The artery web was less climbable structure, more fleshy trap. Each cord was slick with a mucus that smelled like copper and ozone, and my climbing spikes sank in with wet schlurp sounds that made my stomach rebel. The corruption debuff deepened: [CORRUPTION: -10% HP REGEN, -5% SANITY/MIN]. I was losing sanity by the minute now.
My overlay flickered, trying to maintain the map while also running a constant stream of warnings: [WARNING: BIOFOULING ON ARMOR], [WARNING: SANITY THRESHOLD 4.5/6], [WARNING: DEMON-BLOOM AWARENESS INCREASING].
The awareness bar was new. A thin purple line in my vision, climbing slowly: 23%... 24%... Every touch, every spike placement, fed it. The Bloom wasn't just a plant. It was a predator with a nervous system, and I was the splinter.
The first anchor node was fifty feet above the cavern floor, nestled in a junction of three arteries. Getting there meant traversing a horizontal span of webbing that looked about as stable as a dream.
I could have used the remaining spikes. I had five left. But the web was organic; a spike would alert the node immediately.
[TACTICAL Precognition (CORRUPTED): 0.4 sec warning]
[SANITY CHECK: ROLLING...]
[ROLL: 1 + 6 = 7]
[FAILURE: MINOR PHOBIA - HEIGHTS]
Oh, perfect. My 1 Luck strikes. The world tilted. My palms went slick with sweat inside my gloves. The overlay helpfully calculated my survival probability if I fell: [IMPACT FORCE: 3400 NEWTONS. SURVIVAL: 0.12%].
I closed my eyes, breathed through the fear. Math is real. Fear is a variable. I reopened them, forced the overlay to highlight handholds not based on prediction, but on friction coefficients and tensile strength of the web fibers.
The web was a cable, not a rope. It had a core structure. I just had to avoid the sheath.
I climbed sideways, spidering across. The node throbbed above me, a cystic bulge of green-black flesh veined with silver. My overlay finally pierced its mystery:
[ANCHOR NODE #1: CORRUPTION CAPACITOR]
[HP: 150/150]
[WEAKNESS: UNSTABLE ENERGY MATRIX]
[NOTES: EXPLODES VIOLENTLY IF RUPTURED]
Explodes. Beautiful. The other two nodes would be the same. Three explosions at the Bloom's structural weak points would collapse the heart's suspension web. The heart would fall, impact the cavern floor, and the shockwave would propagate through the entire system.
[OPTIMIZATION: COLLATERAL DAMAGE POTENTIAL = 100%]
[RISK TO SELF: CRITICAL]
[PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL: 0.01%]
The Luck tax. Always the Luck tax.
I reached the node junction. It was anchored to the cavern ceiling by a bolt of calcified bone. The node itself was a sphere, its surface taut and glossy. I could see the energy matrix inside, swirling like a captured storm.
I had ten Demon-Bark slivers, half a lantern's worth of lumen-sap, and a shortsword that would be useless against the node's 70% physical resistance.
But the node was a capacitor. It stored corruption energy. And energy, by definition, sought equilibrium.
[HYPOTHESIS: DEMON-BARK REPULSION + LUMEN-SAP PURITY = CATALYTIC FAILURE]
The bark repelled demonic energy. The sap was pure, concentrated light. If I could introduce them simultaneously into the node's matrix, the conflicting forces would cause a resonance cascade. No stabbing required. Just timing.
I unslung the lantern. Pried the reservoir open with the tip of my sword. The sap inside glowed like molten starlight.
[RESOURCE: LUMEN-SAP RESERVOIR - 120ml]
I took six Demon-Bark slivers and snapped them, creating splinters. I dipped each splinter into the sap—a thin coating, enough to stick but not enough to ignite.
The node pulsed. The Bloom's awareness spiked: 47%.
I had to move. The other two nodes were farther along the web, each requiring more dangerous traverses. If I destroyed this one first, the Bloom would mobilize defenses before I could reach the others.
[GAMBIT: SIMULTANEOUS DETONATION]
I couldn't be three places at once. But the system could.
[SKILL: ABSOLUTE CALCULATION → TACTICAL PRECOGNITION (LV2) → SUB-MODE: TRAJECTORY PLOTTING]
I programmed a sequence. Not with buttons, but with intent, with visualization. The overlay locked onto the three nodes, calculated distances, sap viscosity, bark reaction times.
[SEQUENCE: 3-STAGE DETONATION]
[TIMING: 0.0s, 1.4s, 2.8s]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 11%]
Eleven percent. That's not zero. Eleven percent with my Intelligence and planning was better than fifty percent for someone improvising.
I climbed to the second node. It was identical—150 HP, unstable matrix, anchored. I left three coated splinters pressed into its base, their sap-glue holding them against the pulsing flesh. The third node was the hardest, requiring a vertical climb up a sagging artery that bowed under my weight like a bridge made of wet cardboard.
Halfway up, the artery tore. Not fully—just a 4-inch rip that oozed black ichor onto my gauntlet. The ichor hissed, eating into the leather. [ARMOR DEGRADATION: -15% DURABILITY]. I pulled my hand away, kept climbing with one arm and two legs, my balance a calculated nightmare.
I reached the third node as the Bloom's awareness hit 89%. Something was stirring in the cavern below. Something large, wet, and awake.
I didn't have time to be neat. I jammed the last bark-sap splinters into the node's base, felt them stick, and launched myself back.
No time for spikes. I slid down the artery, friction burning my gloves, and landed in a roll on the cavern floor. The bones cracked under my impact. [HP: 55/60] [FALL DAMAGE: 5] . Acceptable.
The cavern's floor was vibrating. The heart was beating faster. The three nodes pulsed in perfect sync now, their internal storms visible through translucent skin.
[SEQUENCE INITIATED]
[COUNTDOWN: 3... 2... 1...]
I hadn't used fire. I hadn't used a trigger. The sap and bark were catalysts, reacting to the node's own energy matrix. The first node bulged. The second swelled. The third—
[DETONATION]
Not an explosion of fire and sound. An implosion of reality. The nodes collapsed inward, their matrices inverting, and then burst outward in silent pulses of green-black light. The shockwave hit the web, the arteries, the heart.
The heart's suspension snapped. The twenty-foot sphere fell.
[IMPACT IMMINENT]
I ran. Not away—toward. The heart was falling toward the rear of the cavern. The safest zone was directly under its original position, where the web structure would absorb the shockwave.
The heart hit the floor with a sound like a continent cracking.
[SHOCKWAVE DETECTED]
[CALCULATING TRAJECTORY...]
I dove behind a pillar of calcified tendon. The shockwave washed over it, the sound deafening, the force enough to lift me off my feet and slam me into the pillar. [HP: 42/60] [BLUNT DAMAGE: 13].
But I was alive. The pillars held.
The heart, however, was not intact. The impact had cracked its shell. Corruption fluid gushed out, pooling across the floor like spilled ink. The face inside was no longer silent—it was screaming, a sound that bypassed my ears and drilled directly into my skull.
[SANITY CHECK: ROLLING WITH DISADVANTAGE...]
[ROLL 1: 4] [ROLL 2: 1] [LUCK: 1 - NO RE-ROLL]
[TOTAL: 5 + 6 = 11]
[TARGET: 10]
[SUCCESS: BARELY]
My 1 Luck didn't screw me. The one time I needed it not to.
The heart's scream faded. The cavern went silent. Then:
[DEMON-BLOOM CORE: CRITICAL DAMAGE]
[HP: ??? → 320/320 (VISIBLE)]
[STAGE: 2 → UNSTABLE]
It had a visible HP bar now. It was wounded. And it was angry.
The pool of corruption fluid began to coalesce. Rising from the black lake was a figure, humanoid, but wrong. Its limbs were too long, its joints bending backwards. Its face was the one from inside the heart, now sculpted from liquid hatred.
[ANALYSIS: BLOOM AVATAR (EMERGENT DEMON)]
[LEVEL: 9]
[HP: 320/320]
[ABILITIES: CORRUPTION TOUCH, SANITY DRAIN, LIQUID FORM]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: YOU ARE SO VERY FUCKED]
Level 9. Seven levels above me. My shortsword would be a tickle stick. My Demon-Bark was gone. My lumen-sap was depleted.
Except...
The cavern was filled with corruption fluid. But the fluid was reflective. It caught the light of my glowcap lantern and multiplied it, casting the entire chamber in a green-white haze.
[WEAKNESS RE-ANALYSIS: AVATAR = LIQUID FORM]
[LIQUID FORM = SUSCEPTIBLE TO PHASE TRANSITION]
[PHASE TRANSITION = ENERGY EXCHANGE]
I still had the lantern. I still had its reservoir of pure, explosive light.
The Avatar stepped toward me, each footfall leaving a sizzling print in the stone.
[OPTION 1: RUN. SURVIVAL: 45%]
[OPTION 2: FIGHT. SURVIVAL: 0.3%]
[OPTION 3: IMPROVISE. SURVIVAL: ???]
Option 3, always.
I smashed the lantern against the floor. The glass shattered. Lumen-sap spilled across the corruption fluid.
The Avatar hesitated. Light and shadow warred on its liquid skin.
I drew my shortsword. Not to stab. To strike.
I hit the pooled lumen-sap with the flats of the blade, as hard as I could. The sap wasn't castor oil—it was volatile. The impact aerosolized it, creating a fine mist of pure light particles that hung in the air.
The Avatar inhaled to scream.
It inhaled the mist.
[CATALYTIC REACTION: DEMONIC CORRUPTION + LUMEN PARTICLES]
The Avatar's liquid form began to boil. It shrieked, a sound like steam escaping a ruptured pipe, and its HP bar started ticking down. Not fast—1 HP per second—but it was damage I wasn't taking.
[DAMAGE: ENVIRONMENTAL. SOURCE: KAEL. CALCULATION: BEAUTIFUL]
[+25 EXP]
The Avatar lunged. I dodged, its corruption-touch missing my face by inches, but the air displacement was enough to stagger me. [HP: 39/60] [MINOR CORROSION].
I was dancing with a demon in a lake of its own blood, using its blood as a weapon.
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 3 ACHIEVED!]
[+5 STAT POINTS]
[+1 SKILL POINT]
[HP/MP RESTORED]
The XP from the nodes, from the creativity, from the environmental damage—it had pushed me over the edge. [HP: 90/90] [MP: 15/15] . The restoration washed over me like cold water, clearing the minor corrosion, steadying my shoulder.
I dumped all five stat points into Intelligence. [INT: 10 → 15] . My overlay sharpened to surgical precision. I could see the Avatar's micro-weaknesses now—stress points in its liquid form where the energy matrix was unstable.
I still couldn't hit it hard. But I could hit it precisely.
The Avatar recovered from the boiling mist, its form reforming, smaller now. [HP: 280/320] . It had adapted. It wouldn't fall for the mist trick again.
But it was also smaller . Its limbs were shorter. Its corruption pool had receded.
I had hurt it. Me. Level 3. 1 Luck. Absolute Calculation.
The Avatar screamed and charged. I raised my shortsword, not to block, but to guide its strike.
[PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 34%]
[But 34% wasn't zero.]
The gambit wasn't over yet.