The howl of the corrupting storm drowned out Finn's screams. Mycelium like millions of living snakes emerged from the ground, wrapping around the metal frame of the wheelchair. Lysandra swung her dagger at the vines, but the blade was enveloped by writhing mycelium, and black mucus flowed down the handle, corroding her gloves.
"Don't touch the mycelium!" Orion's dagger flashed past her fingers, severing the contaminated leather. His icy blue pupils reflected the storm's centre—on the main trunk of the Corrupted Heart Mother Tree, a massive metal device flickered in sync with the ancient tree's pulse, blue-black fluid seeping from the gear teeth. "The energy core is at the tree's heart! We must implant the neutraliser!"
Finn dragged a metal box from the wreckage of the wheelchair. The green liquid in the test tubes inside the box violently shook: "The neutraliser needs the blood of a living elf to activate! Elara's blood!" He looked despairingly at the elf wrapped in mycelium. Elara's silver hair danced wildly in the spore storm, her pitch-black pupils locked on Finn, her mouth torn to her ears, revealing a woodenised jaw.
Gideon's iron crutch shattered the corrupted guards charging at him, blue blood splattering on his wooden prosthetic limb and rising in a blue smoke. "Distract her!" The veteran's bloodshot eye suddenly tore open his shirt—at the centre of the purple, festering wound on his chest, a metal box emitted a blinding red light! "When you take the children away... I buried nitroglycerin in my heart!" He charged at Elara, his iron arm clamping down on the elf's waist.
"Gideon! No!" Lysandra screamed.
The exploding fireball engulfed the entangled figures. The shockwave hurled Lysandra into the air, scorching bone fragments and wood shards raining down like shotgun pellets. She rolled in the humus layer, her face searing with pain as if a branding iron had been pressed against it again. As the smoke and dust cleared, Elara knelt on the ground, half her body charred black, her left arm blown off at the shoulder, her right eye restored to amber, staring blankly at her palm—where Gideon's soldier's badge was stuck, its edges melted into her wood-like flesh.
"Gideon... brother...?" The elf's screech mingled with electronic static.
Finn pounced, plunging the syringe into Elara's neck. The elf screamed and flung the boy away, but the green liquid had already entered her veins! The vine tattoos beneath her skin twisted like living snakes, the black rapidly fading to emerald green. The storm's howl suddenly intensified, causing the entire forest of corrupted ancient trees to tremble!
"The neutraliser is taking effect! Now!" Finn coughed up blood as he climbed to his feet, tossing the second syringe to Lysandra, "Tree Core! Insert it into the core gear assembly!"
The Mother Tree's trunk split open, spewing a foul wind carrying spores. Lysandra charged against the wind, her ankles wrapped in fungal threads that were instantly severed by Orion. The metallic device was within reach, twelve rotating gears forming a flesh-grinding mill, with a pulsating crystal heart embedded at its centre—the heart contained an elf's eyeball, its pupils wildly dilating and contracting!
"The keyhole!" Orion dodged the flying wooden spikes and pointed to the groove below the heart—the lion-headed emblem's indentation!
The brand on Lasandra's face burned like charcoal. She pressed the brand into the groove, and with the sizzling sound of burning flesh, the gear mill exploded open! A putrid gale nearly sucked her into the tree's core, where the hollow trunk's inner walls were covered in pulsating veins, and countless tortured faces were embedded in the slimy flesh!
"Hurry!" Orion's roar was torn apart by the storm.
Lysandra threw the neutraliser with all her strength. The test tube spun towards the depths of the tree's core—
A fungal tentacle lightning-fast wrapped around the test tube! Ellara hung at the entrance of the tree hole, green vines sprouting from her severed arm, her remaining amber pupils completely swallowed by the black tide. "Mother Tree... eternal life..." she repeated mechanically as the tentacle crushed the test tube, the neutraliser dripping like tears.
The human faces on the tree's inner walls screamed in unison. The storm intensified tenfold in an instant, and Lysandra was slammed against the flesh wall by the gust of wind, her limbs wrapped in slimy tissue! Orion's dagger struck the fungal tentacle, sparks flying, but Elara's vines wrapped around his ankles and flung him violently against the cave wall. With the sound of shattered ribs, the nobleman coughed up blood and slid to the ground.
"Finn... the signal..." Lesandra screamed as the flesh walls squeezed her.
The youth outside the tree hole was inserting two cables into the wheelchair wreckage. He smashed the last button, and the wheelchair's cannon barrel erupted with electric light, piercing through the spore storm and piercing the sky!
"Elara! Catch it!" Finn threw a metal sphere with all his strength—its surface etched with a forest totem, the very soldier's badge Gideon had slipped into his hand before his death!
The elf's pitch-black pupils reflected the incoming metal sphere. As the sphere touched her severed arm, Gideon's final memories surged into her mind: the flames of the Border Legion burning the elf village, him kneeling in the scorched earth to pick up the infant Elara's swaddling clothes, thirty years of anonymous guardianship...
"Brother... brother..." Elara's shrill scream turned into a mournful wail. Amber light broke through the darkness, and her remaining right hand grabbed the vine缠绕ing around Lysandra, tearing it apart with all her strength!
Lysandra fell into the tree's core. The last neutraliser shattered in her palm, glass cutting her palm, green liquid mixed with blood dripping onto the beating heart—
**Pfft!**
Green ripples spread across the crystal heart's surface. All the spinning gears suddenly ground to a halt, the storm's roar turning into a dying wail. Elara lunged at the heart, pressing her severed arm against the crack. Her silver hair withered rapidly, and her skin began to crackle like wood, but emerald-green fluorescence flowed through her veins into the heart!
"In the name of... the Guardian..." The elf's body began to disintegrate, "The forest... reborn..."
Green light waves erupted from the tree's core! As Lesandra was dragged out of the tree hollow by Orion, the corrupted mother tree erupted with blinding light from within. Wherever the light touched, black fungal threads turned to ash, twisted branches unfurled and turned green again, and airborne spores shattered into crystalline green dust.
The storm subsided. Dawn light pierced through the new canopy, and emerald-like glow drifted within the beams of light. Finn knelt in the scorched earth, cradling Ella's remaining right hand—now a half-wood, half-jade sculpture, with Gideon's melted soldier's badge on the middle finger.
***
The bells of the royal capital rang at noon. The stone steps of the royal court were crowded with nobles, their gold-embroidered robes flowing with opulent light in the sun. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rubbed his gold-rimmed glasses and smiled at the defendant's bench: "Mr. Blackwood, where is your evidence that I colluded with Malachi Industries?"
Orion leaned against the railing of the defendant's bench, blood seeping through the bandage on his left rib. He tossed an apple back and forth, his gaze sweeping over the jury bench—twelve nobles with expressions as stiff as plaster statues, their sleeves faintly revealing snake-shaped tattoos.
"Evidence?" the nobleman chuckled. "It's in your stomach." He pointed at the minister's swollen abdomen. "The parchment from that ledger—I soaked it in slow-acting bone-dissolving acid for three days."
The minister's face turned pale, and he suddenly clutched his throat and vomited! He tore open his robe, revealing the contours of the ledger beneath his skin! As the jury erupted in chaos, Orion's apple struck the stained-glass window of the courtroom. As the glass shattered, Lysandra descended from the dome, unfurling the bloodstained transport manifest in the sunlight!
"Live container transport records!" She tore off her hood, revealing the charred markings amid gasps, "Each page bears the Chancellor's seal!"
As the captain drew his sword, the court floor collapsed with a thunderous crash! The earth-boring beast smashed through the stone slabs, carrying the deputy officer of Renard on its back—his alchemical flintlock pointed directly at Orion: "By the order of Lord Malachi, purge the royal bloodline!"
The flintlock roared! Orion spun to dodge, but the lead bullet struck something in his embrace. Amidst the shattering of metal, a blood-stained blue tearstone ring rolled down the stone steps!
The Chancellor suddenly let out an inhuman scream. His abdomen exploded, and the parchment ledgers flew like butterflies, their pages soaked in bone-corroding liquid splashing onto the jury bench. The nobles covered their faces and wailed, their skin sizzling in the sunlight! In the chaos, the lieutenant's musket aimed again—
Lysandra's dagger pierced his eye socket. But the dying lieutenant pulled the trigger, and the poisoned lead bullet flew toward a blonde little girl in the witness stand!
Time froze. Orion lunged forward like an arrow leaving the bow, his icy blue pupils reflecting the girl's terrified face. The dull thud of the bullet sinking into his back was heavier than the courtroom bell.
***
Blood dripped from the stone walls of the dungeon. Lysandra used her dagger to pry open Orion's shackles; the bandages on the nobleman's back were soaked through with black blood.
"Poisoned bullets... how cliché..." He gasped, tearing off the necklace—the pendant was half a charred blue tear stone—"My sister and I... the last royal bloodline... there are two keys..."
Screams from guards and the clatter of machinery echoed from outside the dungeon. Finn rammed the iron door with a modified mine cart: "The passage is clear! But it's swarming with iron cans outside!"
Lysandra hoisted Orion onto her back and charged into the mine shaft. The footsteps of pursuers thundered behind them, but the path ahead was a dead end—giant gears embedded in the rock wall, rusted mechanisms blocking the exit.
"The royal cellar's alternate entrance..." Orion's bloodstained fingers pressed against the lion's head relief, "It requires... two keys..."
The brand on Lysandra's face burned with pain. She pressed the mark onto the other lion's head, and Orion simultaneously pressed the pendant. The gears roared into motion, the rock wall slid open, revealing a bottomless shaft!
As the pursuers flooded into the mine shaft, Finn ignited the nitroglycerin in the mine cart. The explosion's shockwave hurled the three into the shaft, and flames engulfed the passageway.
***
The bottom of the shaft was filled with the stale smell of blood. Lesandra lit a torch, and the light startled countless bats. In the centre of the huge cellar, a crystal cabinet glowed faintly in the darkness, with a book bound in human skin floating inside. The lockhole on the cabinet door was the nested structure of the two lion heads.
"The Eternal Covenant..." Orion coughed up black blood, "The deal between the first king and the devil..."
Lysandra inserted his pendant into the left half of the lock, and her own facial scarred mark onto the right half. As the searing pain pierced her bones, the cabinet door sprang open! The human skin book automatically turned the pages, and blood-red words appeared on the yellowed parchment:
**Using the blood of one's children as ink and the bones of one's siblings as a pen, those who continue the contract shall bear an eternal curse—**
The pages suddenly turned on their own, frantically flipping to the last page. Fresh blood-red words slowly seeped out of the blank space:
**Contract Heir: Malcolm V**
Orion's pupils contracted sharply: "Malachi Void... his full name is Malcolm Void!" He tore open the spine of the book—a yellowed portrait fell out: a man in ancient alchemical robes toasting with the contemporary king, their features mirroring each other!
"The twin brother of the first king..." Lysandra picked up the portrait, "the 'Prince of Sorcery' erased from history three hundred years ago..."
The vaulted ceiling of the cellar suddenly echoed with the roar of a drill! Rocks rained down, and a beam of light pierced the darkness. The drilling platform slowly descended, revealing a man in a white-gold robe standing in the light, his sleeves embroidered with the emblem of a giant tree and gears. His face was identical to that of the Sorcerer Prince in the portrait, except for his eyes—two rotating multifaceted crystals.
"Good evening, Keys," Malcolm smiled, his voice as smooth as velvet. "The game must end." "
He raised his hand. Orion suddenly clutched his throat, his neck veins bulging and turning black! The blue tear stone in the pendant trembled violently, cracks spreading across its surface.
"After all," the alchemist looked down at the nobleman convulsing in pain, "counterfeits always have an expiration date."