Chapter 64 – "First Cut"
> "The ground does not scream when it breaks. But everything above it does."
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Scene 1 – "First Light, First Move"
The sun rises. The team moves in silence.
Reen and Dion vanish into the East Grove.
Gift and Matthew start toward the South Vein.
Maiku and Jakku split off with timed explosives and false signals.
> Narrator: "They step lightly, but the ground knows their weight."
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Scene 2 – "Whispers in the Grove"
Dion and Reen find the trees bleeding sap, and the wildlife...silent.
Root-Fleshed mimic bird calls to lure them. Dion catches it mid-pattern.
Reen: "They're not just hiding. They're listening."
Dion: "Then let's lie to them."
They use sound and decoys to create a false trail.
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Scene 3 – "Pressure Veins"
Gift and Matthew arrive at a Root cluster.
Gift hacks in using sound pulses to force the Root to twitch—revealing vein lines.
Matthew begins to see things before they move—his Roar is now partially predictive.
Matthew: "I hear where they'll be. Before they even think it."
> Narrator: "Power is not always a gift. Sometimes it's an argument."
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Scene 4 – "Return of the Rot"
Jakku and Maiku set charges but find a Root-Fleshed priest, chanting.
The priest bleeds rot from its eyes.
It speaks in partial sentences—some in Maiku's own voice.
Maiku: "He's using memories now."
Jakku leaps in then...
Slices it's Chest. It bleeds.
Root-fleshed Priest(coughing): "Heed my warning, when the voice and the body merge. Planet Julio will crumble. Heed my warning!"
Maiku punches it's head off.
He kills it—but not before it burns the charges into the soil, neutralizing them.
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Scene 5 – "The Glyph Connects"
Back at camp, Gift's drawn map pulses.
The final glyph lines—marked unknowingly by the teams' very movement—connect.
The pattern isn't just being drawn.
Gift : "It's being fed."
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Scene 6 – "Matthew Breaks"
Mid-assault, Matthew's chest pulses outward violently.
He falls to his knees. His eyes turn gold-white.
A memory floods him—a past life as a Roar-bearer. A dragon's scream overlays his own voice.
Gift: "Matthew… you're not awakening. You're remembering."
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Scene 7 – "Reen's Trap"
Reen and Dion are surrounded by Root-Fleshed that form a perfect circle.
But Reen saw it coming.
She calculates the situation then she throws a smoke bomb.
She quickly calculates the trajectory—then she throws another one.
PUFF!!
Dion leaps and kills two Root-fleshed ones.
The two escape whilst the other Root-Fleshed Ones search for them in the smoke.
Reen: "We learn. They copy. We predict."
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Scene 8 – "Jakku's Price"
They reach the central distraction point—but the Root has pre-spread under the team's camp, using false silence as cover.
A spike impales Jakku through the shoulder as he tries to cover Maiku.
Maiku: "He mapped us back."
Jakku (bleeding): "Then rewrite the map."
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Scene 9 – "Rootmind Response"
Deep underground, In the Core Grove, the Root Avatar listens through one of the Root-Fleshed's skulls.
He smiles.
Root Avatar: "They bleed well. But not wisely."
He sits down and sings songs of memory. Waiting to become one with its body.
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Scene 10 – "Matthew's Roar"
Matthew fully taps into the Roar. His voice, thunderous and low, shatters half the South Vein's tunnel.
His chant causes Root-Fleshed to collapse mid-stride.
But when he's done—he doesn't look like himself.
Gift: "...Matthew?"
> Narrator: "The Roar is not something you borrow. It's something you are."
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Scene 11 – "Nightfall and Fallout"
The teams regroup—injured, drained, but alive. Jakku is in a cast.
The South Vein is destroyed. The East Grove breached. But the Root shifted its growth direction mid-battle—reactive strategy confirmed.
Reen: "He changed his glyph. In real time."
Dion: "Then this was never the final pattern."
Jakku (groaning): "Ahh! Own!"
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Scene 12 – "The First Cut Wasn't Deep Enough"
As night falls, the Root Avatar touches the core.
Root Avatar: "I thank them. For showing me where I was weak."
The Core Grove pulses upward in thorned towers.
> Narrator: "Sometimes you cut the flesh. And find it wasn't flesh. It was bark. And it grows back sharper."
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Closing Line:
> "The raid has begun. But the war has just learned how to bleed."
Narrator :
> "They thought they made the first move. But roots, by nature, are older than footsteps."
This chapter is not about victory. It's about contact—the first cut, the first wound, and the shocking realization that the wound isn't on the enemy, but on them.
We began with silence. A sunrise, a step. The team moved like professionals. Precise. Ready. But readiness does not mean understanding.
The East Grove whispered back at Reen and Dion with voices not their own. I watched as mimicry matured into deception. The Root-Fleshed learn. And worse—they wait.
Gift's mind danced across veins like a surgeon, and Matthew... oh, Matthew. His Roar began to evolve into something ancient—something remembered, not learned. Power reincarnate. A scream passed down like a birthright.
Jakku shed blood. Maiku faced memories turned weapons. And all the while, their movements weren't just tactics—they were brushstrokes. They unknowingly fed a glyph with every step. Their raid? It was part of the design.
> "You don't map a war by drawing lines. You map it by watching who crosses them—and how many don't return."
Reen set traps. Dion delivered blades. Gift held the plan. But plans mean nothing to a Root that adapts with each breath you take. Jakku said it best: "Then rewrite the map." And they must.
The Root Avatar does not rage. He records. He remembers. And now he sings—because the song of pain is how he grows. They hurt him? Good. Now he knows where he was soft. And that softness will become spikes.
> "The first cut was not deep enough. The bark remembers. The roots record."
And so, the chapter ends not with triumph, but with teeth sharpening in the dark. The war has begun. But war, like roots, spreads unseen—until it is far too late.
Until the next cut... be ready. Not just to strike. But to be struck.