??? [Perspective: Saptal]

  Saptal loomed, giant and tall, the bark groaning as he expanded. His shadow stretched across the broken arena.

  Ahead, Grush raised his curved graveblade, the bones clattering like tapping drums. Saptal's thoughts tangled like roots.

  Guardian, aye. That's what I'll be. No tomb nor tower will scare me out of the soil. Every swing he takes, I'll meet it. Every stone he throws, I'll bury it in saplings.

  He raised his colossal arm, bark-blade sprouting from his forearm. His voice thundered across the arena.

  "C'mon then, ya graveyard gargoyle! Let's see if bone breaks quicker then bark!"

  The two titans clashed, blade against bough, sparks of necrotic fire and green light scattering as steel bit into wood and wood tore against bone. The ground itself cracked under their strides, each step a quake.

  But as Saptal roared, he felt it the faint shiver beneath the dirt. The ground was alive with another battle. Gilbud-boy was fighting his own war down there.

  ??? [Perspective: Gilbud]

  It was dark. Too dark. The soil pressed heavy on Gilbud's back as he burrowed deeper, tusks scraping against stone. He hated this blackness, the closeness. Hated the way his trunk twitched at every echo.

  And worse still, he knew who followed, yo!

  Burdrel. The Burrow Scourge. The predator from Plelepun nightmares, from the stories told by trembling elders. The great insect-lobster abominations that cracked bones like dry twigs in the caverns.

  His kind's eternal hunters!

  The sound came again: click-click-click! Burdrel's jagged legs scrabbling along tunnels, sonar pulses were felt thrumming like footsteps against the stone. Gilbud froze, terror pounding heavily against his chest. He felt that vibration through his tusks, it was tracking him. Always tracking.

  Yo. No no no, he thought. Don't panic. Breathe, Gilbud. Remember KiAera. Remember your plans. Your the Chimera Crew's builder, yo! An architect! You don't just dig holes… you design them!

  His fear sharpened into focus.

  As he burrowed, he shaped walls of stone reinforced with psionic force. Dead ends masked with false tunnels. Chambers carved into kill-boxes. He built a maze in the dark, every twist meant to buy him seconds. Seconds to think. Seconds to plan.

  But Burdrel didn't slow. The predator didn't need sight. It felt his every tremor, every breath. Its carapace scraped closer, the sound tightening Gilbud's chest like a vice.

  "Y-yo… keep digging," Gilbud whispered to himself, trunk trembling. "Keep building! He wants prey, but I'll give him a labyrinth. I'll… I'll turn my fear into stone."

  His tusks glowed faintly. He shifted soil into hidden spikes, collapsed tunnels into choking pits, reinforced walls that would seal behind him. For every step Burdrel took, Gilbud laid a trap.

  And above, the muffled quake of Saptal's battle thundered through the earth as subtle quakes.

  ??? [Parallel: Saptal]

  Saptal's giant hand caught Grush's blade mid-swing, splinters flying as bark cracked. The skeleton snarled, pushing harder. Saptal winced as sap bled down his arm, sticky as pitch.

  But Saptal only laughed through gritted teeth.

  "Yarrr… ya swing like a lumberjack gone mad. But I'm the tree that won't fall, bone-barnacle!"

  With his other arm, he raised the living bow. An arrow formed, thick as a ship's mast, its head glowing with the sap of his very veins. He drew, bark muscles straining, and loosed.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  The projectile slammed into Grush's chest, bursting into a forest of vines that crushed bone like cages closing.

  "Grow, dang ya! Grow faster!" he barked at the vines, as though coaxing his garden.

  ??? [Parallel: Gilbud]

  Deep below, Burdrel burst through a false wall, mandibles clacking, eyes dead and gleaming. Gilbud felt the tremor an instant before it struck. He dove into a side tunnel, his tail barely escaping the slice of jagged claws.

  The Plelepun's heart pounded. Too fast. Too close.

  If I keep running he'll catch me yo, his mind raced with the gruesome possibilities.

  Then an idea sparked. He slammed his tusks into the tunnel wall, psionic energy shivering through stone. The tunnel shifted reshaped into a choke point. Behind him, Burdrel surged forward, not realizing the trap had been sealed.

  Gilbud whispered, voice quaking, "Yo! This one's for every Plelepun you monsters ever devoured."

  He rammed his tusks into the ground, channeling all his {Terra} power. The ceiling caved, spikes of stone crushing downward, collapsing the tunnel around Burdrel's body. Dust and screeches filled the dark.

  Gilbud scrambled back, panting, his mind a whirl of fear and triumph both. "I… I trapped him… I really—"

  The dust shifted. A limb twitched. Carapace scraped. Burdrel was still moving.

  Gilbud's breath hitched, but his eyes hardened. "Yo. No more running. This time, I fight."

  He concentrated on his core, reflecting on the lessons of evolution from KiAera.

  Yo of course he kept himself small in the {Fledgling} to make it harder for Burdrel to pursue him. Now it was time to go all out.

  The sigil on his cheek shimmered, and a voice similar to KiAera's whispered in Gilbud's head.

  {Evolution to Terrelepun} initialized.

  ??? [Parallel: Saptal]

  Saptal felt the weight of the battle surge through him as he stood against Grush.

  As the skeletal general staggered, vines creeping from the cracks in its ribs, Saptal called upon the roots of the oldest trees in his arsenal and let the forest energy flow through him. A gigantic bow formed in his palms, one fitting for his {Looming Root} form.

  He nocked the tree log in place.

  He released it.

  A glorious green light burst forth from his position, saturating the arena with shimmering luminescence.

  "Time to show yer bony self what a proper guardian can do!" he bellowed, and the arena shuddered beneath the impact of his arrow crashing into Grush's frame.

  Grush staggered and growled, the green fire in his sockets flaring with dark wrath. "Empty words, sapling! I will have your essence, root and branch! You will join the slumber of the dead!"

  With an undeniable force, Grush lunged, swinging his graveblade in a sweeping arc. Saptal countered, splintering the blade with his own massive weapon.

  The sound echoed like a thunderclap, and the two titans paused, locked in a deadly embrace.

  But Saptal's resolve was like ironwood, strong and true. With a twist of his torso, he flung Grush back, redoubling the force of his attack with a series of rapid, devastating strikes, leaving thorny trails across the skeleton's ribs.

  "Ya see, life won't yield to ya! It rises and grows no matter what ya try,” he declared, aiming for Grush's skull again with another potent arrow. The bow sang as he loosed the colossal shot, bursting forth in a cascade of luminescent foliage.

  The arrow pierced through the remnants of Grush's skull, splintering bone and cracking the necrotic glow surrounding it.

  Flowers bloomed in mockery as Grush staggered back, his hollow laughter cracking like broken glass, but Saptal could see the bitterness in his eyes… the pain of being outmatched in his own domain.

  "You think you can break my bones with mere plants?" Grush spat, grimacing as he pulled back, attempting to gather momentum. "You are nothing but a fleeting growth, a moment in time that will soon be swallowed by the void!"

  Saptal clenched his jaw, feeling the anger and defiance rise within him. "Aye, maybe I be a moment, bone-barnacle, but even moments can carve their names into time!" He took a step forward.

  "Come on then! Show me your strength!" he challenged, reveling in the thrill of the fight.

  Grush, regaining his footing, let out an inhuman roar and charged, blade whistling through the air with the intent to cleave.

  Saptal collided with Grush once again, bones clashing against bark, each strike sending shockwaves through the battlefield. Sparks flew as Saptal parried the sweeping blows, feeling the weight of Grush's blade reverberate through his entire being.

  Yet, he stood firm, his roots digging deep into the soil, drawing strength from the very ground beneath him and healing minor damage with each passing second.

  Life would not yield, and life would remain in this field, Saptal mused.

  "Life won't yield, Grush!" he bellowed. "This is my soil to tend, and I won't let yer take it!"

  With a powerful twist of his body, he brought his arm down in an overhead strike, the bark blade cleaving through Grush's remaining defenses.

  There was a sound like thunder as the contact shattered bone and sent the skeletal giant reeling back, but not before Grush caught Saptal with a counter.

  The graveblade sliced through Saptal's chest as he leaned forward, the force of Grush's blow shattering bark and armor alike as Saptal crashed to the ground, splintered and disoriented.

  With a thunderous roar, Grush swung his massive arm, his blade crashing against Saptal's hastily constructed shield with monumental force.

  "Sapshorla," Saptal whispered, "I'm sorry."

  The shield cracked.

  The shield splintered.

  Grush's blade fell like an axe poised to sever a log.

  But just as despair threatened to take root, a crack in the dirt pierced the oppressive darkness overhead.