Yumina woke to darkness.
Her body hung suspended, cocooned in a nest of living roots that pulsed like veins beneath the earth.
She exhaled slowly. "Still alive..."
The roots constricted tighter, as if sensing her awakening. But before they could crush her, a faint shimmer of red light flickered from her eyes, and then the roots simply died, collapsing into brittle strands that turned to ash before touching the ground.
Yumina stood, brushing off dust. The lair stretched endlessly in all directions, organic tunnels, pulsing walls of wood and sap, strange luminous fungi glowing like veins of life. The sound of a distant heartbeat thudded through it all.
But one presence drew her attention: Alice.
The faint light of the girl's soul pulsed deep below, wrapped in suffocating darkness.
"Hmm… so he took her there."
Yumina started walking. Every step she took was deliberate, almost lazy. Soon, the first creatures appeared. Humanoid figures of bark and sap dragging themselves forward.
Root Wraiths.
Puppets of the Tree Demon.
They charged without sound. Yumina raised a finger.
"Perish."
They froze. Their bodies withered away into dust. More came. More fell.
Yet with every death, the ground trembled and the walls bled.
Yumina frowned. "So that's how it is…kill the puppets, and the master bleeds."
The deeper she descended, the heavier the air grew. The light dimmed. And finally, she entered the heart of the lair, a colossal chamber where the Tree Demon's true body merged with the land itself.
In its center, Alice floated midair, glowing faintly, her body wrapped in threads of crimson sap. Dozens of roots were latched to her, draining her energy into the demon's gnarled trunk.
From that trunk, a face emerged, distorted and half-human, eyes of yellow light and a mouth that twisted into a grin.
"Ahh… my guest of honor awakens," the Old Tree Demon said. "She's magnificent, isn't she? A being beyond your understanding. I never expected such divinity from a child. When I devour her essence, I will transcend this plane entirely."
So he wants to eat Alice, Yumina thought.
Yumina tilted her head. "Unfortunately, I can't let you do that."
The Demon laughed. "Kekekeke! Then die with your arrogance!"
The ground split. Spikes of sharpened wood erupted beneath her feet, but she had already moved, dodging them way before they had a chance of striking her. As long as the tree demon has the intent to harm or kill her, she would be able to sense the attack in advance.
However, differently from the other times, she did not immediately kill the attcker this time.
The Demon sneered. "You've noticed, haven't you? I am this land! My heart, my will, my roots, all one! If I die, this entire forest and underground will collapse, crushing you beneath it! Kekekeke!"
Hundreds of spikes shot at her, like a storm of spears. Yumina didn't even blink.Each spike that came close simply ceased to exist, selectively erased before it could touch her. The Demon felt it, the pain of something beyond destruction, a death of essence.
Yumina sighed. "What a pain. Looks like I'll have to make an effort after all."
The ground beneath her shifted again. The Demon snarled words of power, and the soil around her rose, compressing into a massive cube of stone that sealed her within.
"Kekekeke! You can't kill what isn't alive! Let's see you erase rock, brat!"
Inside the darkness, Yumina chuckled softly.
"That is…if my ability were only that limited."
She placed a finger against her forehead. "Apophasis."
A faint *clank* sound echoed, like a lock being undone.
The air itself trembled.
Outside, the Tree Demon paused. He could feel it, a presence awakening within the cube, something that made his roots recoil in instinctive terror. He poured all his power into the prison, forcing it to contract, crushing it tighter and tighter until it twisted into a sphere no larger than a coffin.
The ground rumbled. The pressure became unbearable.
Then...BOOM.
The stone imploded outward, disintegrating into dust. Standing amid the smoke, untouched, was Yumina. Her aura had changed, darker, heavier, and yet strangely radiant. Her hair now had shades of both black and white. The air bent around her, as though the world itself struggled to define her existence.
The Tree Demon trembled. "Impossible… no nullification, no counterspell…this must have come from her own body...". The Old Tree Demon wondered if she actually had some sort of hidden physical strength.
Yumina calmly walked forward towards Alice.
"Die!", screamed the Tree Demon.
Roots whipped out, spells flared, walls collapsed, yet nothing harmed her.
"What…what is this witchcraft?!" the Demon roared.
Yumina tilted her head and smirked. "Hehehe, scared?"
Her tone shifted, playful, dramatic, and oddly self-aware, almost as if her whole personality had changed.
"Truth be told, I hate using the true roots of my power. My inner otaku escapes, and it's all downhill from there."
The Tree Demon stared, utterly confused. "What are you saying?!"
In the past, Yumina was what many people called a "chunnibyou". This eventually began to negatively affect her social life, so she had to adapt. She studied and learned numerous methods to bury that extravagant self of her deep down, leaving only the bare minimum of a personality.
Now, the pandora box has been opened.
Yumina sighed, then raised one finger dramatically. "Now, you evildoer, will meet your end here!"
In an instant, she vanished, instantly reappearing beside Alice as if she teleported. The Tree Demon panicked and tried to drag Alice away, but Yumina extended her hand.
"Apophasis: Zero Vacuum."
The surrounding world warped.
For a brief moment, a section of space became empty, truly empty, stripped of air, energy, and matter alike. The sudden implosion of pressure pulled back Alice safely into Yumina's arms.
The Tree Demon froze. "A… a Matter Destruction ability? No way…"
He screamed, pulling all his roots together, fusing into a giant humanoid shape of wood and bark, glowing runes pulsing through its arms.
"You must die right here, right now!"
Magic surged through the cavern, boosting his body with layers of amplification, reinforcement, resistances, immunities, every spell he knew layered at once. The power was enough to pulverize a mountain with a finger. The giant Tree Demon raised his hand and brought his fist down to crush Yumina.
Yumina didn't flinch. She placed her left hand over her left eye, smirking.
"Kukuku…you attempt to crush me with your fist? Then behold…" She raised her right hand, power swirling around it like black mist, "…what a true fist looks like! World-End Fist!"
Their blows collided and the world trembled.
In truth, there wasn't a physical collision. Yumina's physical strength was no greater than the average human. What she carried in her fist wasn't physical power, but total annihilation. Absolute death.
*BOOM*
A shockwave erupted, tearing through the cavern and racing upward. The entire underground world convulsed, trees, roots, rock, all disintegrating under the dark radiance.
"NOOOO!", the Tree Demon was quickly engulfed by the dark wave, erasing not only his body completely but even his very connection to the forest and the underground.
When the light faded, nothing of the Tree Demon visibly remained. Only silence, and a crater stretching for a kilometer above. The open sky was now visible through the gaping hole in the earth.
Yumina stood in the center, holding Alice with one of her arms. The girl's breathing was steady again, her aura calm.
Yumina brushed a strand of hair from her face and muttered with a grin.
"In the end, everything returns to nothing. The stage of existence bows before me."
Then she blinked, realizing what she just said, and covered her face with her hand in shame, her face as red as tomato.
She then stepped forward and began walking toward the surface.