The masked woman didn't raise her voice. She didn't do any gesture. She simply moved.
One moment she stood motionless under the twisted branches, and the next she was already among the shadows behind her. Her blade…Aaron hadn't even seen her draw one, split the mist with a sharp whistle. A shadowy figure burst apart, dissolving into a cloud of oily dust that drifted upward like smoke.
That was the signal.
The forest erupted.
From every direction, shapes lunged out. Distorted silhouettes that looked half-human, half-tree. Their limbs bent in angles that bones shouldn't allow, and vines coiled from their bodies like extra muscles. Their eyes were uneven white pits, glowing dimly in the dark, blinking out of sync like broken lanterns.
Aaron slid back, hand gripping his weapon, a branch of a tree he picked instantly as three shadows charged him from the right. Their movement wasn't smooth. It jolted, then stretched, then snapped forward, like pieces of time missing between each motion.
He swung. The branch connected with something solid, but instead of blood, a thick black sap sprayed out. It hissed where it landed, burning holes into the ground.
The creature shrieked if the twisting of branches counted as a voice.
"Aaron," Quanta's voice flickered from the watch on his wrist, "abnormal data density… something is overwriting external signals. Reality distortion approaching critical…"
Her voice warped, stretched, then clipped sharply.
"Switching to safe mode. I may lose… function… if I stay on line."
"Quan…."
Before he could finish, the small device went silent. Completely.
A hollow click sounded inside the watch as if she had sealed herself away.
Aaron clenched his jaw. No more analysis and internal mapping. Just him and a forest full of monsters.
The ground shook as one of the larger creatures barreled toward him. Its body was thick with bark-like armor, branches jutting from its shoulders like broken ribs. It lifted an arm and stretched it. Literally stretched its forearm extending three times its length, turning into a spiraling wooden spear.
Aaron dodged to the side. The spear-arm crashed into the earth, cracking it open. Before the creature could retract the limb, Aaron lunged forward and drove his blade into the gap between the bark plates.
Black sap gushed out. The creature convulsed violently and slammed its other arm into him. The impact sent him skidding across the mossy ground, dirt spraying up around him.
A whisper brushed his ear. Not from a person but from the forest.
Leave.
Another whisper followed.
You entered the wrong throat.
Branches overhead trembled as if laughing.
But the masked woman cut through them all. She moved like a shadow given purpose. Every step, every turn, every slash carved a clean line through the corrupted forest. Her blade carried no glow, no holy flare, no mechanical charge. It simply cut, and the shadows recoiled from her as if she carried something older than their existence.
Aaron didn't have the luxury of watching long.
A smaller creature. It was thin, with arms too long and legs too short latched onto his leg. Its mouth split open sideways, filled with rows of tiny needle-like teeth. He grabbed it by the neck and slammed it against a rock. Once. Twice. The third time its head cracked, and the body went limp, dissolving into black dust.
Three more replaced it almost instantly.
The fight didn't feel like fighting living things. It felt like fighting a forest's nightmare.
Something above him moved. The creeping vines slithering like serpents. He cut them down, but they regrew, reconnecting like muscle tissue. More creatures formed from the trunks, their shapes peeling themselves out of the bark.
The masked woman suddenly spun, her blade slicing a clean arc of air.
"Move!" she called out.
Aaron didn't question it. He jumped back just as a massive root burst from the earth where he'd been standing. The root was thick as a tree trunk, covered in pulsing veins.
It slammed down again, shaking the ground. The forest roared with a chorus of distorted voices.
The woman dashed toward him, carving a path through the swarming creatures. The shadows retreated from her presence. She stopped in front of him, holding her blade at her side.
Her mask hid her face, but her voice carried a strange calm.
"They are only the outer children. The deeper ones have not woken yet."
Aaronwiped black sap off his cheek. "Then let's finish them before they do."
A subtle tilt of her masked head.
"If only it were that simple."
The larger creatures were regrouping, their hollow eyes fixing on the two of them. Their bodies twitched in unison, responding to a command Aaroncouldn't hear.
The woman took a slow breath.
Then she lifted her other hand. The one not holding the blade and pressed her palm against a nearby tree trunk.
The forest reacted instantly.
The leaves trembled. The creatures froze. The root lurking beneath the soil retracted.
A low hum pulsed through the jungle, like a heartbeat beneath the earth.
The creatures let out a synchronized groan, then faded. One by one, their bodies collapsed into mist and seeped into the soil. The forest's tension loosened, though the air remained heavy.
Aaronstepped back, catching his breath. "What did you just do?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she wiped her blade on a dark leaf, then turned to face him fully.
The mask's carved smile made her look almost gentle, which did nothing to ease the unease settling in his stomach.
Finally, she spoke, her voice low and steady.
"Welcome," she said, "to the jungle of one of the Truth."
Her hand gestured to the towering trees around them.
"This domain belongs to Sang Mara, a forest deity. A truth-keeper. And the one who decides which intruders may leave."
The ground beneath them throbbed once.
Aaron felt it in his bones.
And somewhere deep in the jungle, something far larger than the creatures they'd fought stirred awake.