Scene 1: Immediate Aftermath — First Clash
The ground still smokes from where the Root's Avatar rose.
The team can barely breathe, chests heaving, adrenaline burning through their veins.
A voice — if it could be called that — worms into their minds:
Root Avatar (whisper):
"We will meet again... when you're weakest."
It vanishes, leaving behind nothing but the taste of ash and blood.
Before they can even react—
Boom.
The Warden of Roots crashes into the base like a meteor, the ground shattering beneath its bulk.
It's bigger than memory, crueler than nightmare — and it moves fast.
The first attack is a blur — a swipe that nearly cuts Matthew in half if not for Gift yanking him back.
The battle ignites immediately:
Jakku triggers Focus Vision, time slowing around the monster's claws, but it's still almost too much.
Gift feels the environment, ducking and rolling through debris, predicting the monster's next stomps.
Matthew's Pressure Roar buys seconds — just seconds — but seconds are life and death now.
Maiku's Predator Sense hums a warning constantly — Move. Dodge. Survive.
Reen runs to the side to hide and grab materials like the Feeder antidote, med kits etc.
No matter what they do, they're bleeding already. Outmatched. Outclassed. Out of time.
---
Scene 2: Betrayal Sparks
Amid the chaos, a scream tears through the fray.
Irogi Maitokashima — supposed to be a resistance ally — yells:
Irogi (panicked):
"It's Maiku's fault! He's the one the Root wants! We should kill him and be free!"
Gift hesitates.
Jakku freezes for half a second.
Even Reen flinches.
The cracks in their unity rip wide open — and the Warden almost kills Maiku right there.
But Matthew — roaring, bleeding, furious — hurls himself between Maiku and death.
Matthew (snarling):
"Shut the fuck up! He's the only reason we're not already dead!"
The group snaps back together — not perfectly. Not cleanly. But enough.
Irogi runs, vanishing into the mist.
---
Scene 3: Jiro's Gambit
Elsewhere, hidden in the Bloom's shadows, The Withered King—Jiro watches the chaos unfold.
Jiro (low, to himself):
"Let it feed. Let it consume."
He doesn't want to just win anymore.
He wants everything to be reborn — a new world, built from the ashes of the old.
And if Maiku's blood is the key?
Then so be it.
Florin watches him silently, eyes too bright, too wide — like a candle flickering before it dies.
She laughs in amusement and joy.
Jiro (quietly):
"I'll be the last monster this world ever needs."
---
Scene 4: Desperate Victory
The Warden of Roots roars — a sound like tectonic plates grinding together — and the battle reaches its bloody crescendo.
Jakku leaps but the beast swipes at him he activates his Focus Vision and narrowly dodges it and severs the beast's hand.
Matthew jumps in and cuts the Warden's chest making deep cuts and then he shoots a fire ball at it's torso. The beast roars and pushes them back and they all bump the wall.
The beast regenerates from Jakku and Matthew's attacks.
IT FEELS HOPELESS BUT ;
Jakku launches one final attack — but the Warden severs his left hand with a casual swipe.
Gift hurls a dagger with his remaining strength — but a root lashes out of the Warden's back, smashing into his face, shattering his right eye.
Pain is a white-hot storm.
But pain doesn't stop them.
Pain fuels them.
In the end, it's teamwork — raw, desperate, broken teamwork — that brings the Warden down.
Gift senses a weak point in its chest.
Matthew shreds through its armor with claw and roar.
Jakku buys seconds, bleeding out, but refusing to fall.
Gift leaps in and slashes the monsters eyes
Gift (Determined) : "Maiku!!!! Finish THIS THING!!!!!"
Maiku drives the killing blow — a blade through what used to be a heart.
The Warden collapses, shaking the world.
But the victory feels hollow.
They're alive.
Barely.
Reen rushes to her friends and starts using the collected materials to help her friends.
Jiro watches in shock saying nothing.
Florin (loud) : "How the absolute shit did they manage to do that. Let me go kill them myself."
Jiro (calmly) : "No, let's leave them I have other plans for us to take over everything."
---
Scene 5: The Door to Momonato
The battlefield groans — and then splits apart.
An ancient gate reveals itself, half-swallowed by the veins of the Bloom wrapping around its edges.
It pulses — alive.
And the hallucinations begin.
They see:
A future where they turn on each other, blades and teeth.
A future where the Root wins, the world devoured.
A future where they survive — but forget why they ever fought.
Maiku stumbles, hands shaking, vision swimming.
The others aren't doing much better.
The gate wants to break them before they even set foot inside.
Reen (hoarse, almost broken):
"This... this is what it feeds on."
Maiku (gritting his teeth):
"Then we starve it."
---
Scene 6: Final Resolve
That night — if it can even be called night anymore — they gather around the ruins of a campfire.
No one speaks at first.
Jakku's stump is bandaged tight.
Gift's face is half-shadowed, a crude eye patch over his ruined eye.
Everyone looks less human now — more weapon than soul.
Finally, Maiku stands.
His voice is raw, scraped down to the bone:
Maiku (quiet but iron):
"We turn back now... and maybe we live a little longer. Or we walk through that gate... and burn the Root out of this world. Even if it kills us."
Silence.
Then Matthew grins — broken teeth, bloody lips — and stands beside him.
Jakku, still swaying, steps up next.
Gift, leaning hard on a long stick, joins without a word.
Reen — the last — nods once, eyes hard.
Together, they turn their backs on safety.
And walk toward death.
Toward Momonato.
Toward the end.
---
Final Words:
"Not because they thought they would win."
"But because it was the only choice that still made them human."
To Be Continued…...
Narrator Commentary for Chapter 23: "The Broken Path"
In this chapter, we watched the survivors crack — and somehow refuse to break.
The first clash with the Warden of Roots wasn't a fair fight. It wasn't supposed to be. It was the world itself lashing out at them, the culmination of everything twisted, ancient, and wrong that had been festering since before they were even born.
They bled.
They lost pieces of themselves — hands, eyes, trust.
And yet, somehow, they endured.
This wasn't a story about clean victories or shining heroes. This was about dragging yourself through hell with teeth gritted and soul splintered, refusing to die simply because you're too angry to lie down.
Betrayal struck when they least needed it. Irogi's panic was a crack that nearly tore them apart — and in that moment, survival was balanced on a knife's edge.
But loyalty, the real kind — the kind you can't fake — pulled them back.
It's easy to trust when things are easy.
It's another thing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder when the world wants you dead.
As the Withered King watched from the shadows, plotting the death of an old world to birth a new one, the team made a different choice: not to rebuild from ruins, but to stop the fire before it consumed everything.
The victory over the Warden wasn't clean. It was vicious, desperate, and it cost them dearly.
And standing before the gate to Momonato — the threshold to whatever waited beyond — they faced not just an enemy, but a reflection of themselves. Their fears. Their broken dreams. Their own worst endings.
They could have turned back.
No one would have blamed them.
But they didn't.
Because sometimes, being human isn't about surviving.
Sometimes it's about choosing the fight even when you know you probably won't win.
Because giving up would mean becoming something else. Something less.
Chapter 23 was not the end.
It was the moment they truly became heroes.
Or monsters.
And that path — that broken path — will lead them to a truth none of them are ready for.
To be continued…