Mark, Jessabelle, Ralph, Jhonathan, and Leerooey arrived at the Adventurers Guild.
It was quieter than expected.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that didn't feel safe—just controlled.
Inside, injured warriors and exhausted mages sat scattered across broken tables. Some stared at the newcomers. Others avoided eye contact completely.
Then—
a sharp voice cut through the hall.
"Give it back."
Jhonathan turned slightly.
An injured samurai stood near the entrance.
Short blue hair, trembling in the wind coming through the cracked doorway. Her grip on her blade was tight, but unstable—like she was holding herself together more than the weapon.
Her name was Menchie.
She stepped forward and grabbed Jhonathan by the shoulder.
"Defeat this impossible quest," she said urgently, "and free my besto friendo Aniel."
A quest notification appeared in the air.
Not normal.
Heavier.
Alive.
A warning disguised as a mission.
The group followed her to the park.
And that's where it was.
A tree.
But not just a tree.
It pulsed.
It breathed.
It moved slightly even when there was no wind.
Roots spread in unnatural patterns, wrapping around old stone paths and swallowing fragments of what used to be statues, benches, and forgotten memories.
Menchie's expression hardened.
"That's it," she said.
"The Tree of Wrath… Desiree."
Without hesitation, she stabbed her blade into the ground.
The moment the blade touched soil—
the world shifted.
Everything changed.
The environment collapsed into a structured interface.
A system window appeared.
TURN-BASED COMBAT MODE ACTIVATED
The world became segmented.
Turns.
Actions.
Cooldowns.
Even emotions felt regulated.
The Tree of Wrath moved first.
It attacked seven times.
Not sequentially in time—
but layered in a single turn of overwhelming existence.
Branches struck like spears, roots erupted from below, and corrupted energy exploded outward in rhythmic cycles.
Leerooey tried to move—
but his turn hadn't come.
He was hit instantly.
His body collapsed.
Then—
it changed.
Roots wrapped around him.
His form twisted.
Reforming into a Root Golem under the tree's influence.
When his turn arrived, he attacked twice.
Heavy, unstable blows that cracked parts of the tree's outer bark, but didn't fully slow it.
Jhonathan stepped forward when his turn began.
Dexcalibur wasn't fully responsive here.
So he relied on something deeper.
"Shatter."
A pulse of blue-white energy expanded from his blade.
Weak points appeared across the Tree of Wrath—hidden structural flaws revealed by his perception.
He struck them one by one.
Cracks formed.
Sap-like energy leaked out.
The tree screamed—not in sound, but in system distortion.
But the pressure built quickly.
Each turn drained more from him.
His breathing grew heavier.
Something in his mind flickered.
A coward's soul began forming at the edge of his consciousness.
A survival instinct that whispered to retreat, to stop, to abandon the fight.
For a moment—
he almost listened.
Then he looked up.
The Tree of Wrath's eyes glowed.
Blue-green.
Ancient.
Alive with something that felt like grief given physical form.
Jhonathan stood still.
And something inside him changed again.
Not adaptation.
Not evolution.
Something deeper.
Mana gathered around him.
Not as energy.
But as structure.
As if the world itself recognized him as a weapon worth forming.
A massive blade-shaped manifestation began forming around him—made of compressed existence and divine pressure.
The system flickered.
His status broke past previous limits.
A message appeared.
DIVINITY UNLOCKED
Jhonathan exhaled slowly.
And stepped forward.
The tree trembled.
Because for the first time…
it wasn't fighting a warrior.
It was fighting something the system itself had stopped properly defining.