The forest was filled with goblins.
Dozens of them. Growling. Screeching. Sharp teeth, sharper blades.
In the middle of it all, one guy was laughing.
"Catch me if you can, you fungus-faced freaks!"
Seo Min Jae flipped over one goblin's head, ducked under another, and moonwalked across the puddle. Not a single scratch on him. Yet.
"I'm over here! No, here! Wait—psych! Missed again, suckers!"
He backflipped off a rock, spun mid air, and landed with his tongue out.
"Too slow, you're all so slo—OW."
He stepped on a twig.
A tiny one.
The goblins didn't hit him.
Nature did.
Min froze. Looked down at the stick lodged beneath his sandals.
"...it poked me."
He dramatically dropped to his knees.
"Ahriee… I've been wounded. Gravely."
Ahrie Von Creed, their so-called healer, was busy kicking a goblin into the tree.
He wiped the blood off his rapier and looked over. "You're a tank. Tank it."
"I dodged twenty goblins and the earth is what gets me?"
Min clutched his foot like it had been severed. " Why do we even wear sandals in combat?!"
"Good question," Ahrie said, cracking his knuckles. "Let me fix it."
"No, wait—" Min replied.
A dull thrum filled the air. Ahrie's Fist slowly glows.
[skill activated: P.A.I.N. - Physical Aid Initiated by Neutralization]
Ahrie punched Min in the face. H-a-r-d.
The impact echoed. He was sent flying.
Min's eyes bugged out. "Eh?..."
"WHY—WHY DID YOU— YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HEAL—"
"And I did," Ahrie said, smiling menacingly. "See pain gone, right?"
"No! You just added more pain! " Min replied while sulking.
"Deal with it, tough guy…" Ahrie said while holding his laughter.
"...damn it." Min was still sulking.
Meanwhile—
On the far side of the battle field, Zhang Lianhua, their calculative mage stood in absolute stillness.
Her eyes were shut.
Her hands raised above her head in an intricate pose.
Her spell shard floated around her like tiny shards of glass, linking themselves to the enemies one by one.
"Plan A. Two more seconds. Just two more sec—"
Something squealed.
Then thump.
Then—
Bonk.
A tiny rock bounced off her forehead.
Her eyes twitched.
"ROCKY"
The squirrel was on her head, spinning like a Beyblade.
"I swear, I will roast you over an open flame and use your tail as a spell brush—!" Lianhua shouted.
"Hey! He's sensitive about his tail" Kokoro Hanabira shouted, the summoner, who sat cross-legged nearby, sipping tea she didn't have ten seconds ago. "Besides—look."
Rocky launched another rock. It bounced off a goblin's helmet—bounced off into the wall—spun a trap lever—and released a spiked log that crushed three goblins.
Koko grinned at the fourth wall. "Totally intentional. Every bit of that was planned. Hehehe~,"
"Rocky's way is more useful than you think…And author, if you kill him off, I swear I'll rewrite my skill tree into necromancy and bring him back myself."
She paused, glancing at the readers. "Also, yeah, I saw you roll your eyes. Just wait, okay?.. Rocky's a chaos genius. You'll see."
Lianhua looked around confused.
She asked Koko…"Who are you talking to?".
Rocky turned toward the camera and dabbed.
Zhang Lianhua slowly lowered her arms.
"...Plan A failed. Initiating Plan B."
"What's Plan B?" Koko asked.
"I will explode you first, then the goblins."
Back on the other end—
Sylphae Vell'trana, the archer, trembled as she pulled her bowstring.
"One arrow. One shot. Just breathe. Aim. Breathe. Aim—"
A nearby goblin coughed.
She panicked.
"AAAHHHHH—!"
She loosed the arrow.
It went the wrong direction.
Seconds later—
The entire forest behind them erupted into a thunderous explosion.
Trees fell.
Birds screamed.
Animals evacuated.
A mountain in the distance cracked.
Everyone froze.
Ahrie blinked. "Uh…"
Sylphae smiled shakily. "Did I hit—it—?"
She fainted.
Min stared at the hole in the horizon. "...Yeah. You hit something."
Ahrie whistled, then shrugged. "Well, at least she didn't aim at us this time."
And in the center of it all–
Rocky sat on a fallen goblin's head, arms crossed, flipping his middle finger off at everyone.
The party of five (plus one squirrel) stood amidst the wreckage of what had once been a goblin stronghold.
Silence.
Chaos.
Victory?
Ahrie stood in the middle, laughing. "Best party ever."
Year: 2029
A root appeared.
No warning.
No origin.
Just one massive ancient looking root, alive.
It wrapped itself around the earth.
Cities watched as streets split apart. Mountains shifted. Borders beneath thick, bark-like coils.
Across every country, the same questions pop up in everyone's minds.
"What is that?"
By the time the sun rose, it already covered the entire world.
The root's end floated in the pacific ocean.
[ 12 hour news | On-site report ]
" We're live at the tip of what scientists are now calling the root of the World Tree.
The surface is warm, There's steam rising from the impact zone. And underneath there's a sound. A low rhythm like breathing."
[ CMM News | Emergency Broadcast ]
"We've confirmed an entrance near the root's tip. Roughly 100 meters wide. It's too dark to see what's inside, all we can see is the pattern on the entrance, almost resembling a veins.
We don't know what's inside.
We don't know if we should go in.
The world paused.
Governments scrambled.
Theories exploded online. A blessing? apocalypse?, a warning?.
Before anyone could decide which one to believe—
The monsters came.
No signal. No lightshow. No countdown.
They emerged from the entrance. One by one, then all at once.
Running, Climbing, Crawling.
A trickster, small, agile monster with glowing veins and leaf-like ears.
Two to three feet tall.
Their smiles stretch too wide.
At first, humanity mistook it for a joke. A strange small creature who seems cute, barely waist high.
"Yo, what is this?" the camera shook slightly as the camera man zoomed in.
"I dunno," the reporter said, half-smiling. "Looks kinda cute though."
Then it opens its mouth.
Not to speak, but to scream.
One pounced.
Then another.
By the time the first field team screamed back, it was already too late.
They tore through clothes and flesh, moving in unpredictable patterns.
Blood splattered by the lens.
Laughed while they hunted.
They weren't scouting, they were playing.
And earth was their new forest.
After they tore through the reporters—camera still rolling, mics crushed beneath clawed feet—they didn't stop.
They Spread.
Some clambered upwards, using the root of the world tree like a highway across the continent.
Others dove straight into the ocean, vanishing beneath the waves.
They didn't wait.
They didn't rest.
North. South. East. West.
No warning. No pattern. No mercy.
The invasion started.
United Stated — New York City
"Yo, is that part of a movie or somethin?"
A guy raised his phone to record the tiny creature near time square.
"Looks like a mascot for some promo, bro," his friend laughed, sipping iced coffee.
The creature tilted its head, blinking slowly.
Then it leaped—sinking its sharp wooden claws into a person's leg.
Screams erupted. Blood hit the pavement.
"What the f—!?"
Chaos broke loose. Sirens wailed. People scattered.
Nobody was laughing now.
China — Beijing, Wangfujing
"Zhè shì shénme?" a shopper asked, staring at the small creature near the vendor stall.
"It's... moving?" her friend whispered.
"Bù kěnéng..." the shopper muttered, backing away quickly.
The crowd froze, then erupted into chaos.
Japan — Shibuya Crossing
"Nani sore? Some kind of mascot?" a highschooler asked, tilting her head as she spotted the tiny creature standing near the edge of the crosswalk.
"Kawaii… kinda looks like a tree pokemon," her friend said with a grin, snapping a photo.
At first no one noticed—until a loud scream cut through the crowd.
It had moved. Fast. slashing a woman's arm.
"Yabai…" the student froze.
Her friend took a step back, voice trembling. "Uso da…this isn't a joke…"
Shibuya's hum turned into panic.
Malaysia — Penang, Tertiary School
A student was walking down the hall when she noticed something out of place.
"Eh, apa tu?" she whispered, pointing at the tiny creature darting across the floor.
Her friend squinted. "That's... weird. Looks like a kid cosplaying."
Before they could react, the creature hopped up onto a locker, its claws scraping against the metal.
"Lari! Lari!" the student screamed, eyes wide in terror.
The creature grinned manically, leaping toward them. The hallway erupted into chaos as students bolted for the exits.
Russia — Red Square, Moscow
"Chto eto? Some kinda snow statue?" a man muttered, narrowing his eyes at the motionless figure near Lenin's Mausoleum.
"Stranno… little footprints?" his friend asked, brushing snow off his coat.
Children nearby giggled, tossing snowballs—until one hit the creature.
It flinched. Turned.
"Blyat…" the man whispered, watching sharp bark-like limbs sprout from its back.
The kids screamed.
"Ukhodi! Get away from there!" someone shouted as the creature bolted forward, knocking over a souvenir stand.
Snow turned red.
Philippines — Batanes, Fisherman's Wharf
"Ano 'yan?" a fisherman muttered, squinting at the small creature crawling along the shore.
"Di ko alam… parang… parang isang uri ng hayop?, oh kung ano man yan!?" his friend said, adjusting his fishing hat.
The creature grinned, then lunged forward, sinking its claws into the fisherman's throat.
The creature laughed, a chilling sound, before disappearing into the chaos, leaving the wharf in silence.
South Korea — Seoul Station
"Is that kid Dressed up?" an office worker asked, slowing down as he noticed a small figure standing besides a food stand.
"Aniya…jeogeon ae aniya," an old man muttered beside him, eyes narrowing.
The creature leapt—slashing clean through the food stall.
"What do we do?! What do we—" the office worker panicked,
"Dumangchyeo! Jigeum!" the old man shouted, grabbing his arm.
Screams followed. The crowd broke into a frenzy.
Humanity tried to fight back, a lot of people died in the process.
"Go to the safe zone! This way!"
—a soldier shouted as the building burned behind him
They used everything they had—guns, bombs, drones to kill these strange creatures.
They called them Tree Imps.
By 2032 Humans finally won.
But nearly half of the population was gone.
Leaders from every country met in an underground base.
"We drop a nuclear bomb at the tip of that giant root," one said.
"It might stop it," said another.
"That's all we have left."
They agreed.
The bomb dropped.
Everyone waited.
But nothing happened.
The root didn't burn. It didn't break.
The whole world went silent.
Shocked.
They built it out of desperation.
A colossal base wrapped around the tip of the World Tree called Firewall.
It wasn't hope.
It was a barricade.
A please don't come back.
Every government leader knew, the next wave wouldn't leave survivors.
They formed a plan.
Not an army this time.
A unit.
Fifty rookies—selected not by medals or politics, but by sheer potential.
Not veterans, but promising. Young. Hungry Survivors.
Fifty elite soldiers handpicked to observe, to map, to learn and survive inside the world tree.
A scout unit.
Each country sent their best candidates. Among the 195 countries on Earth, only fifty were chosen.
The top twenty were combat elites—fighters sent by the countries known for their military edge.
The United States, Russia, China, Israel, South Korea, Japan—each sent two.
India, Brazil, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Turkey, Ukraine, and the Philippines—each sent one.
The rest were specialists. Picked for their precision, endurance, instinct and adaptability.
Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan.
Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Australia.
Spain, Poland, Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria.
Singapore, Romania, Bangladesh, Colombia and the Netherlands.
Fifty in total.
Grouped into one unit. Trained for years in isolation.
In 2034, they were sent inside the World Tree.
No one ever heard from them again.
No signal. No footage. Nothing.
And then, just like that, the monster attacks stopped.
Not a single breach since.
Earth held its breath.
And waited.
People speculated.
Some said they were fighting a silent war to keep Earth safe.
Others believed they were already dead—swallowed whole by the World Tree.
Five years later… They returned.
Only eleven.
Miles Carter — United States.
Anika Mehta — India.
Takeda Ren — Japan.
Noah Lefebvre — Canada.
Eun Seulgi — South Korea.
Lukas Schneider — Germany.
Caio Moreira — Brazil.
Callum Hayes — United Kingdom.
Raka Santoso — Indonesia.
Rayyaan Sylvani — Malaysia.
Zeke Alvaran — Philippines.
No longer in uniform.
They came back in armor—worn, scratched, almost medieval.
Real. Heavy. Forged. Used.
Their aura had changed. Cold. like soldiers from another world.
They held a press conference.
What they revealed shook the whole world.
___________________________________________
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