Out of the craters where Astrength had burrowed his feet, roots began to seep forth—slithering across the arena floor in an eerie, deliberate crawl, like veins spreading from a wounded heart. They twisted and branched, the stone cracking faintly under their advance, a living snare closing in.
Shona took a brief glance at the encroaching tendrils... but rather than ascend to the safety of the skies, he stepped forward, his boots thudding against the cracked surface with purposeful defiance.
High above in their veiled vantage, Ezmelral leaned forward, confusion knitting her brow. "Why is he walking toward them? Isn't the high ground the safest option?"
Before Raiking could respond, Shona took his final step—his foot making contact with the nearest root. Like serpents stirred from slumber, the tendril lashed upward, tangling around his leg in a vise of fibrous grip. It climbed rapidly, coiling up his body like a virus racing for the brain—wrapping his torso, snaking around his neck, creeping toward his face. Pain flashed across his features; he tilted his head slightly, a subtle wince betraying the agony as the roots squeezed, digging into his armor with creaking pressure.
Yet he gritted his teeth, correcting his posture with iron will, his back ramrod straight as he locked eyes with Astrength across the ring—unyielding, a statue of resolve amid the encroaching green.
Ezmelral's eyes widened, her heart pounding. "What is he—?"
Raiking cut in quietly. "What do you see in the spectators' eyes?"
She shifted her gaze to the crowd below—the Entities on their floating islands, the guests from distant worlds, all leaning forward with focused intensity. Unlike their usual over-ecstatic cheers or bloodthirsty roars, the glint in their eyes was... different. Sharper. Calculating. A hushed anticipation laced with skepticism.
"What's wrong with them?" she whispered, a chill prickling her skin.
Raiking's voice was low, measured. "Shona—a half-mortal, half-Entity. Favored by the GodKing himself, commander of his army. Some whisper it's earned... others question if his mother's closeness to the throne paved his path, placing him where they believe they belong."
Ezmelral pieced it together, finishing the thought. "So he's proving himself—not just to win, but to silence the doubts."
"Exactly," Raiking replied. "He knows the sky is Astrength's weakness, where roots can't reach. But he chooses the ground. To endure. To show he's truly worthy to stand among the Entities."
"I see..." she murmured, her gaze locking back on Shona—the determination etched in his face, the unyielding resolve in his eyes. Despite his status and power, he was just like everyone else: fighting, enduring, desperate to prove he could carry the weight on his shoulders without crumbling. It humanized him, turning the distant commander into a mirror of her own struggles.
Below, Astrength's bark-legs twisted and expanded outward with a grotesque creak—vines snaking upwards like a tree surging to life in fast-forward, his armored body becoming encased in gnarled branches that burst forth, followed by dense bushes sprouting in wild clusters. In moments, a colossal, light brownish-gray decayed tree towered over the battlefield, its trunk warped and veined with rot, leaves rustling like whispers from a forgotten grave.
Then, in that instant of completion—as if the giant tree were a living portal to a vine-filled realm—tendrils erupted from its trunk, branches, and bushes, writhing like awakened serpents hungry for prey.
As they closed in, Shona's spear snapped forward in a burst of static, hovering just ahead of him like a defiant bolt frozen midair. He reached out with all five arms, each jolted back by the repelling force—like magnets forced apart—sparks leaping across his skin as his muscles strained against the resistance. The air hummed with electric tension. When his fingertips brushed the weapon's arc, he pushed through with a surge of will, his Essence flaring. The spear shuddered, lightning writhing along its length as if refusing to divide—until, with a sharp motion, he spread his arms wide. The current tore apart, howling as it fractured into five identical copies, each one crackling with shared fury and light.
In a fluid shift, he seized both spears—one in each hand. The first vine lunged, and time seemed to slow. With his upper right arm, he brought the spear down in a clean vertical arc, cleaving the tendril as its halves brushed past his face. Before the fragments even touched the ground, his middle left arm swept across in a horizontal slash, cutting another vine mid-lunge.
Three more spiraled in from different angles. Shona stepped past the three hovering spears, his movement one smooth continuation of breath and intent. Mid-spin, his remaining hands seized the airborne weapons—lightning flaring where skin met metal. As the rotation completed, he brought all three down in a sweeping arc from southwest to northeast, a downward carve that split the incoming vines clean through. Time itself seemed to catch up with him in that instant, the motion concluding as he straightened, the storm crackling along his form like applause.
Ahead, hundreds of tendrils surged toward him at once. He met them with relentless precision, each strike measured and exact, severing vine after vine as sparks and splinters filled the air, the scent of charred wood and ozone thickening with every blow.
During the relentless slicing and dicing—Shona's five spears whirling in a deadly symphony, severing vines in sprays of splintered bark and sap—he spotted an opening amid the chaos. With a flick of his upper right arm, he chucked one spear northeast, the weapon streaking like a comet through the green haze, embedding deep into the arena's far edge with a resonant thud that shook the stone.
He slashed through a few more encroaching tendrils—blades of lightning-kissed steel carving clean arcs, the air sizzling with ozone and the acrid scent of charred wood—before another gap presented itself. He hurled the second spear northwest, then swiftly launched the third southeast and the fourth southwest, each one piercing the corners of the battlefield in precise formation, crackling with latent energy.
He then began to sprint forward with his last spear clutched in his left lower arm—Shona rotating his wrist in a fluid twist as he charged, the weapon spinning in a full 360-degree blur, its edge humming as it sliced through the incoming vines like a whirlwind reaper, scattering shredded foliage in all directions.
Now, with his four spare hands free, he aimed them outward—each palm directed at one of the embedded spears in the arena's corners, fingers splayed like conduits ready to channel thunder.
Shona communed inwardly with his Essence Core, the power within responding like a loyal storm awakening at his call. It surged through his bloodstream and Essence Threads, flooding his veins with electric fire, building to a crescendo as it raced to his arms.
He unleashed the incantation, his voice booming like thunder's herald:
"LIGHTNING ESSENCE: DESCENT OF THE LIGHTNING DRAGON!"
In response, the spears connected via threads of static energy, weaving into an intricate formation that hummed with raw, pulsating power—the air vibrating as if the heavens themselves trembled. The clouds above darkened to an inky void, swirling like a maelstrom unleashed from ancient depths. A deafening roar erupted from their churning heart—primal, earth-shaking, a bellow that rattled bones and stirred the soul—as the colossal head of a mythical beast emerged, draped in writhing lightning, its maw gaping wide with fangs of electric fury, eyes blazing like twin thunderbolts ready to consume the world below.
Astrength's tree-form bushes began to converge above him like a living umbrella, leaves and branches intertwining in a dense canopy that blotted out the storm's fury. At the same time, some of the tendrils—previously lashing toward Shona from the trunk and limbs—redirected upward, weaving into the shield-like barrier, tangling and reinforcing it with layers of fibrous strength, the structure thickening like a fortress forged from nature's wrath.
Then, from the stormcloud above, the mythical lightning beast fully descended—its colossal body now on vivid display: scales of crackling plasma, wings like forked thunderbolts spanning the sky, claws of ionized fury raking the air. It opened its maw wide, unleashing a giant blast of electricity—a searing torrent of blue-white energy that roared downward, slamming into the bush-umbrella shield with cataclysmic force.
The impact ignited a continuous shockwave, rippling outward like the eye of a hurricane trapped in perpetual rage—winds howling, debris whipping through the air, the arena quaking as if the cosmos itself recoiled.
Down below, with fewer tendrils obstructing his path, Shona halted the spin of his spear, shifting to a forward charge. He carved a ruthless trail with horizontal and vertical slashes—blades of lightning-kissed steel slicing through the remaining vines in clean, unerring arcs, sap spraying like blood from severed arteries.
Mid-sprint, he glanced upward at the colossal clash—the lightning blast grinding against the reinforced shield in a symphony of sparks and thunder. Astrength's trunk dug deeper into the earth, roots burrowing like desperate anchors to resist the onslaught, the tree-form groaning under the strain.
Shona's eyes narrowed, memories flashing of Flood Missions past, of toppling colossi on distant worlds. He knew the truth: to fell a giant, you don't strike the crown—you break the roots.
With resolve hardening, he veered his path, spear gleaming as he aimed low. His body crackled with static as he communed with his Essence Core, energy building like a storm ready to burst. Then, with a thunderous cry that split the air, he roared:
"LIGHTNING ESSENCE—LIGHTNING GENERAL'S DIVINE LANCE!"
A piercing ZZTT echoed through the arena as Shona's form dematerialized into a bolt of pure lightning—his spear at the helm, surging forward like a divine arrow. Lightning Essence spiraled outward in a vortex, coating the strike in a fizzling static lance that hummed with cataclysmic power, the air ionizing in its wake.
As swift as a lightning strike itself, he pierced through the trunk in a surge of blinding momentum—re-materializing on the other side with his spear thrust forward, static ricocheting off his carbon armor in erratic bursts, the scent of ozone thick and biting.
With the foundation shaken to its core, a web of cracks erupted from the point of impact, racing across the massive tree like veins of shattering glass. Astrength struggled against the unrelenting blast—his tendrils and branches withering amidst the collision, crumbling like dry leaves in a firestorm. Finally, the beam pierced through the umbrella shield, unleashing its full wrath upon the giant tree in a deafening explosion of light and fury.