bea and damien fell for a few seconds before they hit solid ground. damien was fine after the fall, but a few of bea''s bones needed to be mended.


    they spent a minute getting their bearings and looking around the large hall.


    the ceiling and walls glowed with florescent moss, which provided sufficient light to see.


    the first place bea looked was above. about three dozen meters away, light shone through the opening which they fell into. the roots moved above them, and the ray of light slowly disappeared.


    all over the walls, ceiling, and below their feet, roots ran. bea leaned in closer and saw small glowing green lines in each. they were like veins transporting energy.


    she examined closer where the roots were running to, but before she found it, a small earthquake shook the room.


    bea face planted into the roots, breaking her nose and bleeding on them. they absorbed the blood in front of her eyes, and red flowers bloomed on the place she bled.


    "what was that?" she asked, but damien didn''t answer.


    his eyes were looking at some place behind and above her. curiously, she turned around and tried to figure out what she was seeing.


    about a hundred meter away, on the ceiling, a large green glowing growth was slowly expanding. it became bigger and also brighter with each passing moment.


    when bea thought the growth would pop, it deflated so fast that it caused another slight earthquake.


    this time bea was more prepared, so she only fell to her knees, scarping them and creating more blood flowers. she didn''t care though, because she finally realized what the growth was.


    "it''s the tree of life''s heart! that''s what we need to destroy!" she exclaimed happily, but soon found another problem.


    "this seems a bit too easy. i don''t believe that something this powerful wouldn''t defend its only vulnerability with something more potent than a weak sleep spell."


    bea gave an annoyed, side-eye glance to her friend, and in that moment the roots moved erratically around them.


    "you just had to say something, didn''t you?!"


    bea shouted and jumped away so the roots wouldn''t grab onto her. damien summoned a bubble of frost around him and froze every root in his proximity.


    after this, there was silence for a few seconds, then every single vine and root exploded into movement... the tree of life awakened!


    bea instantly got tossed into a wall, stunning her for a moment. blood flowed down her face and more red flowers grew where it landed.


    she felt something slowly wrapping around her legs. without thinking, she summoned her sword and cut the vines that grew around her.


    in the next second, she jumped to her feet and tried to dodge all the small roots. they tried and failed to trip her, and she even summoned a few vines of her own for distraction.


    while running, she took one glance towards damien. he was holding off the roots with ease, but only because the larger ones hadn''t gotten close enough.


    when she looked in a specific direction, the feeling grew stronger. since she had no better idea, bea treated this as a compass and began walking towards the feeling.


    it took her no time to reach her destination, or maybe it took her forever. she couldn''t tell the difference. it felt like she took only one step, but walked an infinity distance at the same time.


    concepts seemed to change in this environment, which caused her sense of time and distance to malfunction.


    the sight in front of her was disturbing, to say the least. she stopped in front of a mountain of corpses.


    a ray of light landing broke the darkness on top of the mountain, exactly at the small sapling growing from the corpses.


    the sapling had green glowing leaves, and red flowers grew all over its branches. it was only a few meters in height, but its presence felt enormous.


    bea felt pure life energy radiating from it, which was ironic since it fed on corpses.


    after taking a few deep breaths and calming herself, bea began climbing the mountain. it was strangely easy, and the closer she got to the top, the more at ease she felt.


    her vision started changing, too. the corpses turned into red flowers, with seven petals and a yellow middle.


    they had a calming presence and with each step; she felt herself doze off more. it was like the flowers were talking to her, asking to give in to temptation and sleep there.


    bea knew what this meant, and she tried everything to not fall asleep. when the feeling started to get overwhelming, she grabbed one of her fingers and broke it off.


    blood sprouted from the wound, causing more blood flowers to grow, but the pain provided enough sense to go on.


    she was halfway up the mountain when she had to snap off another finger. by the time she was 2/3 of the way up, she lost two more fingers. at 3/4, she lost her fifth finger from her left hand.


    the closer she got, the more potent the sleepiness got. since one of her hands was missing all her fingers, she had to resort to biting.


    with each lost finger, she screamed louder, but the closer she got, the less the pain affected her.


    it took her to lose all five fingers from her right hand to reach the top. as the ground of corpses leveled, she fell to her knees, panting.


    the forced exhaustion had stopped affecting her mind, but physically she was dead tired.


    while breathing heavily, she looked up at the large sapling. it didn''t look too special; it looked more pretty than dangerous.


    bea used all her leftover strength to approach the tree. she walked around it, but found no signs of the heart, or anything similar.


    it took her a few minutes of thinking to finally realize what the place and tree were.


    bea laughed to herself and walked towards the sapling. her laughter increased and turned mad as she laid her broken hand on the sapling''s trunk.


    ''do you wish to evolve?''


    bea laughed one last time, before answering aloud, "of fucking course!"