The forest appeared to pause its breathing.

  For a second, no one spoke. Then everything happened at once.

  “That’s bullshit,” Marco snapped. “They know where we are? How would they even know that?”

  His hand tightened on his mana sword, knuckles white. Despite his anger, I could sense the underlying fear seeping through.

  Alya's eyes swept the trees in a slow, practiced arc. “If that thing got information from him…” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

  Melissa swallowed and shifted her weight, still pale, and unsteady after the fight. “You mean more of those things are coming?”

  Her voice was quiet, but her barriers flickered instinctively around her, thin plates snapping in and out of existence.

  Mary’s lips pressed into a hard line. “Or worse,” she said. “If this thing can think and plan…”

  The pressure in my chest surged.

  I closed my eyes for half a minute and breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth. Think. Think.

  If I were alone, I wouldn’t touch this place with a ten-metre pole. Too many unknowns. Too many ways to die slowly and screaming. I would back away, vanish into the forest, and let the problem rot on its own.

  But I wasn’t alone. And worse, I wasn’t free.

  The curse twisted inside me, agitated now, like something clawing at the inside of my ribs. It didn’t care about probabilities or optimal outcomes. It wanted resolution. Action. A knot pulled tight until something snapped.

  This thing had information. From him. From the others it had already touched.

  That meant the group we left behind for clearing the path ahead were about to get into more danger than ever if that root beating decided to attack them.

  We were standing on a fuse, and it was already burning.

  What did I know?

  It needed a door opened.

  It needed a human, probably untouched, or someone specific. Perhaps the system recognised a specific class or trait as a key.

  A vault. An event. A sealed zone. The event was so ancient and dangerous that even this parasite was unable to overcome it with brute force.

  It could enslave monsters easily. People, less so. Higher mental attributes fought back. Limited control. Pain to force obedience. That meant leverage, but also desperation.

  How many did it already control? Ten? Fifty? A hundred?

  Was there a central core, a true body? Or was it a distributed mind, spread through roots and hosts like a sickness? If it was the latter, killing it outright might be nearly impossible.

  Following it together meant abandoning any kind of agency we had now.

  Going back to the group, I was just waiting for this thing to hunt us down.

  What should I do?

  How do I face this… how?

  Then a realisation struck me.

  I was stuck thinking about this situation as if I were a normal man. A cursed lawyer forced to do what he could to live another day – in a way, I still was. But I was so much more now…

  I opened my eyes and looked at the group. They were arguing now, voices overlapping, fear and anger tangling together. The parasitised man was waiting calmly for us to reach a decision, unhurried. I raised a hand, and slowly, they quieted.

  “I have a plan,” I said.

  That got me their full attention.

  “Do you trust me?”

  Alya looked me in the eyes. “Yes.” She said simply,

  Marco stared at me like he wanted to start arguing. “What plan? And why should we trust you for this plan?”

  “Because I can’t tell you of the plan.” I said this while nodding at the man who was rooted to the spot.

  The pressure in my chest eased, just a little, like a predator settling down to watch instead of bite.

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  “It sounds like you want to do something dangerous, lad.” Marcus regarded me with an unreadable expression. “But you didn’t stir us wrong until now, so you’ll have my support.”

  Rhea nodded at that. “I trust you.”

  Mary and Melissa nodded at that, too.

  “Are you all going crazy? What if he wants you to get rooted yourself?” Marco expected the complaint didn’t dissuade the others.

  “Nothing of that kind.” I told Marco.

  Then I turned back to the man threaded with roots, to the thing behind his eye, and felt the curse coil tight, preparing.

  “Do you know that we are Americans?” I asked this question while a smile formed unbidden on my lips.

  The man’s expression became fearful, then slacked again as his voice took on the grating quality of the root’s speech, “I do not know what it means.”

  “It means… that we do not negotiate with terrorists.”

  “I do not know what a terro… AARGH!!”

  I hexed the shit out of the damn roots and activated Drain the Accursed, putting all of my will and bad intention into the spell to drain it from this far away. The man fell on the ground screaming, while the roots were losing strength as I absorbed their vitality.

  At the same time I shouted, “Mary, as soon as the thing dies, heal him!”

  It didn’t even take two more seconds for the roots to all wither away, leaving the man bleeding from everywhere.

  “Alya, Marcus and Marco, run back to the main group; we are not that far away. If you hurry, you can reach them soon. We need to protect them; the monster will attack them for sure. Rhea, Melissa and Mary will stay with me; we’re going to find it and take it down.”

  “What? Splitting up is not the solution!” An incensed Marco shouted at me.

  We started to hear sounds from around us; more monsters were coming.

  I replied calmly anyway. “We need to divide its attention and protect the others. This is for the best. You are quick enough to go back fast, especially with the stats you have now, while Rhea and Mary are not fast enough to follow you, and Melissa is still exhausted; she’ll need time to recuperate despite the achievement boost. They can support me while we go to eliminate as many of them as we can; we’ll follow the trail back to it.”

  “Elias, can you deal with it?” Asked Marcus.

  “I’m confident, yes. The point is that we can’t let it dictate the rules and hold hostages; that is going to end badly for us.”

  “Let’s go then; we are wasting time.” Alya said.

  “Fucking hell! All of this is crazy!” Marco turned to Mary and the man now breathing shallowly on the forest floor. “Hey you! Yeah, you root guy, you better spill everything you know about that monster and soon before I sma…” His words ceased as Alya and Marcus took him by the arms and pulled him away.

  “We need to go back; leave the interrogation to the others.”

  Marco’s expression was hilarious as he was getting hauled like a bag of potatoes. “Unhand me right now! I can walk by myself!”

  “Then walk.” Said Marcus, letting the mage go while starting to run back to the others.

  “Don’t fall too far behind.” I heard Alya tell him this after she started sprinting.

  Marco stumbled and nearly fell before looking behind for a moment, then started running as well while replying to Alya some more: 'Well, good luck, guys.'

  I refocused on the man on the floor; we didn’t have too much time. Mary was still healing him; it seemed he’ll survive. Good, because I needed more info.

  “Should I go back with the others?” 'Asked Quinn,' appearing like a ghost behind them.

  “What do you think?” I genuinely asked him.

  He stopped for a moment, pondering our situation. “I think it will be better, strategically at least, to go back with them. Even if I’d like to proceed forward. I’m the fastest; I know the way. I could be back in less than fifteen minutes if I use my skills. And I know you can deal with an army of these things by yourself.” Then, turning towards Melissa, who was still trying to catch her breath, he said. “Make sure to keep them all safe, ok?”

  The girl in question looked at Quinn, and I nodded at him. “I will.” As soon as I said it, he started to run back to the others; he was fast, freakingly fast. I knew that with all of them at camp, I didn’t have to worry that something terrible had happened.

  Marco may be rude, but he was right: we need all the info you have on the monster that controlled you. I told the now roots-free man.

  Mary stood up; apparently her job was done. I could not see any more wounds on him.

  “Thank you, thank you really… I couldn’t… you have no idea how that… how it feels to have those things inside of you…” The man was on the verge of a breakdown, and while I normally would give him more time to deal with his trauma, we didn’t have time; monsters were converging on us, and I needed him to talk.

  “You are welcome. As I was saying, though, if you want to repay us, tell me every useful piece of information you have on that thing: its name, powers, location, how many things are under his control, what door he wanted to open and why he couldn’t open it by himself. Tell me everything you know.”

  “Ok… ok.” He took a big breath and wiped away the tears from his eye, the one not completely ruined. The other was weeping blood and other fluids.

  “It doesn’t really have a name… and I really don’t know where it is located precisely, but! But I know where all the others come from, so I can point you in the direction his main body is located, I think…”

  “Good, so it is not a hivemind at least. What about his powers? And the door.”

  “He can produce these seeds that he plants in the body of his captives; I don’t know exactly how many, but probably dozens at the very least. But it takes time; the seed grows inside of you fast, and then he takes control somehow, but it takes at least a day. I don’t know how he managed to overcome my skill. I have a skill that should have made me impossible to control, but it didn’t work. I only managed to retain part of my mind free…”

  He was starting to ramble at this point, so I brought him back on track. “Apart from controlling others, what can he do? Does he have physical might? Or maybe controlling plants? Poison?”

  “No, or at least none that I know of, but I know about the door…”

  This was not as much information as I had hoped for, but it was still something. “What about it?”

  “The door opens the way to the Shrine of the Withered Bloom. There is an artefact there. I don’t know what it is exactly, but if the roots manage to get a hold of it… it will be the end of us; of that you can be assured.”

  20 chapters ahead!