall. And when you do, I will preserve you at the exact moment of your defeat. Forever fighting. Forever struggling. Forever mine."

Real villain monologue energy there.

I spun, bringing the bat around in a horizontal arc that connected with three glass skulls simultaneously. The crack echoed like a gunshot.

"Cel," I shouted. "How much gas you got left?"

"Enough for one more big freeze. Maybe."

"That’ll work."

I didn’t actually have a plan. I was mostly making this up as I went and hoping something stuck. The knife pulsed warm in my grip, almost like it was trying to tell me something.

Right. The knife could kill the Arborist. The figures were just puppets.

Cut off the head and the body dies. Basic Gate logic.

I just needed to get past approximately fifty preserved souls standing between me and the cosmic gardener who really needed a better hobby.

"On my signal," I said, dodging another grab. "Freeze everything that’s not us."

Cel didn’t question it. Girl was learning.

I broke into a sprint straight toward the Arborist, bat raised, probably looking completely unhinged. The preserved figures moved to block my path, their transparent bodies forming a wall of frozen beauty and stolen lives.

"Now!"

Winter exploded behind me.

Cel’s ice spread across the chamber floor in a wave of absolute zero, climbing up the figures’ legs and torsos, turning them from glass-like to actual ice. They stopped moving, frozen mid-reach, becoming statues of their former selves.

The cold hit my back like a physical force. My burns screamed in protest.

But I was already through the wall, already closing distance, already bringing the First Tree’s knife around in a downward arc aimed directly at the Arborist’s chest.

The blade struck something invisible two feet from his body.

A barrier. Of course there was a barrier.

The impact sent feedback up my arm, and the knife rebounded so hard I nearly dropped it. The Arborist raised one eyebrow, his expression shifting into something that might’ve been disappointment.

"Did you truly believe it would be so simple?"

The frozen figures behind me shattered simultaneously. Not breaking apart. Shattering outward like grenades, sending ice shrapnel in every direction.

I threw myself flat. Heard Cel scream.

When I looked up, the Arborist was changing.

His human form peeled away like bark from a tree, revealing something underneath. Something older. His body elongated, stretched upward until he stood twelve feet tall. His arms became branches, thick and gnarled, ending in hands that possessed too many fingers. His face split down the middle, opening like a flower to reveal rows of wooden teeth and a throat that glowed with the same golden light as the fruits.

"First Form," he announced, his voice now a chorus. "The Cultivator."

Roots erupted from the ground beneath my feet.

I rolled sideways, feeling them scrape across my ribs. One caught my ankle, wrapped tight, and yanked me backward. My face hit stone. Blood filled my mouth.

The root dragged me toward the Arborist’s new form.

I twisted, brought the knife around, and slashed through the root. It severed clean, the heartwood blade doing exactly what it was designed for. The Arborist hissed, a sound like wind through dead leaves.

Cel appeared at my side, hauling me upright with strength that shouldn’t exist in someone who’d just frozen an entire room. Her hands were shaking. The white streaks in her hair glowed brighter than I’d ever seen.

"That’s new," she said, staring at the towering plant monster.

"Yeah. Not a fan."

The Arborist’s branch-arms swept toward us in a wide arc. Cel threw up an ice wall. The branches smashed through it like it was tissue paper, sending frozen chunks everywhere.

We scattered in opposite directions.

Bad move. The Arborist immediately focused on Cel, recognizing the weaker target.

Roots shot from the ground around her, forming a cage. She froze them solid, but more grew to replace the destroyed ones. Within seconds she was surrounded, trapped in a prison of ice-coated wood.

The Arborist’s flower-face turned toward her completely.

"You will make a beautiful addition to my collection, Ice Princess. Preserved at the moment of your greatest fear. Perfect."

I was already moving.

Spatial Cleave hummed through my burned arms, the pain turning into white noise as adrenaline kicked in. I slashed through the air between me and the root cage, and reality split along invisible lines. The roots didn’t break. They separated at the molecular level, falling apart into component pieces.

Cel burst through the gap, her eyes wide.

The Arborist turned back to me, and I got the distinct impression he was reassessing my threat level.

"Interesting. You possess more than the briefing suggested."

"Yeah, I’m full of surprises. It’s a whole thing."