"The Forest That Hungers."

  "Oh. Gosh. Thanks. There," Jay muttered, his hands glowing with a rhythmic crimson red light on green moving forest ground.

  The ground beneath their feet groaned, then moved itself along with the rest of the forest floor. It lifted slightly, and surged forward like a high-speed escator. The whole forest.

  "Focus on your skill!" Sister Eight commanded, her voice sharp. She forced her hand into the board beneath her, channeling her Dark Matter into the formation Jay had initiated.

  The remaining ten members nodded, their faces grim. They stood in a tight circur formation, facing outward to cover every angle—360 degrees of paranoia while their hands automatically poured Dark matter in their natural colors. It looked like a rainbow on the ground.

  They were moving fast—blurring through the trees like a board on ice. But the horror was that the forest was moving too.

  The massive trees didn't stay rooted. They shifted, sliding through the soil as if the earth were liquid, keeping pace with the fleeing group.

  "Hey... Guys. Will this be okay?" Sister One asked, gritting her teeth. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead as she poured her energy into the formation. "I mean, look. We are moving, but the forest is chasing us."

  "No time to think," Amara snapped, her eyes glued to a floating holographic screen in the center of their circle. "We are in a location we can't track. Satellite signals are jammed. Just pour as much Dark Matter as you can. We have to outrun the shifting zone. Let's just escape first."

  The tectonic pte beneath them hummed, vibrating with the combined energy of eleven Rank five warriors.

  "No," Aryan whispered, his eyes widening as he looked straight ahead. "Sister, we have no time to escape. Look."

  The trees ahead didn't just shift; they fused. The forest circled them, the branches weaving together to form a colossal wooden cage.

  SCREEECH.

  The hovering earth-pte smmed to a halt, throwing them off bance.

  "Didn't your general warn you not to stay in one pce, kids?"

  The voice didn't come from someone. It echoed from the leaves, the roots, and the forest itself. It vibrated in their heads.

  Suddenly, a pair of eyes opened in the darkness of the canopy—glowing, and looking straight into Aryan's soul.

  "Don't freeze!" Sister Eight screamed.

  "Your bodies will instinctively freeze—that is the body's nature in the face of danger!" Amara yelled, her Seer eyes fring like a warning siren. "But you have trained your minds not to! Force your limbs to move! Come out of the trance!"

  Aryan, who was staring into the abyss, jerked awake at their voices. The paralysis that had begun to stiffen his muscles shattered. The others shook their heads, snapping out of the supernatural fear.

  "Hahaha. Good reflexes," the voice cooed. "But your motivation to stay alive doesn't work here."

  BOOM.

  An invisible pressure descended from the sky. It wasn't gravity; it was pure, concentrated killing intent.

  THUD.

  All eleven members dropped to their left knee in unison. Their armor creaked. The tectonic pte beneath them cracked.

  It felt like the air had turned to mercury. Their life force—already low for Aryan and Amara—was being sucked out of their pores, consumed by the forest like oxygen.

  "Mere Rank Fives," the voice mocked. "Eleven little ones on top of that. What can you possibly do against a Rank Seven Entity?"

  Rank Seven. Two ranks difference.

  The gap was insurmountable. A Rank Seven is a walking natural disaster to them being rank five.

  "Don't struggle," the voice advised soothingly. "Fear makes the meat sour. You won't taste good if you panic. I'll be quick, don't worry."

  The wall of trees before them stirred. The wood twisted and warped, parting like curtains.

  A woman stepped out of the trunk of a massive sequoia.

  She was beautiful in a terrifying way. Her skin was the color of polished mahogany, her hair was a cascade of vines and moss, and her eyes were the violet of the alien moons above.

  She walked toward them, the pressure intensifying with every step. She stopped a few meters away and smiled—a predator looking at a trapped rabbit.

  "You look good," she purred, her gaze sliding over them. "But you will taste even better if you just stay calm."

  She grinned, revealing teeth that looked like thorns.

  "Emotions matter, you see. Panic ruins the fvor."

  "The Currency of Survival."

  The pressure was suffocating. It wasn't just weight; it was a siphon. Aryan and Amara could feel their very essence being drawn out through their pores, a slow, excruciating unraveling of their souls to feed the woman with the thorny smile.

  "Sam! Nine!" Aryan and Amara screamed in unison within their shared system-space. "Is there any way we can escape? We are dying here!"

  "There is a way," Sam’s voice cut through the static, urgent and hard. "But you have to summon it."

  "Summon?" Aryan asked, his thoughts racing. "Summon what? Who? A guardian?"

  "Summon the money," Nine interjected. "The billions of System Credits you received from the Level Up rewards. Summon that wealth directly into your veins as raw Dark Matter."

  "But—" Nine hesitated, her voice trembling slightly.

  "No 'buts'!" Amara snapped, clenching her jaw in the real world, blood trickling from her lip. "We do it, or we become fertilizer. Let's just do this."

  "Whatever the cost. How do we do it?" Aryan asked, nodding imperceptibly at Amara’s command.

  "Feel the money," Sam instructed, his voice becoming a hypnotic guide amidst the chaos. "Don't think of them as numbers in a bank. Think of them as crystallized energy. Vast. Invisible. Heavy."

  "Channel it," Sam continued. "Visualize that mountain of billion dolrs liquefying. Pull it out of the System space and force it into your veins. It will burn. It will feel like molten lead. But you must hold it."

  "The faster, the better," Nine added, her calcutions fshing rapidly in their minds. "Think of yourself as thunder. Visualize the speed of light."

  She projected a tactical map into their minds.

  "And more importantly... you must maintain the circur formation with the other nine members. You are the battery now. Let them channel their energy into the tectonic pte, but you will provide the explosion."

  "Do not hold back," Sam roared. "Burn the billion!"