"I WILL NOT DROP ANYTHING EXCEPT MY BRILLIANCE!" Varania shouted.
"Then we must goeth unto the heart," the Dryad Elder interrupted softly.
She raised her wooden staff and slammed it against the floorboards.
THUD.
Suddenly, the floor of the café seemed to dissolve. Thick, glowing green roots burst from the wood, writhing like snakes. Before any of us could react, they surged upward, wrapping around our ankles and waists.
"Hey! Why all of a sudden?" Chis snapped."
"Hold tight, My Lord!" Orla cried out, clutching the communication box to her chest so the connection with Muranu wouldn't break.
"WAIT! I CAN FLY BY MYSEL—" Varania started to protest, but it was too late.
The world twisted. The comfortable smell of coffee and old wood vanished, replaced instantly by a bone-chilling cold and the scent of ozone.
SWOOOSH.
In the blink of an eye, the café was gone.
We were standing on the highest branch of a massive tree in the Center of the Dryad Realm.
But there was no wind. There was no sound.
The world was frozen.
Above us, the grey, overcast clouds were locked in place, looking like a painting of a storm rather than a real one.
Below us, the Great Forest lay in a terrifying state of suspended gluttony. It wasn't just trees; it was a chaotic, cancerous mass of overgrowth. Massive, mutated roots were frozen mid-writhe, caught in the act of strangling the life out of the soil. Thorny vines, thick as pythons, reached upward like starving claws, fighting for every inch of space, growing on top of one another in a desperate, cannibalistic frenzy.
The Elder's magic had trapped them in their hunger, freezing this explosion of life under a glittering layer of frost. It looked like a paused detonation—a riot of nature where every leaf and branch was trying to consume its neighbor to survive. You could feel that if the ice broke, the forest wouldn't just grow—it would devour.
The Elder was trembling slightly, her hand gripping her staff white-knuckled, maintaining the immense stasis spell against such aggressive life.
"I... cannot holdeth it... much longer," she whispered, her breath visible in the freezing air.
Chis shivered, rubbing her arms. "Great. You turned the realm into a cold realm."
Varania, however, looked delighted. She looked at the frozen sky, then at her own breath puffing out in white clouds.
"IT IS COLD!" she yelled, her voice shattering the unnatural silence. "I HATE THE COLD! I WILL FIX IT!"
She didn't wait for a signal. She kicked off the frozen branch, launching herself straight into the stagnant air.
She ascended higher and higher until she was just a small speck against the paralyzed clouds. Then, she stopped.
The air around her began to distort. The frost on the nearby branches began to melt simply from her presence.
Unlike Lilith, who sang her spells with a haunting melody, Macapat, Varania's magic somehow used the older version of Macapat, Kakawin.
She didn't sing. She began to rumble. Her voice, amplified by magic, vibrated through the frozen heavens like the low growl of a tectonic plate shifting.
"ꦎꦁ ꦗ꧀ꦮꦭꦶꦠ ꦄꦒ꧀ꦤꦶ ꦩꦸꦫꦸꦧ꧀ ꦆꦁ ꦠꦮꦁ"(Ong... Jwalita Agni murub ing tawang)
As I heard that verse, spontaneously, I said the meaning of the verse.
"Om... Blazing fire burning in the sky..."
A massive magic circle unfurled beneath her feet—red and complex, filled with jagged runes that looked like teeth. The sheer heat radiating from it began to distort the air around us. The frost on the trees didn't just melt; it hissed into steam instantly.
Immediately, I could feel some stares from around me.
"Darya?" Orla whispered, clutching the communication box tighter. She looked at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head. "You... you understand the Chant of the Dragon?"
Even Muranu, through the holographic projection, leaned forward on his throne, his sharp eyes narrowing. To them, these were ancient, unknowable sounds. But to me, it was just... home.
Varania's voice boomed again.
"ꦏꦢꦶ ꦱꦁ ꦱꦸꦂꦪ ꦄꦩꦝꦔꦶ ꦧꦸꦮꦤ ꦫꦪ"(Kadi Sang Surya, amadhangi buana raya)
My lips moved on their own.
"Like the Great Sun, illuminating the vast universe..."
"He is translating it..." Muranu's voice crackled, stunned. "He is speaking the Old Tongue."
The heat became unbearable. The Elder fell to her knees, gasping as the freezing spell shattered completely. My skin felt like it was starting to blister. Orla screamed, shielding her face.
"Tch. So annoying," a bored voice cut through the roaring wind.
Chis stepped forward, standing between us and the sky. She raised one hand elegantly, looking annoyed that the heat was drying out her skin.
She didn't scream like Varania. She whispered, her voice melodic yet commanding—a different style. It was Macapat.
"ꦏꦭꦶꦱ꧀ ꦆꦁ ꦒꦼꦤꦶ... ꦄꦝꦼꦩ꧀ ꦏꦢꦶ ꦠꦶꦂꦠ..."(Kalis ing geni... Adhem kadi tirta...)
I looked at her, and once again, the meaning flowed into my mind.
"Immune to fire... Cool like water..."
A translucent, blue dome instantly materialized around us on the branch. The searing heat vanished, replaced by a refreshing, cool breeze inside the barrier.
Chis lowered her hand, dusting off her clothes. "If my clothes get burnt, I'm billing the lizard."
Above us, unaware of the barrier, Varania opened her arms. The mana in the atmosphere screamed as it was forcibly fused with her own infinite supply.
"ꦭꦁꦒꦁ ꦈꦫꦸꦧꦶꦫ ꦠꦤ꧀ ꦏꦼꦤ ꦥꦠꦶ"(Langgang urubira... Tan kena pati)
"Its flame is eternal... Unable to die!" I whispered the final translation.
She looked down at the world, her reptilian eyes glowing white.
The mana ignited. It didn't explode outward; it imploded into a dense, swirling sphere of superheated plasma. A second sun was born, hanging ominously in the sky.
The frost that had gripped the world shattered instantly. The grey clouds evaporated. The terrifying, hungry silence of the frozen forest was broken by the hissing of steam and the groan of thawing wood.
The crimson light washed over us, bathing the Great Canopy in an eternal twilight.
"It is done," the Dryad Elder whispered, falling to her knees in exhaustion.
But Orla and Muranu weren't looking at the sun. They were still looking at me.
The crimson light washed over the world, bathing the Great Canopy in an eternal, eerie twilight.
"It... it worked," Orla gasped, looking at the horizon.
Through the translucent blue of Chis's barrier, we could see the distant edge of the forest. The expansion toward the Human Realm had stopped. The massive wall of vines that had been threatening the capital hesitated.
"The army reports the roots are retreating!" Muranu's voice shouted from the box, sounding relieved. "They are turning back!"
""Aye..." the Dryad Elder whispered. Her eyes widened, but not with relief. With horror. "They turneth back... hither."
The silence broke.
It sounded like an earthquake, but it was coming from the surface. The endless sea of the Great Forest, which had been stretching outward, suddenly convulsed.
Like a starving beast spotting fresh meat, the entire forest pivoted.
Billions of trees, vines, and roots turned their attention to the single, blinding heat source in the sky: Varania.
And directly below Varania... was us.
"We must depart. Now," the Elder urged, raising her trembling staff to attempt a teleportation spell. "I... I cannot holdeth them back! They hearken not to my voice no more!"
"Wait."
I grabbed the Elder's wrist, stopping her. My eyes were fixed on the wall of timber rushing toward us. The sheer mass of it was terrifying—a chaotic, hungry ocean of wood driven by instinct.
"If we leave now, we lose everything," I said, my voice steady. "Elder, look at them. Really look at them."
"They art mad! They art monsters!" she cried.
"No," I corrected her. "They are starving. Remember my theory?"
The Elder froze, her eyes wide. "The... what dhou toldst me?"
"When you kidnapped me and dragged me to see the 'Corruption,' I told you it wasn't a disease," I said, shouting over the roar of the crushing wood. "I told you the forest wasn't dying; it was trying to grow. It was stuck in the Vegetative Phase, aggressively expanding because it didn't have enough energy to reach the next stage."
I pointed at Varania, blazing in the sky like a new star.
"You asked me to fix it, Elder. You asked me to save your home." I looked her in the eye. "I couldn't do it before because we lacked the fuel. But now?"
I gestured to the screaming Dragon above us.
"We have the ultimate fertilizer."
"Dhou... dhou believest they seek to bloom?" The Elder looked at the rushing roots with a new understanding.
"It is the only logical conclusion. If we run, they consume the sun and keep expanding until they eat the world. But if we let them finish the process..." I turned to Chis. "Chis, drop the barrier."
"Hah?" Chis glared at me. "If I drop this, you are dead."
"No. If you drop this, you prove my theory right. The roots don't want us. They want to complete the cycle."
"You are gambling with your own life on a theory, Darya?" Chis hissed, her red eyes narrowing.
"It's not a gamble," I said calmly. "It's biology."
Chis hesitated for a split second, looking between me and the wall of wood. Then she sighed. "Well then, Darya."
She snapped her fingers. The blue barrier vanished.
"NAY!" The Elder shrieked, shielding her face.
The tsunami of roots crashed in. But just as I predicted, they didn't slam into us. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, the massive vines surged past us, ignoring the Dryad and the Vampire, weaving around the Great Canopy and racing desperately upward toward the heat.
The wind roared as tons of wood rushed toward the sky.
"VARANIA!" I bellowed.
"WHAT?!" The dragon roared back, looking down at the tentacles reaching for her.
"DON'T BURN THEM! LET THEM GRAB YOU!"
"ARE YOU CRAZY?! THEY WILL DARE TO TOUCH ME?"
"JUST DO IT! FEED THEM! HELP THEM GROW UP!"
Varania grinned—a wild, feral grin. "FINE! CHOKE ON IT!"
She didn't explode. Instead, she flared her aura, releasing the full, unrestrained power of the Kakawin chant.
The massive vines slammed into the sphere of the Second Sun. But instead of burning to ash, they drank it. The ancient mana fused with the biological matter. The roots wrapped around Varania, forming a massive cocoon in the sky.
The forest shook violently.
"It is... as dhou said," the Elder whispered, watching the spectacle with awe. "They were not attacking... they were begging."
The aggression stopped. The shaking ceased.
The forest had eaten the sun, and now, it finally had the energy to finish the metamorphosis it had been attempting for years. The biological imperative took over. The expansion reflex died instantly, replaced by the urge to reproduce.
The vines around Varania began to pulse. The dark, corrupted green turned into a vibrant, glowing translucent gold.
Whoosh.
A shockwave of pollen and light exploded outward.
High above us, the cocoon unraveled. It didn't open as a chaotic mess of roots; it opened as petals.
A single, gigantic flower—the size of a city—bloomed in the heavens, with Varania's sun acting as its glowing pistil. The light it cast wasn't the angry red of a false sun, but a soft, miraculous pink.
"It hath stopped..." The Elder whispered, falling to her knees, tears streaming down her face. "The roots... they move no more."
"Of course not," I said, dusting off my clothes. "A plant in bloom has no energy left to conquer."