The tiger stepped forward.
The ground shook beneath its weight.
Then suddenly—
Both Myrren and Ilyth shifted back into their humanoid forms.
Bai, currently cradled in Ilyth's arms like a child, blinked in confusion.
"Why are you shrinking? Shouldn't you match it in size?"
Myrren scoffed.
"Are you dumb? Or genuinely foolish? Or both?"
Ilyth answered instead.
"We are living trees. Our strength comes from forests."
She gestured around the canyon.
"This place has no plant life. No natural trees survive here."
Bai froze.
"There shouldn't be any trees here," he said slowly.
He looked around the misty canyon.
"But there are."
Ilyth nodded.
"Yes. Every tree you've seen here… is us."
Bai swallowed.
Fighting that tiger in their giant forms, without preparation, would be suicide. A battle of raw strength would turn into attrition. And the canyon itself worked against them.
"Got it," Bai said. "So what do we do?"
The ground erupted.
Deep green vines burst from the earth, spreading in every direction, stabbing into soil, rooting themselves. Within seconds, a living domain formed, a forest inside a place where forests should not exist.
Myrren moved first. Her body dissolved into countless branches that split and split again, hundreds then thousands, twisting into grotesque shapes with dark, gnarled bark. Devil trees. Myrren herself had disappeared.
Bai stared at the space where she'd stood. Empty air. Just mist curling where a giant had been.
"Where did she go? Did she—did she just die?"
"No," Ilyth said calmly. "Myrren is every tree you see."
Bai opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. No words came. He was surrounded by thousands of trees, and every single one of them was Myrren.
Before he could respond, the tiger charged.
Its massive body smashed through the devil trees like paper. Trunks exploded under its claws, splinters spraying. The ground shook with each step.
Then Ilyth began to dissolve. Her arms loosened, and Bai dropped, catching himself on a root that rose to meet him. He stumbled back as her body unraveled into branches, each one sinking into earth, transforming into massive trees. But unlike Myrren's grotesque forest, Ilyth's trees were smooth and vibrant. Bright green. Alive. Yet something about them felt poisonous.
Two forests grew together. Decay and vitality. Death and life. And Bai stood in the middle, surrounded by beings that had forgotten he was small enough to break.
Suddenly his head began to buzz. A thousand voices whispered at once.
*Do not refuse.*
The world tilted. Bai pressed a hand to his head, but the ground kept shifting under him.
Before he could react, a branch launched him into the air. The tiger was still charging through Myrren's devil trees below. Then the world became a blur of green and shadow.
"WAIT—"
His momentum slowed halfway. Another branch caught him, then hurled him forward again. Tree after tree threw him across the forest like a living projectile. Branches whipped past his face, close enough to tear skin. He had no control. No direction. Just motion.
Then—impact.
He collided face-first with fur.
Four burning eyes stared directly at him, close enough that he could see the rot in the wounded socket where the fifth eye should have been. Hot breath washed over him, carrying the stench of old meat.
Bai's mind went white. He was on the tiger's face. He was on its face.
The tiger swatted him away.
The world became pain. He hit something. A tree, the ground, he couldn't tell and the impact crushed the air from his lungs. He vomited immediately, golden bile spilling onto roots that curled away from the mess.
"Would it kill you to soften the landing?" he gasped.
Then a voice spoke inside his mind. Soft, but layered with countless identical tones.
Your fifteen seconds start now.
Before he could respond, two branches shot from the canopy, not to catch him, but to arm him. They wrapped around his forearms, sharpening into blade-like extensions. Then the forest hurled him again, straight toward the tiger's back.
He slammed into fur, grabbed hold. The branches uncoiled from his arms and wrapped around the beast's torso, binding them together. Thick coils. Immovable.
Bai finally regained his balance.
Then looked down.
His stomach turned.
He was staring directly at the tiger's anus.
"No."
The word came out small.
"No no no—"
But the tiger didn't struggle against the bindings. Instead—it crouched.
Bai's blood went cold.
The tiger leaped.
A blast of foul gas exploded from beneath him, hot and wet against his legs. The beast launched into the air, rising higher, higher—
It wasn't trying to escape.
It was planning to land on him.
If it hit the ground, he would absorb the entire impact. And if the tiger landed directly on him, four tons of muscle and bone, he would become paste.
The beast continued rising. Below, the forest shrank to a carpet of green.
Then the canopy responded. Massive branches formed a lattice overhead, weaving together in seconds. The tiger slammed into them, stopped, hung suspended for one terrible moment—
And began to fall.
Bai struggled desperately. The vines binding him were too thick. He clawed at them, tore at them, felt bark shred his fingernails. Nothing.
The ground rushed up toward them. Seconds left. Maybe less.
He didn't think.
He thrust both arms forward.
The sensation was wrong, soft, then tearing, then wet heat. His hands disappeared into flesh up to the wrists. The tiger's roar became a scream, high and horrible. Its body twisted violently, instinctively, trying to escape the violation.
It flipped itself over.
Instead of landing on Bai, the beast slammed face-first into the ground.
The impact drove through Bai's body. His vision went white. Something cracked in his chest. Golden blood sprayed from his mouth.
But he was alive.
He hung there, arms buried to the elbow, and for one frozen moment he didn't understand what he'd done.
Then he understood.
The warmth. The smell. The sounds the tiger was making, whimpers, wet and broken.
Bai stared at fur and blood and didn't move.
Didn't scream.
Didn't think.
Just hung in the bindings, arms inside a living thing, and waited for whatever came next.