The Root-Soul Ascendant rose from the floor, not summoned but birthed. Its body wasn't a shape. It was a mistake.
Arms layered over arms, bark peeled into blade-like spirals, roots coiling through its ribs like vines growing through a corpse. From the hollow socket where a face should be, jagged teeth churned without lips, wet and blind. And then it spoke.
Not words. Not sound. Pressure.
A hundred screams, barely woven into meaning, tried to fit into a single mouth.
"Struggle more. Suffer more. Be MY compost."
Raven flinched. Not because of the words. But because they crawled inside his ears and stayed there. His HUD glitched for a split second—a blink, a line of code distorted.
The arena began to breathe.
