Part 3: Voices at the Veil
The veil fell while Yuji slept.
No warmth. No scent. No sound.
Just black.
Until green light shimmered—soft, rich, humming with the pulse of growing things.
He stood in a field of impossible bloom. Petals opened without wind. Vines curled toward his feet like animals seeking warmth.
And in the center, lounging on a stone arch, barefoot and absurdly serene—
Priapus.
The god of Fertility.
Youthful, but not young. His voice sounded like soil after rain.
"You've used the gift well, Kael."
Yuji didn't flinch.
"You gave it to me to save your world."
"And I still hope you will."
"But you're here because you're afraid I won't."
Priapus sat up, legs folded. "You misunderstand. I'm afraid you will. But not as yourself."
Yuji stepped forward. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Priapus ran a hand through his golden hair. "The Lich King isn't chasing you. He's mirroring you. Your gift and his nature—they're converging. The more you weaponize bloom, the more he learns to do the same with rot."
Yuji's jaw clenched. "Then you gave me a defective power."
"No. I gave you a force of creation. But you wield it like a sword."
"Because I have to."
Priapus stood.
And the field stopped blooming.
The color faded. The light dimmed.
Only Yuji's aura remained.
"Every time you make life grow in hatred, it doesn't bloom," Priapus said. "It feeds what lies beneath."
Yuji stared.
"I'm not asking permission."
"I'm not here to give it," Priapus replied. "I'm here to warn you."
The god stepped close. His hand hovered near Yuji's chest.
"There's a seed inside the rot. And it has your face."
Yuji opened his eyes.
Back in the waking world.
Sweat soaked his collar.
The grass outside the safehouse was growing in spirals.
And somewhere… something else was, too.
Part 4: Siege of Ashroot Vale
The ruins of Ashroot Vale sat like a broken jaw on the edge of the Redspine cliffs.
Old houses. Burnt prayer towers. Overgrown with thick vines… and not the natural kind.
These vines were rigid. Twisted in ritual spirals. Feeding off decay, not life.
Siora crouched beside a vine and hissed. "They're siphoning. This is Fertility magic—ours—but inverted."
Amelia knelt beside her. "Lovely. We've been plagiarized by necromancers."
Sylvia scanned the ridgeline through her scope. "Two guard towers. Glyph-cannons. Reinforced wards across the main chapel ruins."
Sacha smiled. "A wall's a welcome."
Yuji said nothing.
He stared at the center of the village.
Where once a spring had flowed, now stood a tree.
Dead, leafless.
Its roots bled red.
And bound at its base were bodies.
Still alive.
Still glowing with siphoned Fertility marks.
Amelia's voice dropped. "They're turning people into batteries."
Yuji's aura flared, unbidden.
The grass beneath his boots exploded upward.
"Go loud," he said.
The battle didn't begin. It detonated.
Sylvia struck from above—arrow through a runecaster's eye mid-sentence. Sacha slammed into a guard post, her warcry echoing like a storm. Amelia loosed a spell she hadn't named before—shadows that laughed as they swallowed limbs.
Yuji walked into the center.
His power radiated outward—not as light, but weight. Every blade of grass twisted toward him. Every dead root pulled.
He raised his hand.
A wave of gold surged outward.
Every spell in the chapel died.
And then—
A cleric in white emerged from the tree's roots.
Wearing robes inscribed with stolen glyphs.
And raised a fruit. Grown on the dead tree. Pulsing with living mana.
She bit it.
And screamed.
Then changed.
Her skin cracked open like bark splitting.
Her blood turned silver.
And from her back sprouted tendrils of bone and blossom.
Yuji stepped forward.
She smiled.
"I'm your garden now."
He answered with a single strike.
A bloom of life meant to unmake.
They won.
But only after Sacha broke three ribs.
Only after Amelia burned her own mana to keep Sylvia breathing.
And only after Yuji used a spell so massive it drained half his aura in a single heartbeat.
When it ended, the village was silent.
But the roots still moved.
And underground—
They heard it.
Breathing.