Kanade’s grasp faded away; however, the black nothingness turned into a gray one. Han lay there. Stared at the Phantom Realm’s bleak clouds. Unmoving. He was not sure how much time had passed, though it was long enough for him to realize that thought. He sat up, waving off the thick tangible fog from his face and stomach.

  “Why? I knew… I literally knew it was a shitty fucking idea, but why?” He barely audibly muttered since he had clutched his knees, burrowing his head between them and his forearms. “If, if… IF! Damn it. Please… let t-them be safe.” Amidst the Phantom Realm, a bright red light instantly got his attention.

  [ WARNING | WARNING | WARNING ]

  [ LOW HEALTH | LOW HEALTH | LOW HEALTH]

  “...What?” He blankly jolted to his feet up staring at the pop-ups that kept increasing in count. “Egstoss, egstoss! EGSTOSS! DAMN IT! LET ME BACK IN PLEASE! PLEASE! Please…” His knees crashed into the ground without a sound; next were his hands that were under the fog.

  Even if he ignored the first mistake, that was embodying Pochirin. They were nowhere near strong enough to reach the 30th floor. The welcoming atmosphere infected his judgment. And now, he was suffering the consequences he knew about.

  Just as all hope was leaving his body, a blue light appeared. No, it was akin to a blue sun. It shifted the clouds above and instantly got rid of the clouds, turning the whole place blindingly bright. He barely had time to blink when a vivid pain in his chest made itself apparent.

  What the fuck?

  Everything took a moment to register. He was high up, maybe ten or so meters from the tree roots below, and that was it. The huge leaves that surrounded him made it troublesome to see anything past them. Seeing as how there was no ground under him, he finally glanced back at his burning side.

  A branch was shoved through his chest and poked out of his left side, yet it seemed to be a mild inconvenience as he didn’t feel any of it. Slowly, it settled in, and he regretted spamming ? Egstoss ?. On the other hand, seeing as how Pochirin was low on health, he remarkably un-regretted that decision in a matter of seconds.

  Pull it out… and fall. No…

  He turned to the other, thicker side and began biting the branch. Pochirin’s immense jaw strength was enough to bite through half of it in a single chomp. Though, only half of it. Like a fish out of water, Han moved and shook.

  —Snap!

  He soared through the air, seeing what awaited him in the far distance, but then focused back on his predicament, shifting his weight to the right in an attempt to push it out with gravity.

  Phu—ghuu!

  Every semblance of oxygen escaped his body with a wheeze that seemed to get stuck. Nonetheless, he stumbled to his feet. This had to hurt. Yet, he wasn’t sure. He even glossed over his right front paw, which was not looking so good since it was out of place. The focus didn’t shift, but he needed to make sure he was safe first.

  While he seemingly was, it was also safe to assume that they were in a new world. The lush grass was way too vibrant and springy; aside from the blood, the grass went back to how it probably was.

  The tree that impaled him was huge; he had to guess that when a single leaf was the size of a human. Speaking of size, the hole they painstakingly fell through was right above it, and somehow it dwarfed the tree by its sheer size.

  He couldn’t overthink it at that moment, but they were seemingly in a cage of weird, wood-textured thorns that were absurdly big and numerous; they obscured everything akin to a twenty-meter wall around the tree. With a quick glance through and a few big sniffs of pure, unadulterated nature with a hint of something familiar, he went back at it.

  He gnawed on the thick, newly loosened branch. This time though, he managed to get a good grip. He began pulling; the sensation was fairly satisfying, akin to large, painless splinter but through your chest. Upon throwing the branch down, he used ? Egstoss ? twice, just in case, and finally honed in on that well-known scent.

  His chest closed up as he reached a sprinting pace, the air was unnaturally natural. Very refreshing and somehow tickled his nose. The wood cage wasn’t as big as he thought; he ran straight to the scent and saw them mere feet away. For a moment he paused. Didn’t think. Didn’t breathe.

  —Ba-dump Ba-dump… Ba-dump Ba-dump…

  —Thu-dum Thu-dum Thu-dum Thu-dum…

  Two distinct heartbeats, one faint and gentle, the other steadfast and filled to the brim with hope. Han caught himself as he sighed. The relief was something he couldn’t put into words.

  “W-we’re alive…” He whimpered to himself for a second.

  Hm?

  At a quick glance, the texture matched the ones they were surrounded by. Which was insane; the tree was big, but to cover the area like this didn’t seem possible. He slowly glossed over the wall and the lush grass and met eyes with Kanade. No, her gaze was far behind him. Her groggy expression curled into absolute dread, her brows frowned as if they were dragged upwards, and her lips sunk. Han wasn’t dumb and jolted backwards only to be met by nothing but the tree. His eyes glanced around until.

  What the fuck is that?!

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  An outline of a humanoid figure was blended—no, more like absorbed by the tree. Its stance was akin to a run with one knee visible and one outstretched arm that grew huge branches; at the tippy top was a face, a face of pure terror. All things considered, the figure had to be as tall as the root wall, maybe around twenty meters.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, but the bowling ball in his throat made itself apparent. There were no signs of life from what he could tell. What were the chances it would come back alive when they were here?

  V-Very… likely.

  By the time he turned back to Kanade, she seemed to have calmed down and was trying to wake up Berdrogh. He jumped off the tree roots; somehow, he was way higher than expected. Although he landed normally, that abrupt burst made him question something, but for now he checked up on them.

  “Aghh…” She helped Berdrogh sit up. His shield was nowhere to be seen, and so was his battle-axe. However, his armor was in a horrid condition, dirtied and dented to hell. Han was quite surprised he was even alive after taking the brunt of the fall.

  “Is that… alive?” Kanade immediately pointed. Berdrogh’s exhausted eyes took a moment to register the amalgam in the tree.

  “I do not know. These…” He glanced around, stopping a moment on the root wall. “These are uncharted lands.” Seeing as he wasn’t planning on continuing, she plopped down.

  “Did you see what happened?” Berdrogh asked with a pause to swallow his saliva. Han couldn’t answer, but Kanade should have seen Lionel do something.

  “It was that mage. It had to be.” As expected, she said.

  Obviously it’s him.

  “Damn…”

  “Let’s scout around. I’d rather not stay here…” She said her eyes didn’t leave the humanoid in the tree.

  “Mm.” Berdrogh shook his head. “We just survived. Live in that moment… Besides…” He gently pointed with his eyes. Her hands were shaking, and a lot at that. Following his gaze, she quickly put her hands together, leading her to notice Han’s chest fur was still wet with blood. Her moment of short panic faltered. Three times were enough for her to realize he wasn’t as weak as before. And in fact, he was far from it. Given their pause, he opened his menu.

  H-Holy…

  He and Pochirin achieved level 20. His heartbeat spiked when he glossed over his next passive, but he decided to read Pochirin’s first.

  ? Forgotten Devouring ? was an ability that allowed him to essentially have an attack for free. Unlike ? Bite of Obliviousness ?, this didn’t break his cloak passive. It even dealt more damage to confused enemies, and then if you were cloaked to begin with, there was another increase of damage. Instantly, he found the most optimal damage combo.

  Enable cloak, bite, and howl to return cloak, then devour.

  It had to be the best single-target attack pattern, however, every ability had an excessive cooldown. The cost was that he would need to sit uncloaked and without abilities for a while. But it had a big solution. What if he was strong enough to survive that allocated time?

  He barely held his giddy when he finally read his new passive, ? Paratance ?. He inherits 25% of his stats to the host and 1% more every five levels.

  Fuck! YES!

  To be fair, he already knew his enthusiasm was unwarranted in his current predicament. Since that meant that Pochirin, despite also being level 20, had the stats of at least 45. Though strong now, he gazed into the future. What if he managed to reach level 50?

  T-That’s… uh thir—thirty one percent!

  Since he and Pochirin would eventually reach level 50 around the same time, and Han’s body for some reason grows linearly in every single stat, if he calculated it correctly, it meant that he would impart 15 stat points into every single stat. Making Pochirin’s level 50 into an absolute menace. His joy was understandable, but then it paused as Lionel’s face entered his memory.

  That piece of shit…

  “I’d prefer to stay here, but…” Berdrogh stood up and swung his arms around in an attempt to stretch. “I’d also prefer to know how our surroundings look—” He stopped mid-stretch and gawked at how fast Han and Kanade got up.

  Han didn’t wait for them to say anything, seeing as how he was the safest. It was expected. There wasn’t many directions to go, as the root walls surrounded them equally, so he chose to move right up to it.

  The roots themselves were building-sized. They had twirled and spun chaotically, yet somehow managed to coil into a perfect circle around the tree; even the grass started blending with them. Moss and vines were abundant, sprouting thousands of little branches and handholds, and were possibly strong enough to hold a human.

  Up close a single curly root was immense. Han glanced back at the tree; it was big and all, but it couldn’t have been connected; the discrepancy was too big. Kanade, seemingly out of sheer curiosity, tried to stick her dagger in, weirdly enough, it bounced right off as if it were metal and it even made a similar thwonk sound. She glanced at the dagger and back to Berdrogh in surprise.

  “Hm…”’ He smiled and looked up at the wall. Since it didn't look like they were going to find the path up themselves, he didn’t wait for them to do so. Han grabbed one of the vines and pulled it. As he had guessed, it didn’t even budge.

  “Smart pooch. C’mere.” He waved Han closer and hoisted him on his shoulders. “Phuu, you’re gettin’ heavy.” Han ignored his comment and focused on the very important predicament.

  It just had to be some bullshit root walls.

  Unlike the tall walls, their climb didn’t need to be so. After around ten meters, Han jumped off Berdrogh’s shoulder onto the moss-covered wood. They were seemingly on the outer part of the wall, but seeing as they could follow the root to the top, Han insisted as such. While he technically shouldn’t, he just decided to go up first. He went up the inclining wood hill, managing to reach the summit and peek over.

  T-That’s…

  He was understandably speechless. The scenery was beautiful, yet scary. If he had seen a picture of it, he would be all for it, but he knew they would need to travel through it to escape. Soon, they arrived and then gawked alongside him.

  They were, quite evidently, still in a dungeon; this floor went further than he could see. Roots covered every inch of the places; the reason was that there were over a dozen amalgam trees and their root barriers, and some he could only see the top of the crown. The whole place was still somehow circular; the ceiling was over a hundred meters above them. As he glanced upwards, he was quick to note how every single one of the trees had the exact same hole they fell through initially. There was an exception.

  “You see that?” Kanade pointed out without glancing away. But neither of them really needed help in spotting it.

  “Yeah. Don’t need keen eyes to see that one.” He scoffed once.

  They were staring at the biggest tree of all; its crown was completely hidden inside one of the holes. And yet it was all burned. Charred. Whatever happened left it, and the area around it, ashy and dead. It screamed bad vibes to Han.

  “That’s—“

  “Far away? Berdrogh interrupted her.

  She promptly turned to him and smiled. “A path worth checking.”

  What?!