Chapter 279: A Home Fit For A Snake
As [Verdure Parasite] continued to accelerate the growth of plant-flesh around me, I cast a careful eye towards the burgeoning tower-nest of Coreless. Unlike the other Coreless tower-nests in the area, this one was not built of stone or ragged lengths of darkwood.
Instead, it was forming in an unlikely place - the body of an offspring of the Darkwood Guardian. It had only taken me a few moments to realize what exactly the Coreless were trying to do, even if they were doing a poor job of it so far. Already, I could tell that carving a proper tower-nest out of it would take them a long time, with the speed they were working at. It had been many hours, and they’d done little more than carve out the space where a moving-wall might eventually go.
“...watch it! Cut too deep, and the whole tree will wither and die!” one of the Coreless shouted, a mixture of [caution] and [scorn] conveyed by his [Little Guardian’s Totem]. The object of his [scorn], a large male with a sharpened bit of ore-flesh raised up high, turned to scowl back.
“Nobody likes a busybody, Tal.” With that said - whatever it was that he’d said - the ore-flesh-wielding male turned back towards the tree, preparing to swing yet again.
Just as his arm began to fall down, the first Coreless responded. “Well, nobody likes a reckless idiot, either. Or do you want to be the one to explain to the Little Guardian that you killed his biggest tree and now we’ll need another one?”
The arm paused mid-swing, stopping short with enough force that I could make out bulging muscles beneath the male’s flesh. “...fair. Still needs to be done, though.” And then, with just a little bit more [caution], the Coreless swung the ore-flesh again. A chunk of darkwood split beneath it, and the other Coreless groaned.
I wasn’t sure why he was so [worried]. The Darkwood Guardian had been impressively hardy, able to survive and flourish despite much of its lower section being altered to form the nest of a Lesser Core. Its offspring were likely no different.
Deciding to help the Coreless along, I sent a mental command to the many, many spore-roots that intertwined themselves with the massive darkwood’s plant-flesh; all at once, they twisted and writhed, sending giant fissures splintering up from the smaller cracks that the Coreless had already created.
The air roared with the sound of shattering plant-flesh.