The staircase spat Kael out like something it had chewed on and decided wasn't worth digesting yet.
He landed face-first in soft black soil that smelled of copper and old funerals.
Floor 2: The Bone Orchard.
Rows upon rows of skeletal trees stretched into a bruised purple sky. Each trunk was a fused column of vertebrae and ribs, branches ending in finger-bones that twitched like they were still dreaming of strangling something. Pale, luminescent fruit hung from the higher limbs—each one a translucent skull the size of a child's head, eyesockets glowing faintly green.
They pulsed in rhythm.
Like heartbeats waiting to be stolen.
Kael's infant body had changed again during the ascent.
He was no longer a helpless newborn.
His limbs had lengthened slightly—still baby-soft, but now corded with faint grey muscle beneath ash-dusted skin. He could crawl. Fast. His fingers ended in tiny black claws that left scorch marks in the dirt.
[Current Status — Floor 2 Entry]
Age Equivalent: ~18 months (accelerated by absorbed soul mass)
Authority Rank: 1.9999% → 2.0001% (Floor Threshold Crossed)
New Passive: Bone Whisper (can commune with skeletal remains within 50m)
Voracious Maw Radius: 4m
Hunger Meter: 3.8% (Starvation Imminent — bonus damage when below 10%)
He was starving again.
Good.
Hunger made everything sharper.
A soft footstep crunched behind the nearest tree.
Kael's head snapped toward it.
A girl—no older than twelve in appearance—stepped into view. She wore tattered robes the color of dried blood, hood pulled low. One of her arms ended in a stump wrapped in blackened bandages; the other held a crooked staff topped with a tiny, still-beating heart impaled on a thorn.
Her eyes were mismatched: one silver, one completely black.
She tilted her head.
"You're the glitch baby everyone's whispering about," she said. Voice quiet. Almost kind. "The one who ate the Womb."
Kael didn't speak. He just stared.
She crouched slowly, keeping distance.
"I'm Mira. Floor 2 scavenger. Been stuck here… long enough that I stopped counting resets." She tapped the heart on her staff; it flinched. "This keeps me from turning into fertilizer. But it's almost dry."
She glanced at the glowing skull-fruit above them.
"Those things up there? They're souls that tried to climb and failed. The Orchard drinks them slow. If we work together, we can pluck one before the roots notice. Split the essence. You get stronger faster. I get another day."
Kael's system pinged.
[Entity Scan: Mira — "The Heartless Harvester"]
Threat Assessment: Variable (currently low)
Hidden Status: Betrayal Probability — 87% within next 30 minutes
Motivation: Survival + Greed
He crawled forward one step.
Mira smiled—small, careful.
"Smart not to talk yet. Okay. Deal?"
She extended her good hand.
Kael reached out with his tiny clawed fingers…
…and hooked them around her wrist.
Not a handshake.
A claim.
Mira froze.
Then laughed softly.
"Fine. Let's harvest."
They moved together through the rows.
Mira knew the safe paths—where the roots slept, where the trees were too full to lash out. She pointed to a low-hanging skull-fruit whose glow was dimmer than the rest.
"That one's ripe. Almost fallen. We take it, split the marrow, and run before the Grove Warden wakes."
Kael climbed her leg like a spider—small claws digging into cloth without breaking skin—and perched on her shoulder.
Mira raised her staff.
The thorn pierced the skull-fruit's temple.
Green light bled out.
She caught the leaking essence in a cracked vial hanging from her neck.
Half went to her.
Half she tipped toward Kael's open mouth.
He drank.
[Devoured: Fragment Soul — Failed Climber (E-rank)]
+Authority: +0.12%
+Hunger Reduction: -28.4%
+Skill Fragment Acquired: "Root Puppetry" (temporary control over skeletal roots)
Power surged.
His body grew again—now closer to a three-year-old in size, grey skin hardening into faint scale-like patterns.
Mira watched with something like awe.
"You really are a monster in diapers."
Then her expression changed.
The kindness vanished.
Her stump flared with black light.
A second heart—hidden beneath the bandages—beat once, violently.
Roots exploded from the soil beneath Kael.
Thick, barbed, fast.
They wrapped his legs, his arms, his throat.
Mira stepped back.
"Sorry, little king," she whispered. "The Grove Warden pays better for Sovereign meat than any fruit. And I've been hungry longer than you've been alive."
The roots tightened.
Kael's vision blurred red.
Hunger meter: 0.9%
Critical.
Perfect.
He didn't scream.
He laughed.
A baby's giggle laced with something ancient and starving.
[Voracious Maw — Triggered at Critical Hunger]
All restraints removed for 9 seconds
Devour Aura Radius: 15m
Bonus: Consumed entities grant ×3 soul mass
The roots around him withered instantly.
Black threads erupted from every pore in his skin—dozens of them—lashing like a storm of void whips.
They punched through Mira's chest.
Through her real heart.
Through the fake one.
Through the staff.
Through the roots holding him.
Everything unraveled toward his mouth.
Mira had time for one wide-eyed gasp.
"You—"
Kael swallowed.
Her body collapsed into grey motes.
[Devoured: Mira — The Heartless Harvester]
+Authority: +0.89%
+Total Authority: 3.011%
+Bloodline Fragment Acquired: "Cursed Harvester's Hunger" (increases devour efficiency against weakened targets by 40%)
+Memory Acquired: "The Grove Warden's True Name" (unlocks hidden path to boss arena)
Title Earned: Betrayer's Bane
Passive Evolution: Devour Aura now passively marks traitors (red outline visible only to user)
The Orchard noticed.
Every tree shivered.
Skull-fruit eyes snapped open.
Roots rose like an ocean.
And from the distant center of the grove, something massive groaned awake.
The Grove Warden.
A colossal tree-thing whose trunk was a cathedral of fused ribcages, crown a halo of screaming faces, roots spreading like a nervous system across the entire floor.
It spoke—voice of ten thousand dying throats.
"Thief… eater… child of ash…"
Kael stood in the center of a widening circle of withered roots.
Now the size of a five-year-old.
Eyes burning silver-red.
Tiny claws flexing.
He looked up at the approaching Warden.
And whispered his second word since birth.
"…Mine."
The black threads exploded outward in a perfect sphere.
The Orchard harvest had just begun.
And this time, Kael wasn't sharing.
[Floor 2 Boss Encounter Initiated: The Grove Warden]
Hidden Condition: Devour the entire Orchard without dying once
Reward: Authority Jump + Unique Title + Access to Floor 3
The trees are screaming your name now.]
Begin.]