The moment Morvius vanished from the halls, the King of Olympus rose from his throne. He lifted his hand, and from it surged a burst of thunderlight splitting the sky above the palace.
In an instant, his soldiers appeared. They all clad in armor. They bowed low, awaiting command.
"Give this message to all the Celestials in this realm, " Zeus said to his soldiers.
"To all Celestials within Olympus, hear this. We have found the anomaly. He is exposed now. We know where he is and where he will rest. Prepare your arms, your relics, and your power. This time, we will strike them back. Not in defense. Not in desperation. But in judgment.
"When the anomaly returns to the place he believes safe, we shall descend upon them as one!
" We will fight for those who were lost and for the Celestials who killed by him. We will end this, together!"
The messengers scattered in streaks of light, racing toward the mountain peaks, and the other places where the Celestials domain were located. The message would soon reach every Celestial and prepare them for war.
And then, silence returned.
Zeus stood still for a long moment, his hand slowly lowering.
Then he sank back into his throne.
The light in his eyes dimmed just slightly.
He stared into the distance, through the walls of Olympus and into the shadowed uncertainty beyond.
He had said the words with power and had given them clear purpose to fight once again.
But truthfully, he knew the weight those words would carry.
Five Celestials had fallen by Clyde and his companion. Two mortals who had become a myth-forged rebel. Their deaths had not only shaken Olympus but also had shattered the faith of the higher beings about themselves and their strength in the cosmos.
Some Celestials had already begun to fear that these beings — these anomalies — were no longer things that could be beaten.
Zeus clenched his fist. Even so with all this doubt and fear, this had to be done.
If they waited any longer, the anomaly would grow stronger. The damage would be irreversible. The order of the cosmos itself would fracture.
This attack was necessary because this could be their last chance.
He whispered the words meant for no ears but his own. The words that will make him keep his faith on his own strenght and power.
Then he closed his eyes and let the thunder roll quietly through the mountain.
Clyde moved through the haze.
The world around him pulsed with unstable energy. He even start to see arcs of violet lightning danced across haze , and the ground beneath his feet shifted like breathing stone, alive with unknown power.
He didn’t flinch. His eyes stayed forward,
scanning the jagged terrain of this area.
So far, no signs of life and no monsters. Only silence, and the sound of his own steps echoing. He didn’t question it.
In his mind, there was only the task to secure the materials and return. Nothing else mattered.
Clyde narrowed his eyes, focusing his senses. The damned haze distorted light and twisted the landscape, but he pushed through it with his magical senses.
He let his breath slow, allowed the noise of the storming world to fade, and then he saw it.
Few meters ahead, half-buried among the cracked stone and crawling mist, a mass of tangled root rose from the earth.
That was definitely the waking root.
Its tendrils curled upward from a gnarled stalk with bark-like texture, but pulsing with dim green and violet light. Small tooth-shaped fronds jutted out from its side, and threadlike anchors wormed into the ground.
It was exactly like the image he had seen.
Clyde didn’t hesitate. He moved toward it ignoring the shiver that ran across the earth as he approached. His goal was clear. He reached for the weird plant preparing to harvest them but then the ground beside him erupted.
From both of his sides creatures lunged through the haze. They were pretty fast and definitely violent.
Their forms were weird just the creatures Clyde had saw since he been here. They stood twice the height of a man, with limbs like blades of obsidian stone.
Their torsos were elongated, stretched too thin and wrapped in sinew like twisted ropes pulled too tight. The surface of their flesh shimmered with oil-slick colors that rippled between black, violet, and deep crimson.
Their heads were featureless. They have no eyes or mouth. Only a mask-like bone plate etched with flickering light.
And worst of all — they smelled so bad. That same rot-sweet stench Clyde had encountered in other corrupted zones before. These were not creatures born of nature, but bent into this kind of world by something.
They screamed, not with voices but with psychic pressure. It was an invisible shriek that slammed against Clyde’s mind like claws scraping his thoughts.
But Clyde didn’t falter.
His hand snapped to his side, drawing his sword in one breathless motion. The air around him shifted, and the haze pulled back as if afraid.
The first creature lunged with its jagged limbs.
Clyde sidestepped easily then his sword flashing in a tight arc. He delivered a single clean strike through the thing’s stomach.
The Elderglass sword shimmered and slid through the monster’s sinew and obsidian-like bone as if parting mist with no resistance.
The creature convulsed once, then split apart in a burst of flickering sparks and dark fluid that hissed on the ground like acid.
The second creature came from behind him, slashing with limbs like spears. Clyde turned his body with the sword already reversing in his hand. He ducked low, then brought it upward in a rising diagonal slash.
A small crackle of lightning sparked along the blade’s edge, just enough to reinforce the strike but not strong enough to touch the Waking Root.
The creature’s torso sheared open, the mask-like bone plate splitting in half. A pulse of psychic shriek tried to break into Clyde’s mind as it fell.
The haze rippled around him again. Clyde stood still for a moment waiting for more monsters. But there was none.
He exhaled slowly. He looked back to the waking root that still untouched.
He knelt beside it and reached for it carefully, then put it in his Inventory.