"You've tasted my blood, huh?"
Mark's fighting spirit started burning.
'If she's using the whole Forest, there must be a weak point. An obvious one, just like for the Fire Spirit. Just gotta find it.'
This, of course, was simply an assumption.
Fueled by the Green Mist, his past experiences, and his shallow understanding of how the Higher World worked.
"That's right. Just a couple of drops though." Yarnha slowly extended a hand towards Mark. "Time to get the rest of it."
His leg twitched as he stared at her.
'Huh?' Confusion suddenly overtook his intoxicated mind.
Pierce-
"Why... Didn't you move?" Yarnha asked.
A tree root had gone through Mark's shoulder.
There was something in the Spirit's voice.
Something that shouldn't have been there.
It was a tiny difference. Something that Mark shouldn't have been able to perceive.
He jumped back, and the hole through his shoulder was filled.
Mark extended a hand forward.
He pointed at Yarnha.
"What do you think you're-"
"You're the weak point, aren't you?"
The Spirit's eyes narrowed.
'She feels massive up close. So massive that she can't be hurt. So massive that it made me think the weak point had to be something else, as if there was some kind of heart inside the Forest. But no, she's the heart. A heart that feels indestructible. That's how she feels, but... It can't be the case. Something that can't be destroyed. That's the feeling I get simply by looking at her. But...'
Mark extended his claws.
'I didn't get that feeling from Zephyr. Not even from Raven. The fear I felt made me want to run away from Raven. But in front of Yarnha, it's completely different...'
A slight smile.
"A Passive Skill? Or simply the effect of a Title? Spirits can have a Title too. Since the Fire Spirit got one..." Mark whispered.
The next second, he launched himself forward with a bam.
But before he could reach Yarnha, the trees around them bent and broke, their trunks and branches blocking off his path.
"It's useless, Monster."
"Oh, is it?"
"You might have figured it out, but that feeling isn't such a simple thing."
Mark's eyebrow twitched.
It was as if she had completely read his thoughts.
"You won't be able to reach me."
"Tsk. That's why you walked away after leaving us with those Beasts."
Yarnha scratched her head.
"Talking to you was useless..." More and more trees separated the two. "I'm not even sure why I tried."
Eventually, Yarnha wasn't visible anymore.
"Fuck. Then how-"
Grab-
By the time it took for Mark to turn his gaze towards his right arm,
Grab-
Grab-
Grab-
Four tree roots had taken hold of his wrists and ankles.
Despite pulling with all his strength, Mark couldn't make them budge.
Immediately, a vision of his limbs being torn away made itself known in his mind.
But the next, from behind him,
Grab-
"Ughh... Ghh!"
A fifth root was wrapped around his neck.
Losing a limb, he could deal with.
After all, Zephyr had cut Mark's arm to teach him that very possibility.
But if his head was to be torn then...?
On the other side of the dozens and dozens of trees that separated the two,
Pant-
A sweating Yarnha lay on her knees.
With a hand on her right shoulder, The Spirit breathed heavily as it clenched its teeth with all its might.
"Tsk. This is... Argh!"
Unlike the Monster, who had grown used to being slashed, pierced, hit, and hurt, Yarnha very rarely felt pain.
"Son of a..."
As I said, you can't kill me-
It's not how Nature works-
The Monster's assumptions that had only been made because it was intoxicated, assumptions it only half believed, were correct.
The Spirit's ability to control the Forest was due to a Title.
[Forest Of Yarnha]
A Title slightly more complicated than the others.
The Spirit was the Forest Of Yarnha.
The Spirit was the Title.
Yarnha was the Title in a slightly different way than Mark was the Devourer or the Evolving Monster.
He was the Devourer, the Evolving Monster, Gaavah's Follower...
The Spirit, on the other hand, was the Forest Of Yarnha, and nothing else.
Being the [Forest Of Yarnha], gave it Authority over the things that made up the Forest.
But the things that make up the Forest, are nothing more than components of Yarnha.
She could freely control the ground, trees, and their roots, simply by imbuing them with Mana.
Yarnha was the Spirit of the Forest.
The heart of the Forest Of Yarnha.
Which is why controlling those, by imbuing them with Mana, did not cost any Mana.
She could endlessly control them, unlike Mark with his Bone Manipulation as he would, at one point, run out of Mana Points.
But as a Spirit of Nature, a heavy Restriction had been placed on Yarnha.
Nature nurtures the living, and consumes the dead.
Trying to consume or harm the living is not something the Forest is able to do.
It's not something it is supposed to do.
Which is why the Restriction made it so that-
"ARGHHH!!"
Yarnha felt as if a blade had pierced her shoulder, leaving a gaping bleeding hole.
Nature, or at least the Forest, doesn't kill.
Only those living within it do.
This, is also why Mark's limbs or head weren't torn off his body.
Slowly but surely, the roots wrapped around him moved up his limbs.
Like living snakes, they slithered their way up.
"Fuck... Fuck...!"
Before long, Mark's whole body was covered by the roots.
"Die a slow death." A voice said.
He couldn't tell exactly where the voice was coming from.
"You'll remain there, trapped, until you draw your last breath, Monster."
But it was obvious who it was coming from.
"IS THIS HOW YOU THINK YOU'LL KILL ME??" Mark shouted at the top of his lungs. "YOU THINK I'LL DIE JUST BY BEING LEFT IN HERE??"
No answer was given.
After all, Yarnha was biting down on her left hand on the other side.
Her right hand was extended in front of her, held semi-open.
She breathed heavily, preparing for the outburst of pain she was about to experience.
Her hand curled up slightly more, and the roots around Mark's body grew tighter.
Both felt the same pain.
Both felt their left knees crack under the pressure.
Tears went down Yarnha's face as she rolled on the ground.
Screams and shouts exited the Monster's mouth.
Both felt the same pain.
But the emotions they conveyed were vastly different.
The roots became tighter and tighter around Mark's body.
As a Spirit of Nature, inflicting damage on pain on others, especially on those who do not pose a threat to 'Nature', was forbidden.
It was a Restriction.
A Rule.
Posed by whom?
"YOU THINK I'LL DIE LIKE THIS? YOU THINK I'LL LET MYSELF BE KILLED THIS WAY??" Mark shouted.
His body was the one being crushed.
Yet Yarnha was the one suffering.
"I WON'T..."
So much so that they were starting to dig into Mark's muscles.
Which will resist most?
Which will give up first?
Which will lose?
Mark's life or Yarnha's pain tolerance, which will endure more?
"YOU THINK I'LL LET MYSELF BE CRUSHED? THAT I'LL LET MYSELF BE SWALLOWED THIS WAY?"
"Shut up..." Yarnha whispered on the other side.
"I AM..."
"Shut up...!"
"THE DEVOURER!!"
The pain was truly unbearable, and yet, Yarnha continued.
Determined to finish what she had started, she continued.
Eventually, Mark's anger turned into something else.
Perhaps because the Green Mist's Effects were starting to fade.
"Fuck... FUCK!!"
In the middle of the tomb of wood, he tried and tried to move.
Tried and tried to flex his muscles.
"I can't move... I can't move... Let... Let me go..." He whispered.
Anger had turned into fear.
A peculiar kind of fear, akin to claustrophobia.
"Let me go... LET ME GO!! LET ME GO DAMMIT!!" Mark shouted, and Yarnha cried.
"Just shut up and die...!" She whispered, her body covered by sweat and her face covered by tears.
It hurt.
Hurting the living hurt.
Both literally and metaphorically.
She didn't want to hurt him.
She truly didn't want to.
Doing so pained her, both emotionally and physically.
But then, why had Yarnha interfered?
Why had she decided to stand in their way?
Why hadn't she let them walk through the Forest?
Because Mark held something.
Something that made her do this.
Something that awakened a sense and feeling that she wasn't used to.
Greed.
"I can't move... I can't feel... I can't feel my legs... I can't move... My legs...!" Mark muttered.
His heart rate shot up.
This sensation, was worst than any pain that could be inflicted.
Mark blinked.
And for a second, he was back there once again. Back into that room. The room he had lived in for so long. The room that he lacked the strength to leave. The room where he had died.
A shadow loomed over Mark's eyes.
He wasn't shouting anymore.
He wasn't screaming.
"I don't... Accept this."
Slowly and gradually, a dark aura started oozing out of the numerous wounds and grazes that covered his body.
"I won't... Go back. I won't..."
His body started changing.
"Be put in that place again."
