"Are you sure that's how you connect with it?"
Kim whispered to Anastasia who was observing Valeo sitting on the ground, his legs crossed and his palms touching the earth below him.
"That's how I was taught by Mama Cho cho."
Anastasia shrugged and took a sip of a canteen she randomly pulled out. Kim rose an eyebrow but said nothing as he went back to watching Valeo as he bit into a sandwich he made for them earlier.
"What's does essence feel like?"
Anastasia turned to Kim, her expression speculative.
"Didn't Mama Cho cho ya know, tell you?"
Kim chuckled at this.
"I wasn't really paying attention, too focused on the sun's blood. I thought since I didn't have essence I don't need to learn about it...but ever since Antonio attacked it's been on my mind since."
Anastasia nodded her head before she put the canteen in her coat pocket.
"It feels like...water running down your skin, and when you use it to empower yourself it's like putting on a suit of armor, I don't know if that's the same for anyone else but that's how it feels for me."
Kim nodded and started to mess with his mechanical arm to pass the time, after an unsuccessful attempt Valeo decided they should continue forward.
As the group walked they took notice of the various changes slowly happening to the forest, first it was nosie going dead quiet, then the trees.
Each one they past looked more rotten and decaded than the last, then the air, the smell of damp earth and rotting wood put them on edge.
"Don't want to stare the obvious but I think we made to the Corpse forest."
Kim said which made Anastasia's eyebrow twitch.
"Oh here I thought we were in fucking candy land."
She said through gritted teeth, her forehead sweating, Kim grew an evil grin before slowly walking behind Anastasia who didn't notice.
She shrieked in fear and jumped forward, Kim tickled her back which she thought it was a little creature.
"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"
She readied her lute as Kim went behind Valeo for protection, as the banter between them went on Valeo took a good look at the trees, he walked away from the duo as they continued their back and forth insults.
"ASSHAT!"
"ASHTROLL!"
He approached a weird looking tree that had an odd opening in the middle, he'd seen trees with opening for small critters but this one was unnerving to him for some reason.
As he got closer and closer to the tree his eye widen in fear.
"Are those..."
Inside the tree were moving faces of living people, their mouths move in a silent scream, Valeo stumbled back before he tripped on a uplifted root.
Kim and Anastasia saw this and rushed to him.
"You alright? what happened?"
Kim and Anastasia nearly broke their back trying to help him as he pointed at the hole in the tree. The duo made their way and peaked inside.
Anastasia yanked her head away and started to throw up her lunch, Kim nearly had done the same but he was able to keep it together.
"THIS WHY I WANTED TO FUCKING GO AROUND KIM, THAT'S FUCKED ON SO MANY LEVELS!"
Kim nodded his head but didn't say anything else, as they collectively got their barrings they all proceeded forward but now noticed the details their brains seemed to register out before.
Arms grow from trees, eyes on the leaves, teeth on roots likes thorns on a rose, tips on fingers growing randomly out of the ground.
"We see why it's called corpse forest, by the code this is fucked."
Valeo and the duo continued to walk at a brisk pace, moans of pain echoed making their pace quicken from their discomfort.
"How how much fucking longer till we get out of here?"
Anastasia said her lute at the ready for anything, Kim opened his mechanical palm to show a small map, but the image was too fuzzy to for Kim to see properly.
"Crap something is messing with the projector, I can't see anything."
Anastasia clicked her tounge and began to run which made Kim and Valeo to do the same, the moaning of pain became louder the longer they almost to deafening levels, the smell of rotting corpse's and food invaded their nose, they tried to cover both but only Valeo was successful due to his four arms.
All three had to cover their ears as it grew more intense then...nothing, the slowly uncovered their ears only the to hear the rustling of the eye leaves.
"Um, okay?"
Kim said while looking all around with Anastasia and Valeo doing the same, the smell dissolving into its original smell of damp earth and rotting wood.
"Does that mean we are close to getting out of he-"
"HEEEEEEEEELLLLPPP!"
The trio darted their heads left in the direction of the voice of a man screaming for help.
"PLEASE HELP!"
Valeo turned to Kim who was next him.
"Do you think it's the forest?"
Kim shrugged but his face told the story that he thought so as well. They were about to continue-
"PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"
Valeo gritted his teeths and bolted in the direction he heard the screaming.
"HEY WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"
"VALEO COME BACK!"
They both rushed after him, the screams got louder the close they got until entered a clearing full with decaying hands reaching out of the ground.
In the center was a giant Venus flytrap made of flesh and wood, screaming faces littering its open maw as the odor of a thousand corpses crashed in their nostrils.
"DEAR CHIME, WHAT IS THAT SMELL?!"
Kim said as he covered the lower half of his face, Anastasia and Valeo doing the same.
"THANK THE CHIME, PLEASE HELP NE FROM THUS RETCHED CREATURE!"
From the maw of the gigantic plat a long red tendril was holding a bronze plated knight that was covered in a black goo, from afar the trio couldn't make out the armor but saw the man slowly lowering him into the screaming faces of its previous victims.
"SHIT ITS AN ACTUAL PERSON."
Anastasia played a little melody to summon her fish and sent them at the tendril, the fish latched on the tendril and proceeded to burrow holes into it, the same black goo gushing out.
This made the giant plant screech and thrash in pain, it let go off the trapped man before turning its attention to Anastasia, roots made of a red meaty texture sprouted from the ground.
The giant flytrap began to walk towards her on these roots, as it got closer it sung a haunting melody with its many faces, this seem to entrance the man, Anastasia and Kim.
They all started to walk slowly towards the welcoming maw of the many faces, warm smiles on their face.
"H-HEY SNA' OUT OF IT!"
This made the plant turn to Valeo, it's faces in shock, it spoke.
"Braktor nok caga?"
Valeo didn't understand what it said but for some reason he'll felt like the plant knew...him?
Kim was the first to wake up from the trance as the faces were inches away from his, in a split second decision he changed sun's blood through his arm and shit at the center, this set the plants maw in fire.
It let out a horrid screech snapping the two out of their trance as the plant began to burn from the inside out, the tendril reached for Kim but Valeo quickly served it with gunbai before it could.
The final cries of the giant flytrap echoed in the clearing, the hands sticking out of the ground moved to the burnt plant and dragged it into the ground, the clearing now empty of its eerie decor.
"What the actual fuck."
Valeo said his eye widen in disbelief, the rest nodded in the same sentiment.
"Oh thank you kind souls, I thought I was a goner."
The dude hugged them individually, getting the black goo on them, the smell made Valeo gag.
"What in the wither world is this stuff?"
"I thinks it's that...plant 's blood, I didn't know plant could bleed."
Kim said grabbing a vile of his pocket and scooping it up, once he place the sealed vile in a pocket Kim opened his palm to show the map, it was more clear than before.
"Oh would you look at that, it's working now, and it seems we're close to arriving in the long fields."
Anastasia let out a sigh in relief.
"Thank the chime, but uh, is there a river nearby, we kinda um, stink."
Valeo and Kim nodded before taking notice of the man closer, the blood slowly dripping from the plates of his armor, the bronze shine now noticed.
"I fully agree I must say."
The armor.
The voice.
It was so familiar to Valeo but he couldn't understand why, that's when a memory appeared in his head, a memory from before he met Laylana.
The same man to punch him in the head when he was sold to arena was standing before him.
Before anyone could anything, Valeo blurred to the man, the black and white aura raging all over the place, he had the man by the neck.
"You."