• 
  
    
  
  
    
  • Rootwhip
    
      Conjuration – lesser Tier 1
    
      Conjure (5 × Conjuration Core Tier) Living Wood whips, each up to 5 + (Conjuration Core Tier)2 in length.
    
      Lesser spirits inhabit the whips to provide basic autonomous function.
  
  
    
  
  
    Whips were generally terrible weapons. But Adarin had advantages. He’d trained with snake robots before—these whips behaved similarly from what he could sense intuitively. The lesser spirits acted like primitive control software.
  
    He smiled at the memory. Back in the recreational simulations, exotic melee weapons had been a shared hobby among his unit. The military encouraged all kinds of martial contests, after all. An enhanced whip with internal musculature could be devastating, as under the right conditions, the tip went supersonic—maybe even hypersonic.
  
    Fast. Unpredictable. Lethal.
  
    He was about to prove it.
  
    The singsong keening turned into a single, high-pitched tone.
  
    He scanned the room. Only one way out—a rotted stairwell in the back.
  
    The chanting ceased.
  
    The cavern fell silent as a tomb.
  
    With joyous laughter, the goblins circling the crystal obelisk raised their daggers in unison.
  
    The shaman muttered a low chant. Daggers rose high—then came slashing down.
  
    Adarin flinched.
  
    The goblins pierced their own guts. They showed no pain. Just kept cutting.
  
    Then they raised the daggers again.
  
    And cut again.
  
    Raise. Cut. Raise. Cut.
  
    Guts and blood formed a circle on the ground. Adarin shook himself out of the voyeuristic fascination that held him. Now or never.
  
    He pushed his will into the artificial muscle lattice near his heart. The structure lit up in his mind—he knew the exact volume under control, and where the interface lay.
  
    Then he saw the shaman raising a pickaxe. The diamond tip glittered as the goblin stared at the exposed top of Adarin’s sphere. Oh, fuck this.
  
    Adarin’s heart pounded. He focused on the node in his throat, where the root whip technique had made itself at home.
  
    The goblin grinned in a rictus, lifting the hammer higher.
  
    Adarin drew power from the root whip construct, separating it from the Living Wood—coiling it, cobra-like, to strike. Two loops around the throat. Supersonic tip, straight into the eye. Good enough.
  
    The Goblin Shaman's pickaxe reached its zenith above his head—and the goblin’s system tattoo swirled under Adarin’s attention. He froze.
  
    He tried to call back the whip—but it was already shooting forwards. Two meters of wooden muscle lashed toward death.
  
    He tattoos text flashed before his eyes:
  
    Level 67 [D]
  
    Class: Goblin, Shaman, Warlock, Warchief
  
    He’d read the intel. The top-ranked system-infected were monsters—enhanced by alien tech.
  
    He tried to redirect mid-flight. Won’t work, Adarin realized.
  
    The Shaman sensed it—snapping up his arms, a ripple of dark power coursing through the circle as goblins shrieked in response.
  
    The arms caught the whip—but Adarin and the submind adjusted.
  
    The tip shot forward like a spear—twisting, riding momentum. Then it broke the sound barrier.
  
    The boom hit just as the whip struck the Goblin Chief’s eye. It burst in a spray of blood and clear fluid.
  
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    The Shaman shrieked, dropped the pickaxe, and clutched at the ruin of his face.
  
    As the creature stumbled, Adarin split the wood down to its core. Living Wood flowed over him, encasing his center in armor. He reshaped the log into a crude spider frame—the simplest mobile platform he knew.
  
    He bolted for the exit, the Shaman’s screams echoing behind him.
  
    From where his forelegs met, a whip unfurled. He scurried on, toward a group of goblins blocking the stairwell.
  
    He spun the whip behind him, searching for that sweet spot between speed and control.
  
    The first goblin didn’t even register the blur before his windpipe caved in with a wet crunch.
  
    The second turned too late—the whip cracked across his skull, splitting skin to bone. He reeled, blood blinding him.
  
    The third screamed and rushed him. The whip licked across his face, peeling flesh from cheek to cheek in a grotesque grin.
  
    Chaos erupted across the chamber. Adarin stayed aware, every angle feeding into his mind.
  
    He couldn’t help grinning. Maybe this Thousand Eyes thing isn’t so bad after all.
  
    Another smartass rushed him, shield raised to cover his face.
  
    Adarin tensed and snapped the whip low.
  
    It caught the goblin’s ankles. Adarin leapt the other way.
  
    The goblin went down. Adarin didn’t.
  
    He was pretty sure the back of the bastard’s head smacked into a rock.
  
    He bared his teeth. A dirty shot, but it worked.
  
    He coiled to leap for the stairs—Then froze.
  
    The Goblin Shaman extended a long arm. Black wooden claws pointed straight at him.
  
    A ball of pale webbing bloomed in each of the Shaman’s claws, pulsing with heat and the stench of rot, his broken eye blazing hatred.
  
    The Shaman hurled both projectiles at the stairwell—straight at Adarin.
  
    He lunged sideways. Just in time.
  
    They burst with a wet pop—unfurling into sticky webs.
  
    Goblins roared behind him, scrambling for weapons at their chief’s command.
  
    He skidded to a stop and tested the web with a foot. It clung hard. He had to yank free.
  
    The webs clung like tar. Adarin hacked once, twice, but the fibers clung stubbornly, snaring his whip.
  
    An attacker lunged—Adarin swept its legs and drove a foreleg down. Bone splintered under the blow, brains leaking across the rooty ground.
  
    The whip jammed, tangled. Its submind couldn’t parse the sticky webs fibers.
  
    He pulled hard—because five goblins were already closing in.
  
    Adarin glanced up seeing the shaman jumping up and down, trying to reestablish order. Well, at least they’re keeping their fucking chief busy.
  
    He cut off the entangled bits without hesitation and scurried off like a dog on a leash, the whips stump dragging behind him. He tried to get it to obey, But the delicate fibers and hydronic muscles weren't reacting properly
  
    Hissing in frustration, Adarin cut off the whip at his skin and left it behind like a lizard’s tail.
  
    Then crouched for a moment, shaking.
  
    The goblins closed in. He braced. All limbs coiled with ready power as he lurched forward.
  
    The circle of goblins recoiled, axes swinging, spears stabbing at empty air.
  
    As soon as he touched the ground again, he launched sideways—drove his skull straight into a goblin’s groin.
  
    The creature collapsed with a groan.
  
    Adarin scrambled toward the wall.
  
    The Shaman lifted his claws again, just as three elite guards broke from the crowd, armored and scarred, their movements too disciplined for ordinary goblins. They charged as one.
  
    He bolted, legs pumping as fast as his form allowed. The horde howled behind him.
  
    Four sticky globes detonated in his path. Blocked his avenues of retreat.
  
    “Fuck.”
  
    He eyed a jump—then spotted another ball arcing for the ceiling.
  
    No choice left. He ran deeper, towards the horde.
  
    A glance up—there. A load-bearing beam. He conjured a new whip.
  
    Boots thundered behind him—mere meters away. He launched it and he whip snapped around the beam. He reeled it in hard.
  
    Pulling on it, he swung like a wrecking ball, the whip dragging him in a screaming arc. The elite guards looked up too late as a wall of Living Wood smashed into them.
  
    


  

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