Chapter 2245

Chapter 2245

Charlotte Wick sat in a lotus position, waves of life energy radiating off of her body. The patterns in the air were derived from the secrets she saw within the lifeseal, organic and purifying. From the outside, her cell had been transformed into a sauna, with energy so dense that she produced heat enough to steam up the entire corner of the prison.

Plus, she found the relentless heat to be relaxing.

Energies vibrating at different frequencies concentrated at points along Charlotte’s spine. She could imagine her grandfather scoffing at the emphasis on chakras, but it simply became the easiest way to organize the flow of her image. The energy had different purposes and therefore housed itself in different locations. The diversification of the energy was the first step, leading to a broadening rainbow of combinations throughout Charlotte’s entire image.

Life thrived from diversity. Her Primal Ground was filled with minute bacteria, munching on each other’s spent corpses and thriving in the complex and damp environment. Several broad areas happened simultaneously, straddling the physical realm and her image. Columns of bacteria settled into a sort of stasis, the same sort of bacteria gaining traction or restricted by others. Eventually, an equilibrium was reached in various sections.

But for Charlotte, this amount of differentiation wasn’t enough. She didn’t quite feel like her power had taken the last step she needed to become a worthy Knight to the Ghosthound. So she began to churn the flow of mist around her body. Chunks of different bacterial ecosystems moved and slammed against each other. While in some new combinations one type was able to achieve dominance, in another area less had arrived. Or a third bacteria interfered and upset the balance of power. A dozen new types evolved to fill the gap, leading to whole new explosions of diversity.

Charlotte pressed her fingers into the dirt. Her Primal Ground deepened in complexity and the force behind its presence swelled. She then clenched her fists until her knuckles cracked; with this extra power, she hoped she would have a chance to face off against Elhume again.

The sting of that loss hadn’t faded.

She refocused and continued to allow her image to simmer, the complex stew of evolution bubbling up from her depths. The first tremors coming through the lifeseal were small and Charlotte ignored them. Her image continued to improve and she tried not to less outside forces distract her. But very quickly, those explosions forced her to acknowledge them. The Lifeseal’s peaceful flow shifted into a more defensive posture.

When Charlotte raised her head and followed the amorphous substance of the Lifeseal, she found the looming presence of Nether already leaning against the edges of the dome, already disfiguring its shape. Although the churning Nether attack didn’t possess the sort of staining thickness Randidly himself wielded, what it did possess was heft.

Like a boulder about to punch through the surface of a pond.

Once her attention turned outward, she felt her Ghosthound intuition ping with his focus. She straightened and immediately understood his query: did she need his help getting out of the city before the Nether attack arrived?

She responded in the negative, before belatedly scanning the surroundings to check to see if she spoke too soon. But no, if anything her escape would be easier at the moment; the nearby guards rushed away to assist in the city’s defense. She sat entirely alone in the dungeon, her image allowed to freely spread and manifest.

Charlotte twitched her jaw back and forth, loosening up her neck. It would be disappointing to pause here while she continued to improve her image at such an obvious speed, but definitely the Nether invasion would have distracted her soon anyway.

In a single motion, she popped to her feet. But then the bearwoman hesitated, feeling the desperation starting to seep into the fabric of the lifeseal as the Nether mass pressed forward and forced it backward, lest the fabric of the barrier tear. Charlotte sent a message back to Randidly, asking whether they could help Homewell.

What came back was a complicated Russian nesting doll situation composed of frustration, helplessness, confusion, and wistfulness. He wavered on the edge of a decision, unsure.

His heart spoke to the seed, perhaps thinking it was speaking just to itself.

This happiness is worth anything. This is what I need to protect.

On the day of the Nether attack, the seed had been listening to the heart rhapsodize about the idyllic space for the children for several weeks. And at the same time, the environment suddenly gave the seed the keys it needed to begin to grow.

The Nether Warriors roared during their charge. The clamor of bells from Homewell could barely be heard over the racket, right before the battle was joined.

The anxiety in Moish’s heart became the fertilizer. Only under great pressure can powerful desires coalesce. The shape of the plant held in the host’s legs became the goal. Every wild heartbeat of the host pushed the seed further and further toward its evolution. Some of its magic seeped into the plant, the hint of animation nova altering its structure so it could serve as a better conduit for the seed’s power.

The seed continued its steady growth until it caught the small sigh out of the host’s heart as he stood at the edge of the battlefield and saw the onrushing Nether horde.

I’m going to die here today. But that’s okay.

The seed froze. Because like all newly born children, it had never considered the possibility that the way things had been wasn’t how they would always be. The prospect of change loomed before the seed, vast and dangerous. The vicious Nether Warriors became the face of change, violent and demanding.

The seed's first genuine feeling was blunt: It didn’t want Moish to die.

The plant trembled. Then its roots swelled, following the familiar shape of the image from the man in a black cloak. They shot out into the ground where they gathered more energy, invisible roots reaching down and scooping up the abundant vitality of the land.

When the root erupted from the ground, it had become a spear, taking the Nether Warrior in the chest. The seed, which was no longer just a seed but a sapling, felt its host's surprise. Gleeful at the sudden freedom and power, it flicked its root and tossed the body of the speared Nether Warrior to the side, knocking another out of the air. But there were a few dozen more Nether Warriors in the surrounding space, and thousands more beyond that first wave, all suddenly focusing on the area where the first blow had been struck.

The sapling wavered, taken by a sudden impulse to sway like it was dancing and following it. As it spun, it stabbed more roots into the ground. They thickened and erupted out, becoming a second, more dangerous sort of embankment in the area. The roots scythed quickly through the first wave of Nether Warriors, slaughtering eleven.

Just as it began to flag, energy poured into the sapling from the city the host protected. The sapling rallied, growing slightly taller, doubling the number of its thorny roots shooting out of the ground and puncturing the bodies of the opponents. Almost thirty Nether Warriors died this time, with double that number losing limbs.

The glittering specter of a different tree manifested in the air above the sapling, an echo of the tree carefully cultivated by the man in the black cloak. Underneath its auspices, all the Aether warriors felt their breath come a bit easier.

However, even with all that energy, there was a limit to the amount a single sapling could do. It stood at just one point in a long line of the shore as the wave of the Nether offensive crashed against Homewell. Further away from the host, other warriors began to die.