Nervous anticipation rolled through the hunters as Nic stepped forward. He poured out a gourd of thick, black oil across his resonant greatsword, the liquid instantly snapping into the form of a flexible and pliable blade.

With a talisman stuck to the hilt it could transform, in the heat of an instant, from water to fire.

Even he felt a little nervous as the glade trembled, one drumbeat after another coming through the earth like a hidden pulse. The flowers flashed in tune with the sound, a rolling wave of light passing through them and out into the forest.

The parasitic luminarch blossoms…

They needed to be purged. They granted a great deal of Essence when eaten, but would slowly ruin your ability to cultivate normally. Over time you’d become dependant on them- a drug addict. With his Winterhome feeding off the forest, they were a threat to the city itself.

As he stepped forward, he entered a massive basin made of twisting roots twining together. It was a bowl-shaped crater, and from every inch of bare earth between the roots, up sprouted tiny Luminarch flowers. The ground was carpeted in silver-blue bells of delicate, glass-like petals that glowed with starry radiance.

It would’ve been beautiful, if not for the hideous thing at the core.

A pillar of living flesh rose from the ground at the center of the crater. It was body after body, held together by a cage of luminous roots in a shape akin to a crude heart. Their limbs twisted and thrashed weakly, their heads craning, looking out of their prison in desperation. But there was no escape.

Most of them were already dead and rotting, and as the bodies putrified they fused together, becoming beds of rich soil for the roots to twist their wormish bodies through. It was a single tumor of utmost corruption, leaking a foul-smelling rot over the still-living beasts trapped within. From their eyes, throats, and wounded bodies, tiny clusters of luminarch blossoms bubbled up; they were being eaten from within. Luminous veins covered their bodies where the roots had dug beneath the skin.

Nic gagged. Most of the hunters behind him gasped or went very, very quiet as they saw the tumorous mass of half-dead beasts at the center of the grove.

Luminarch Heart-Colony. E-Class // Sapient Medicine. Born when the corruption and dependency of a luminarch infestation takes over many hearts, driving them to merge together as one. Given enough time, it will begin to produce ever-more powerful slave bodies by sinister alchemies within its core. However, the central stalk is a precious and uncorrupted spirit-refining medicine.

Nodding his head forward, Nic gestured with his sword. “I’ll go first. The rest of you, be very careful. Stay in close to your groups. If I call, launch your best attacks.” Inkspur repeated his commands as the little wyvern took to the air, circling behind the front-line to call out further orders.

A ripple of nods ran down the line of people assembled behind him, and Nic set out, dropping into the crater and sliding down the slippery hillside of moss-covered roots.

As he did the Heart-Colony unleashed a single pulse. Every flower’s glowing core flashed, until Nic was half-buried in a sea of hazy mist-light.

The core spat out a body.

A black bear slumped to the ground, covered in filthy fluids that drizzled through its blood-stain furs, leaving slimy, rust-brown trails. Flies settled onto the beast’s unmoving eyes. It was dead. It was beyond dead. Its skull had actually cracked open as thousands of flowers bloomed from the meat of its brain.

And yet it stood up. After days of rot and thanks to the glowing masses of flowers inside, Nic could see through its skin as it glowed like a candle, revealing the moving shadows of muscle within the flesh. The bear slowly and clumsily reared up to roar, spittle and filth exploding from its yellow teeth.

Nic didn’t waste any more time. By the time the bear was standing, he had crossed all but three steps of the distance. As it opened its mouth to roar, his sword flicked out, the flexible blade extending like a whip.

He took the head off in one blow and wove around the body, trying to reach the core. As he did, dozens of thin roots burst from the earth. They drove towards his arms and legs, trying to snare him, but he simply-

Flickered and teleported forwards. His blade slashed through the cage of roots, and the Heart-Colony’s rotting prisoners sagged free through the breach. Slime and a glowing thin blood poured out alongside the bodies.

More roots exploded out of the wound. They were long and covered in thorns, lashing about wildly. Nic countered them with a lance of mist spat from his lips, instantly rotting them away and sinking into the core.

Being able to spit out deadly mist was useful for covering the spaces between his sword blows. Even without the six-arms of his Warform, he could become unapproachable this way.

More roots surged up from below and Nic simply flickered out of their way.

This had been infuriating when his enemies had done it…

But Nic was quite enjoying being able to teleport.

The ring on his finger shone. A gift from his Solarus smith.

Eight-Directions Ring. E-Class // Forged from a modification of the Seven League Boots, this unique ring is set with a piece of a Solarus Construct’s heart, capturing the smith’s passion for his craft.

It was beautiful. It was beyond beautiful. The band was made of bone streaked with faint red colors, and the gem at the core was a eight-sided piece of sun-yellow crystal that sparkled with inner facets, like the light was caught inside a maze within.

As for the name…

Just like the proud smith to one up the Seven League Boots with an Eight-Directions Ring.

The bear’s body hadn’t fallen. Instead, long roots were extending from the stump of its neck and thrashing about. It reached down and picked up its fallen head, lifting it back into place…

“Fire!”

A volley of flames, water-blades, crossbow bolts, arrows- everything the hunters could muster slammed into the bear’s fat belly and knocked its head away, ruptured its skin, tore deep into the flesh below. It barely seemed to notice; it moved with the exaggerated motions of a clown as it searched for the head that had been sent tumbling away.

More of the dead were rising. A jaguar, a great ape, a serpent. They writhed as the parasites within them took control and sent them surging towards Nic.

The ape shot into the air. The serpent darted forward. The jaguar came racing in from the side, aiming to catch him as he dodged.

He twisted aside as the serpent’s open mouth lunged for his throat, bisecting it with a flashing cut from his sword. The blow left the sword’s point lowered, aimed like a spear for the jaguar, and with a single thrust Nic sliced its foreleg away.

Roots erupted from its belly. In a bizarre maneuver they flung the jaguar back like a marionette, slithering all around its body like excess limbs. The beast’s mouth fell open and it let out a drooling cry of pain and anger. More and more roots erupted, until its entire body was a writhing mass of them, squirming and flailing at the air. Only the barest shape of a snarling beast was visible below.

Nic teleported again, burning through his aura to move like the wind and escape as the ape crashed down from above, trying to stomp him with a dropkick.

For a moment he was free of his enemies. He turned and saw chaos overtaking his followers.

Roots had shot up from the ground and managed to drag a few unaware hunters into the basin. As they crashed into the glowing flowers, they were bound in place, forcing the rest to slide down to try and rescue them.

But more and more of the dead were pouring out now. The Heart-Colony’s thumping, spastic heartbeat was spitting out wolves and beasts rushed towards the hunters as they struggled to arrange themselves into a defensive formation.

Nic was already running, and he already knew he’d be too late.

The first wolf slammed into the raised shield of a young, heavyset giant of a man. He reeled back as the beast’s head reached for his face over the top of his guard, spit flying across his cheeks as the yellow teeth snapped and barked. Before he could throw the thing off his shield-

He was down, overwhelmed, as another hit his leg. As he went down, the wolf reaching for his face found its goal; there was a bloody rip and the meat of his cheek peeled off the bone in the grasp of yellow teeth.

Nadine, the saber-wielder, reached them before Nic did. Her blow was straightforward and piercing; she knew these things were too dumb for her illusions to work. She struck up through its neck and twisted hard as the point emerged on the far side, ripping the beast’s throat open and leaving the head hanging by a bridge of flesh.

The other wolf had the shieldbearer by the arm, ripping, trying to drag him deeper. She kicked at it and hacked away at the top of its skull.

But she’d gone out too far. Everyone else was steps behind, and the bear had started to move.

Nothing that big should have been able to move so fast. It swept down on her like a galloping black shadow, its massive body rippling each time its paws struck the earth. A claw swept towards her back as she turned to deal with the wolf.

He reached out and yanked her down with Mire-Caller, ripping her footing away so she fell under the deadly blow. It swung over her head, a deadly shadow passing, and she hit the ground hard.

Nic was there. He was already transforming into the Sarradur Naga Warform as he teleported up behind the undead bear, six arms shooting out to restrain it.

Nic ripped the beast backwards in a violent grasp that encircled its waist. Lifting against the singular pillar of his serpentine tail, he felt every muscle in his body strain to swing it high, overhead, and then back down into the earth.

Bending his spine into a full arch, he slammed its head down over his shoulder into the dirt- crushing skull, brain, and parasite flowers to a thin mush. Its body still twitched. Nic lifted his hand and mud covered its limbs.

Grasping his greatsword between two hands, he ignited the blade with the talisman stuck to the hilt and lifted it up. The blazing pillar of fire plunged down into the bear’s stomach and burnt through the cavity in moments.

The ape was flinging itself towards him now, leaping towards him with its fist swinging high.

Nic caught the blow and snapped its arm as he swung it in a full circle, smashing it down into the earth and dragging its body by the broken limb before hurling it away. It hit the ground and a wave of soft mud restrained the still-struggling ape, dragging it down.

So what if they refused to die?

He’d just bury them alive.

“FORM UP!” He roared. “ONE SHIELD TO MY LEFT, ONE TO MY RIGHT!”

Circling in the air above, Inkspur repeated the commands.

In moments Nic was surrounded with the two remaining defenders, one taking either flank. Behind them, the rest of his pack was getting their shit together- finally.

A pair of skittering metal spiders were hauling the wounded shieldman back as Nadine braced herself, twisting her body to work out the soreness.

“Alright, on my mark…”

The jaguar and the serpent. The boar. Others…

The undead servants of the Heart-Colony were staring them down, forming a defensive line of their own. Behind them, the heart was shuddering, fighting to continue beating. Nic had shoved a splinter of Primordial Mist into its being…

Honestly, it surviving this long was impressive.

“I’ll scatter them. You two, keep them from getting around me. The rest of you- when I call fire- just hit the heart hard.”