Chapter 210: Guardian of the Skyvine
Kai and Sera stepped through the massive archway, and the summit opened up in front of them.
Nothing like the climb.
Instead of dense, crowded trees, a vast circular canopy spread out ahead, wide enough that the far edge blurred into mist. Giant flowers bloomed between ancient roots, petals the size of dinner tables. Small waterfalls ran across the branches in quiet threads before spilling off the edge and disappearing into the clouds below.
The air was calm.
Too calm.
Sera smiled. "So this is the top."
Kai nodded.
"Worth the climb."
For a few moments, they simply walked, taking it in. Then Kai slowed near one of the roots, something catching his eye.
...
Carved into the surface of the root, faint and half-swallowed by moss, was a symbol. A circle with a single branching line through the center, repeated in a ring around the base of the largest tree.
Sera crouched beside him.
"That wasn’t natural."
Kai traced the edge of one carving with his finger.
"No."
Further along, more of the same symbol appeared, spaced evenly around what looked like the remains of a shrine, stones arranged in a loose circle, worn smooth by wind and time.
"An old dungeon?" Sera asked. "Before this one?"
Kai studied the arrangement.
"Or a marker. Something that was already here before the dungeon formed around it."
He didn’t get to look longer.
Branches rustled overhead.
...
The summit was home to the dungeon’s strongest normal monsters, and they arrived in pairs, dropping from the canopy and rising out of the roots at the same time.
[Skyvine Hunter – Level 61]
[Bloom Serpent – Level 62]
One leaped through the trees toward them. Another struck up from beneath the roots, aiming for their footing.
Kai and Sera didn’t even slow down.
Instead, they kept walking through the summit while fighting, the way people might walk through a crowded street while brushing off jostling shoulders. Kai cut down whatever appeared in front of him without breaking stride. Sera intercepted attacks from the sides, spear sweeping wide, never more than half a step behind him.
The whole fight felt less like combat and more like clearing a path, two experienced hunters brushing routine obstacles out of their way.
...
One of the fallen Skyvine Hunters dropped something heavy into the grass. Kai picked it up without slowing, swapping his sword for the newly claimed Rootbreaker.
He swung it once, testing the weight.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through a nearby cluster of roots, and several monsters were launched backward, crashing into the trunks behind them.
Kai raised an eyebrow.
"...Not bad."
Sera grinned.
"My turn."
She equipped the Verdant Fang, the long emerald spear catching the light as she settled into her stance. The moment she thrust it forward, a crescent of compressed wind tore loose from the tip, slicing clean through a row of vines before it reached the monsters behind them.
She laughed.
"I like this one."
Kai nodded.
"It suits you."
The remaining monsters fell quickly after that, the two of them settling into their new weapons without missing a beat.
...
Blue windows appeared.
[Level Up!]
Kai
58 → 59
Sera
60 → 61
The increase wasn’t dramatic. But both of them noticed it immediately. Mana moved more smoothly through their bodies. Their movements felt a fraction lighter, a fraction sharper.
Sera stretched, rolling her shoulder.
"...I could get used to this."
Kai smiled.
"We’re not done yet."
...
The summit fell silent.
Leaves stopped moving. Even the waterfalls seemed to quiet down, their sound dropping to something barely audible.
A massive root rose slowly from the center of the arena.
Then another.
Then another.
They weren’t roots.
They were legs.
A gigantic emerald mantis unfolded out of the ground, bark-like armor plating its body, forearms shaped into long, sharpened blades. Its eyes glowed bright green, fixed on them the moment it finished rising.
[Skyvine Sovereign Mantis – Level 65]
The instant it appeared, every vine throughout the arena shivered to life at once, the whole summit reacting like a single nervous system.
Kai smiled.
"There it is."
...
The mantis moved first, faster than something its size had any right to be. Every clash between it and Kai sent wood splintering into the air, its bladed forearms slicing clean through tree trunks that stood in the way.
Sera stayed close, blocking attacks aimed at Kai from angles he couldn’t see. At one point, a dozen vines erupted from the ground beneath him without warning, and Sera intercepted every one of them with a single sweeping strike, gold light trailing off her spear.
Kai glanced back.
"Thanks."
"You can buy dinner."
"You already ate mine yesterday."
"Fair point."
...
The mantis retreated into the canopy, and the fight changed shape entirely. Hundreds of roots burst from every direction at once, the battlefield itself turning hostile.
Kai’s eyes narrowed as he cut through the nearest wave.
"If we keep cutting vines..."
"...we’ll never reach it."
Sera watched the pattern of the roots as they surged, timing them against the mantis’s movement overhead.
"The roots are reacting after it moves."
Kai understood immediately.
"So..."
"You keep them off me."
She smiled.
"I was waiting for you to say that."
...
Sera changed roles completely. Instead of attacking, she became Kai’s shield, intercepting vines before they reached him, tearing through roots the moment they broke the surface, carving out openings in the chaos.
Kai focused entirely on offense, Spectral Shift carrying him through the wreckage again and again, closing distance the mantis kept trying to deny him, landing heavier strikes with the Rootbreaker each time he found an opening.
Eventually the mantis overextended, too many roots under its control at once to track them all. Sera tore through the last barrier of vines protecting it. Kai phased through its final, desperate slash, appearing just inside its guard.
One clean strike.
Silence.
The mantis dissolved, its massive body breaking apart into drifting motes of green light.
...
Blue windows filled the air.
[Dungeon Cleared.]
[Distortion Applied.]
[Perfect Completion Bonus.]
[Exceptional Reward Quality Confirmed.]
Rewards spread out across the ground where the mantis had fallen.
Skyvine Core (Rare). Mantis Blades, still faintly warm. Canopy Silk, impossibly light. An Ancient Growth Seed, dark and heavy, humming faintly with contained mana. High-grade mana crystals. A single Rare Skill Crystal, pulsing gently on its own.
Sera whistled.
"...That was worth climbing."
Kai picked up the Ancient Growth Seed, turning it over in his palm. It was heavier than it looked, dense in a way that didn’t match its size.
"I think this is the rarest drop."
She nodded, eyeing it.
"And the heaviest."
...
Before they could pack it all away, Kai’s eyes drifted back toward the ring of worn stones they’d found earlier, near the shrine circle with the strange branching symbol.
Something had changed.
One of the stones had shifted, tilted slightly out of place, as if the mantis’s fall had jarred something loose beneath the summit. A narrow gap now sat where the stone had been, dark and cool, leading down into the roots.
Sera crouched beside it, peering in.
"...Should we?"
Kai knelt next to her, feeling a faint pull of mana from somewhere below, steady and old.
"It’s not part of the objective."
"That’s never stopped you before."
He almost reached in. Then the ground beneath them gave a low groan, and dust sifted down from the canopy overhead.
[Dungeon Collapse Initiated.]
Kai pulled his hand back.
"Later."
Sera stood fast, already moving.
"Convenient timing."
"I’m sure it’s still here next time."
...
The summit began shaking. Giant branches cracked apart overhead, roots unraveling from the ground in long, snapping coils, and the massive archway behind them split down its center with a sound like a tree falling.
Kai and Sera didn’t panic. They ran.
Instead of retracing the long climb back down, the collapsing dungeon offered them a shortcut of its own making, falling branches stacking into a long, sloped, splintering slide that curved down through the canopy toward the exit far below.
Sera laughed the entire way down, wind tearing at her hair, bark and leaves flying past on either side.
"I think this is faster."
Kai smiled, riding the slide beside her.
"I think it’s trying to throw us out."
Moments later, they leaped through the Gate together, light swallowing them whole.
Behind them, the Skyvine Forest disappeared. The fracture in reality sealed shut, the wind that had carried it stilling into nothing.
Sera looked back once, toward where the gate had been.
"...That was fun."
Kai nodded, the shrine and the strange dark gap beneath it still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.
"Yeah."
Then the two of them turned and walked back toward the city together, the Ancient Growth Seed a quiet weight in Kai’s pocket.