Chapter 180: Coming Down

Chapter 180: Coming Down

It took a while to find my answer, the darkwoods dangerous roots poised above me for what seemed an eternity. For all of my eagerness to go back and do things better, I wasnt willing to attempt it lightly. What if I was wrong? What if I wasnt meant to go back? What if my current failure had a greater meaning than I realized?

There was no real way to know; not without going back in the first place. Not without seeing whether the Great Core would allow me to turn my failure into a false-life. Not without experiencing it for myself.

And that was the truth of it. There was no way to know.

I would just need to make a leap of faith; I needed to believe that I was making the right decision. That the Great Core would understand and approve of my intentions. That I had earned another chance.

When I thought that way, things suddenly became a little clearer. If all I needed was a leap of faith, I would just do that. If all I needed was to believe that the Great Core understood my reasons, I would just do that. If all I needed was to earn another chance, I would just ensure that my next life was proof that I had.

The roots came down, piercing through scale-flesh.

The world slipped away with a merciful quickness.

===

My scale-flesh tightened; I felt as if I were wrapped in constricting threads, each pulling and twisting to ensure that I was as uncomfortable as possible. It itched with a near-unimaginable vigor, and only my lack of direct control over my own body allowed me to remain still.

Despite that, I was anything but uncomfortable. How could I be? I had been blessed; brought back from death yet again. The Great Core approved of my decision.

The thought was freeing, a confirmation that I was on the right path.

My spore-roots finally flexed, ripping me away from the remnants of shed skin that surrounded me with great jerks and twists. I hardly even noticed, as focused on [Verdure Parasite] as I was. I immediately went to work, mercilessly siphoning times potential for growth from the plant-flesh of the many-nest. Countless currents of time streamed towards my chosen spore-roots, forcing them to grow with a rapidity that far outpaced what I had seen in my previous life. There was no room for delay; with that in mind, I moved as quickly as I could.

My spore-roots flourished, breaking through the insides of the former Guardians plant-flesh with impressive brutality. I could hear the sounds of creaking, cracking darkwood as spore-roots took over wood-roots, claiming them for the Great Core.

There were other things that I could feel, too; things that I had hardly paid any mind in my last life, as focused on [Verdure Parasite] as I had been. Constant flashes of [FEAR], the complete and utter [TERROR] that many of the Coreless were experiencing. Knowing that I could continue to control [Verdure Parasite] and [Spore Puppeteer] even while immersed within a Coreless [Little Guardians Totem], I didnt hesitate to throw myself in their direction.

The Great Core had sent me back so that I could do better; of course, I would do the best that I could. That meant defeating the Ascended and saving Needle, she-who-gave-the-first-offering, but that wasnt all that I could do. There were others that could be saved alongside her, each a possession of the Great Core that might otherwise be stolen away by Tiamats retribution.

That was far from acceptable, an insult to the Great Core itself.

I know you can, she said. Youre all so, so brave.

She turned away again, looking to the side. My vision - her vision - began to blur, falling away to near-uselessness. Just like the last Coreless, I was forced to leave her behind. There was nothing for me there.

Burbling thought-hisses filled my mind as I jumped from one Coreless to the next, spore-roots simultaneously young-yet-old calling out for me and for each other. I wished that the Coreless could hear it; if they could, they would have understood what was coming. They could not and, to my horror, many of them appeared to have begun losing faith in the Great Cores might, lost in the terror of facing Tiamats bad-things. I needed to change that.

I needed to move quickly.

Fortunately, that was something that I could do.Something that I had been doing, even as I tried to check on the state of my Coreless.

I searched for the Coreless that I was now sure would give me the greatest view of the battle. I had hoped to find other options while I waited; a way to save all of the Coreless, rather than just the one that mattered the most. It wouldnt happen; they couldnt all be saved.

Some, however, could be.

Enough to matter.

I found Needle, still alive and well, drawn to the beacon of spite that spilled from her like a fountain.

I found the bad-thing in her vision, an amorphous blob of stone trying to hew itself into some semblance of shape.

I found the spore-roots that called for me the loudest, grown quickly through the touch of [Verdure Parasite].

And then, before Tiamats Ascended could find its shape, I forced those spore-roots into a shape of their own. The great mass of tendrils stretched for one another, twisting and twining until their thought-hisses became one.

From the ruins of a nearby nest, a small sliver of the Darkwood Guardian lifted; a gold-blue tendril strong enough to hold Tiamats minions at bay for the time that I needed.

[Verdure Parasite] was still helping to take over the others but, for now, the single root would have to be enough.

The root flexed.

The root came down.