Chapter 181. The Verdant Dread!
(Third Person POV)
At last, the creature Lorraine had summoned hauled itself into full view with a guttural roar that didn’t sound like it came from its lungs, but from deep within the planet’s core. Its body was a tangled mass of roots and bark, twisted into a hulking shape that barely resembled anything human. Jagged wooden spines jutted from its shoulders like broken spears. Its torso creaked with every breath, splitting open in places to reveal oozing sap and glowing, water-filled channels coursing through its core.
Two glowing eyes blinked open in the center of its knotted head—if it could even be called a head. No mouth... not at first.
Then the bark split.
Long. Vertical. Lined with wooden fangs that groaned as they spread open.
It screamed.
The sound was like a storm tearing through dead trees—howling, furious, unnatural.
Anna stood frozen for a heartbeat.
The monster loomed behind Lorraine like a god of rot and ruin, its limbs twitching with coiled violence. The air around it pulsed with magic so dense, it felt like breathing in mud. Vines snaked across the broken ground, writhing toward her boots as if tasting the air.
The arena had gone dead silent—until the commentator finally broke the tension with a shocked cry.
"NO WAY... ISN’T THAT... THE VERDANT DREAD?!" the commentator exclaimed. "I’VE NEVER SEEN ONE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!"