The world held its breath for a single, silent heartbeat.
The Titan's Lance, a spear of pure, compressed earth, crossed the mire in an amber streak. It struck the Corrupted Grove-Heart's exposed core not with a shattering explosion, but with a sickening, wet thump. For a moment, nothing happened. The lance was simply embedded there, a shard of pure earth buried in a heart of pure corruption. The Grove-Heart froze. The chittering of the Thorn-Crawlers, the slithering of the vines—everything stopped. The entire mire fell into a dead, unnatural silence.
Lin Ke lay on the hillock, his own breath caught in his throat, his mind a blank slate of pure, unadulterated hope. Did it work? My god, did that actually work?
Then, the Grove-Heart began to shudder. It wasn't a death throe. It was a convulsion of pure, unrestrained agony. A silent, psychic scream erupted from the creature, a wave of anguish so powerful it washed over Lin Ke, making him physically recoil. The single, massive purple eye swiveled, its ancient intelligence gone, replaced by a raw, animalistic pain. It fixed its gaze directly on the Titan Vole, its one and only tormentor.
The vines and crawlers, released from their master's tactical control, suddenly swarmed forward in a mindless, vengeful tide, no longer trying to pin the Titan Vole, but to tear it to pieces.
"Get out of there! Get back!" Lin Ke screamed, his voice raw with desperation.
But the Titan Vole was already moving. Mortally wounded, its heart pierced, the Grove-Heart's control over the battlefield was faltering. The churning, broken earth his partner had created was no longer just a defensive moat; it was now a death trap for the mindless minions. The crawlers stumbled into the pits, the vines became tangled in the jagged rocks.
The Titan Vole, ignoring the deep, screeching gouges in its own armor, plowed through the disorganized horde in a brutal, ugly retreat. A crawler leaped onto its back and was promptly smashed to a pulp against a skeletal tree. A vine wrapped around its leg, and the Vole simply tore it apart with sheer, brute force.
It finally reached the edge of the mire and collapsed at the base of the hillock, its armored body battered, bleeding a strange, slow-oozing amber fluid from a dozen different wounds. But it was alive. It was out.
Lin Ke scrambled down the slope, his heart in his throat. He fell to his knees beside his partner, his hands hovering over the deep puncture wounds. "You did it," he breathed, a wave of relief so powerful it almost made him black out. "You magnificent, stubborn, crazy son of a… you did it."
He looked back at the mire. The Grove-Heart was dying. Its massive body was beginning to petrify, its corrupted wood turning into a brittle, black stone with a slow, grinding sound. The purple light in its core flickered like a dying candle. As its life force faded, so too did its influence. The remaining crawlers collapsed, their unnatural life extinguished. The writhing vines went limp, becoming nothing more than dead, thorny ropes. The weeping trees… stopped weeping. For the first time since he had entered these woods, the slow, steady drip of black sap ceased.
And then, something miraculous happened. A single, pure ray of the setting sun pierced the suffocating canopy, then another, and another. The oppressive gloom that had choked the forest for years began to recede, bathing the ghastly mire in a warm, golden light. It felt like a fever had finally broken. Lin Ke watched, stunned into silence. He hadn't just killed a monster. He had cleansed a wound in the world itself.
After what felt like a lifetime, he found the strength to stand. He recalled his wounded partner into the healing sanctuary of his Soul Pact, promising it the best care and a long, long rest. Then, with a deep, weary breath, he began the long walk across the now-pacified mire towards his prize.
He approached the petrifying corpse of the Grove-Heart. It was already beginning to crumble, turning to black dust that was carried away on the gentle breeze. But the Titan's Lance, and the object it had pierced, remained. He reached into the crumbling, petrified wood and pulled. The Corrupted Heart came loose with a soft, sucking sound. It was heavy, still pulsing with a faint, residual purple light, the rock spear still embedded deep within it.
He sat down right there, in the mud and the muck, ignoring the filth, and held the heart in his lap. It was time to see if the gamble had truly paid off.
"Editor," he commanded, his voice trembling with a mixture of exhaustion and giddy anticipation. "Analyze the specimen. Give me the numbers."
The Gene Editor's interface flared to life. He perceived the heart as a massive, dense reservoir of energy, and the analysis was instantaneous. The result, blooming in brilliant, dazzling text in his mind, made him laugh. A wild, unhinged, and utterly joyous laugh that echoed through the quiet, healing forest.
He perceived its quality first: Purity: High (87%). Then the quantity, a number so absurd, so wonderful, it shattered all his expectations: Raw Corrupted Gene Essence: 1,742 units.
He had done it. In one single, insane, impossible battle, he had acquired more than enough essence to complete the first, most critical step of his plan. But as the joyous laughter subsided, a cold, sobering thought pierced through the elation. He had just made a world-changing discovery about the nature of corruption, and his contract required him to submit a sample and a detailed report to Director Thorne. How could he possibly explain any of this without revealing everything? The path to awakening the god in his lab was now wide open, but it was a path that led through a new and dangerous minefield of secrets and lies.