The creatures surrounding them, as the firelight revealed the faces, weren’t anything Alex expected.

  People.

  Dozens of them, standing silent and still in a perfect ring just beyond the fire’s reach, weapons drawn.

  Men and women stood in tattered, familiar armor.

  It was the same scorched and dented plate Alex had seen on the soldiers in the black-mist battlefield. Their faces were pale, slack, and empty, stripped of all humanity. But their eyes… their eyes were pools of the same inky darkness that had bled from the Soul Eaters.

  In their hands, they held broken swords, dented axes, and splintered spears, weapons that had failed them in life.

  They weren’t attacking. They were just… standing. Watching. A silent audience of the dead.

  Soul Eaters…

  Alex’s earlier whisper echoed in his mind with a new, horrifying meaning. These weren’t the creatures that devoured souls.

  They were the souls that had been devoured.

  In that moment of paralyzing horror, one of them moved. A knight with a gash across his hollow chest plate broke formation. He didn’t run, he drifted forward, his movements unnaturally smooth, his rusted sword aimed straight for Alex’s heart.

  “Move, Alex!”

  Iris's voice was a whip-crack in the silent air.

  Alex didn’t think. He had no time. His body moved on instinct, throwing itself sideways into the dirt.

  He felt the air tear where he’d been standing a split second before. A wave of freezing rot washed over him. Desperate, he swung his black blade wildly into the empty air where the chill was deepest.

  CLANG.

  His sword screamed as the hum spiked into a violent vibration, rattling his teeth and numbing his arm.

  He’d hit something. Solid. Unmoving. Invisible.

  Roric was there in an instant.

  His silver sword came down not on the knight, but on the bare earth where Alex’s skrike had stopped.

  BOOM.

  The ground erupted with a concussive thump of force.

  The creature flickered into view, stunned. A nightmare of tangled shadow and glistening bone-claws, dissolved back into darkness with a furious steaming hiss

  SKITTER.

  The reprieve was short.

  The skittering in the grass grew louder, closer now. Surrounding them. The campfire guttered, its light shrinking as the darkness pressed in.

  “They’re everywhere,” Alex panted, scrambling to his feet. His sword hummed constantly now.

  “No,” Iris said, her voice eerily calm.

  She held one of her glowing blades aloft. The intricate script on the steel pulsed like a frantic heartbeat.

  Behind them, the giant heart-tree throbbed in sync.

  “They are not everywhere,” Iris whispered, her eyes wide. “They are coming from there.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  She pointed her blade directly at the massive oak.

  Alex turned.

  The tree’s shadow, cast by the dying fire, was moving. Not swaying with the wind, bleeding out across the grass like ink spilled on parchment. From the pool of darkness at its roots, the skittering multiplied into a frenzy.

  The realization hit him like a physical blow. A crushing weight settled in, stealing his breath for the briefest moment.

  They weren't fighting monsters in a field. They were standing at the mouth of the Hive.

  As if sensing they had discovered its secret, the tree screamed. It wasn't the sound of wood creaking in the wind. It was a wet, tearing noise, like giant ribs being pried apart.

  The pool of shadow at the base of the trunk erupted. It didn't just bleed across the grass anymore, it boiled over. Dozens of skittering creatures, small, multi-limbed horrors made of bone and shadow poured out, forcing the line of Hollow Soldiers to part.

  “Well,” Roric said, his voice tight but steady as he stepped in front of Alex. “That’s certainly darker than I expected.”

  He spun his silver sword, the metal gleaming in the dying firelight. “Formation. Don’t let them flank us.”

  “Iris, stay close!” Alex shouted.

  But Iris didn't move. She stood mesmerized, staring at the tree. Her glowing hook-blades were vibrating so violently they blurred in her grip.

  “It’s calling…” she whispered, her eyes losing focus. “The sap… it’s weeping.”

  “Not the time for poetry, lass!” Roric roared.

  He lunged forward, his blade intercepting a Hollow Soldier that had charged. Steel met rusted iron. Roric didn't just block, he deflected and kicked the soldier in the chest. The hollow armor crumpled, and the thing stumbled back, but it didn't stay down.

  It had no pain to feel. No life to lose.

  “Alex! Watch the left!”

  Alex snapped his head to the left. A strange, cold awareness flared in his mind. He didn't see a monster. He saw a disturbance. A patch of air that rippled like heat over asphalt.

  ‘There.’ He didn't think. He trusted the hum of his black sword. He swung.

  SQUELCH.

  The blade bit into invisible meat. A high-pitched screech shattered the air, and a creature flickered into existence, pale, faceless thing with knives for fingers. It thrashed, dissolving into smoke before it hit the ground.

  [Lucidity: +5%]

  [Dream Resonance: +5]

  The screen flickered in the corner of his vision, but Alex pushed it away.

  “They’re endless!” he yelled, backing up until his shoulders bumped against Roric’s.

  “Then we stop hitting the puppets,” Roric grunted, parrying two attacks at once. “And we kill the puppeteer.”

  He jerked his head toward the tree.

  The shadow-pool at the roots was widening. But amidst the darkness, something new appeared. A pulse of red light, rhythmic and gross coming from a split in the massive trunk.

  “Iris!” Alex grabbed her shoulder, shaking her hard. “ Snap out of it!”

  She blinked, the fog clearing from her eyes. She looked at Alex, then at the tree, and finally at her glowing blades.

  “The source,” she said, her voice sharpening. “I have to cut it.”

  “We’ll clear a path,” Roric said, breathless. “Alex, you’re the eyes. Iris, you’re the blade. When we get there, you strike. Hard.”

  “Got it,” Alex said.

  Plunged in darkness as the fire finally died. Now, the only light came from the sickly red pulse of the tree and the holy glow of Iris’s weapons.

  “NOW!” Alex screamed. Darkness surged forward.

  He didn't wait for them to attack. He stepped forward, his mind expanding, feeling the texture of the dream around him. He could sense them, every invisible claw, every silent footstep.

  “Right! Low!” he barked.

  Roric swung low without hesitation, severing the legs of an invisible stalker.

  “Left! Heavy!”

  Iris spun, her hook-blades becoming a wheel of light, decapitating a Hollow Soldier.

  They moved as a single unit, a grinder of steel and light, carving a bloody path through the swarm toward the screaming oak.

  But as they neared the roots, the tree defended itself.

  Massive branches above groaned. Alex looked up just in time to see the "Heart" shape distort. The branches uncurled, snapping down toward them like the fingers of a giant, wooden hand.

  And then the voice echoed in his mind.

  [Warning: High-Level Threat Detected]

  [Entity: Guardian of the Weeping Root]