The Grove Warden didn't attack with roots or branches.
It attacked with memory.
The moment Kael's black threads touched the outermost ring of skeletal trees, the entire Orchard exhaled at once.
A psychic wave rolled outward—silent, colorless, unstoppable.
It wasn't pain.
It was loss.
Every soul fragment Kael had devoured so far replayed in perfect, merciless clarity inside his skull.
The seraphim who fell forever.
The mother whose lullaby turned to ash.
Mira's final gasp: "You—"
They didn't just flash.
They lived again, superimposed over his senses.
Kael saw through the dead seraphim's eyes as golden wings burned to stubs.
He tasted the lullaby dying on the mother's tongue.
He felt Mira's heart burst between his claws—her betrayal sour and coppery.
His tiny five-year-old body staggered.
Hunger meter spiked backward—negative territory the system didn't even have a name for.
[Warning: Soul Overload Imminent]
Devoured memories exceeding vessel capacity by 347%
Authority backlash detected
Voracious Maw — Forced Suppression in 17 seconds
Consequence of failure: Permanent soul fragmentation
The Warden's crown of screaming faces laughed in unison.
"Little king… you eat scraps and call it a feast.
We are the feast you were never meant to finish."
Its trunk split open like a ribcage blooming.
Inside: a hollow cathedral of fused spines and pelvises.
Hanging from every archway were translucent cocoons—each one a preserved Sovereign candidate who had reached this far and failed.
Their mouths were still open in eternal silent screams.
The Warden extended one massive branch-hand.
It wasn't reaching for Kael.
It was offering.
"Join them. Become fertilizer worthy of legend.
Or keep devouring… and learn why no one has ever eaten the whole Orchard."
Kael's vision swam red and silver.
His claws dug into the black soil until they drew his own glittering blood.
The blood rose—orbited—then ignited into tiny orbiting suns of dark flame.
[Passive: Blood of the Would-Be Sovereign — Overclock]
Authority expenditure: 1.2% per second
Effect: Temporarily convert absorbed soul mass into raw destructive force
Duration remaining: 41 seconds until organ failure
He chose violence.
The orbiting blood-drops detonated outward in a perfect expanding sphere of void-flame.
Every tree it touched didn't burn.
It unmade.
Bark reversed into sap, sap into buds, buds into nothingness.
The psychic wave recoiled like a slapped hand.
Kael moved.
Not crawling anymore.
He ran—small legs pumping, grey scales flaking off to reveal something harder underneath, something almost metallic.
Black threads whipped behind him like a comet's tail.
He reached the first cocoon.
A girl—no older than he appeared now—suspended inside, eyes wide with frozen terror.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He drove both claws into the translucent shell.
Crack.
The cocoon shattered.
Her soul poured out—not as motes, but as a single coherent scream.
Kael opened his mouth and drank it whole.
[Devoured: Failed Sovereign — Elara Voss (Rank: 0.8% Authority at death)]
+Authority Surge: +1.47%
+Memory Acquired: "Final Rejection of the Throne" (can temporarily nullify system prompts)
Soul Mass Overflow: Redirecting to physical augmentation
His body cracked and regrew in real time.
Now he looked eight.
Grey skin fully scaled.
Eyes solid silver with red pupils like burning coins.
He didn't stop.
Cocoon after cocoon.
Each one a meal.
Each one a piece of the Warden's power ripped away.
The Warden howled—real sound this time, bone-shaking.
Its branches lashed down like guillotines.
Kael didn't dodge.
He caught one with both hands.
The impact shattered every bone in his arms.
They regrew before the pain could register.
[Ashen Rebirth — Triggered ×7]
Regeneration cost: 0.9% Authority per cycle
He climbed.
Hand over hand.
Up the Warden's own trunk.
Toward the hollow heart.
The Warden tried one last defense.
It showed him the future.
A vision: Kael older, crowned in ash, sitting on a throne of devoured worlds… only to look down and see his own hands eating his chest from the inside.
"See?" the Warden whispered through every screaming mouth.
"You become us. You are us. The hunger never stops."
Kael reached the cathedral opening.
He looked into the core—a swirling vortex of every failed Sovereign's final regret.
And he grinned—small, sharp, feral.
"Then I'll make sure the hunger has teeth big enough to eat everything."
He dove inside.
The vortex swallowed him.
For three heartbeats, the entire Orchard went still.
Then it convulsed.
From the inside out, cracks of black-red light spiderwebbed across the Warden's trunk.
Roots withered.
Branches curled into ash.
Skull-fruit detonated like fireworks made of grief.
And from the very center—where the core used to be—a small figure emerged.
Kael landed in the ruined soil.
Now he looked twelve.
Lean.
Ash-grey hair falling past shoulders.
Skin patterned like cracked obsidian veined with silver.
Eyes fully silver, no pupil, just endless hungry mirrors.
The Orchard was gone.
Only flat black earth remained, smoking faintly.
[Floor 2 — The Bone Orchard — Completely Devoured]
Clear Grade: EX (Impossible Grade — First in Recorded Cycles)
Authority Rank Increased: 3.011% → 12.777%
Title Earned: Orchard Devourer
Unique Title Earned: The One Who Ate Regret
Passive Evolution: Soul Devouring Gluttony → Stage 3: Bottomless Hunger
New Ability: Regret Conversion (turn absorbed regrets into stat points at 1:1 ratio)
Hidden Reward Unlocked: Skeleton Key Fragment (allows temporary descent to skipped floors)
Floor 2 fully consumed — No respawn possible for future candidates on this floor
The staircase appeared again.
Black bone, but now veined with silver from Kael's blood.
A new notification pulsed—different tone, almost… respectful.
[Throne of Ashes — Observation Note]
Candidate has exceeded Floor 2 parameters by 847%.
Re-calibrating difficulty curve for subsequent floors.
Warning: Floor 3 — The Mirror Sea
Projected difficulty for current candidate: ☠️×29
The reflections do not lie.
They judge.
Proceed?]
Kael looked at his hands—bigger now, claws fully formed, tipped in silver.
He flexed them once.
Then whispered—voice no longer childish, rough like gravel under boots:
"Show me."
He stepped onto the staircase.
Behind him, in the empty place where the Orchard used to be, a single skeletal tree sprouted.
Small.
Lonely.
Its single fruit: a tiny translucent skull with Kael's infant face.
Eyes still open.
Still hungry.