As Leo floated up through the tunnel, he could hear the agonized screeches of fiends and the roar of Pendragon’s flames echoing through the air. The pungent stench of burning flesh filled his nostrils, growing stronger the closer he got. Finally, he emerged back into the massive chamber, now more familiar than before, where Pendragon stood amidst the charred and torn remains of over a hundred fiends.
Pendragon turned, his piercing, bloodshot eyes locking onto Leo. His body was a horrifying sight—his spines sharper and more jagged, his scales warped and thickened into jagged armor. His bloodied appearance and the way his chest heaved with raw fury made Leo flinch. For a moment, he saw pure bloodlust in Pendragon’s stare, and the intensity made him lose focus. His intangibility wavered, and he dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
Pendragon scoffed. “It’s about time. Learned your lesson yet?”
Leo groaned, struggling to his feet. His body still felt like it was on fire, but he nodded. “Yeah... I learned it. Just tell me what to do.”
Pendragon grinned, though it was hard to tell if it was approval or amusement. “Good. Listen closely. Right across from us is the inner tree.” He pointed a clawed hand at a hole in the massive, pulsating structure. “That’s our way in. But it’s not gonna be easy. See those things guarding it?”
Leo squinted, and his heart sank. Two towering fiends, much larger than the one from earlier, loomed by the entrance. Their grotesque bodies were covered in pulsating flesh and twisted bone, each with a massive, singular eye that glowed with a malevolent red hue.
“Let me guess,” Leo muttered. “The eye’s the weak point?”
“Bingo,” Pendragon said, his tone sharp. “But don’t think they’ll go down easily. They’re bigger, faster, and meaner than anything we’ve seen so far. You ready?”
Leo rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the weight of exhaustion. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good,” Pendragon smirked, his wings unfurling. “Follow my lead.”
Without another word, Pendragon launched himself at one beast, moving with terrifying speed. Leo sprinted behind him, keeping low as he advanced toward the second fiend.
The creatures roared in unison, sending waves of sound reverberating through the chamber. Their backs arched, and with a sickening squelch, they fired bloody projectiles into the air. Leo dodged the first wave with ease, his intangibility allowing him to phase through them. But just as he regained his footing, one projectile curved mid-air and slammed into his side.
Leo staggered, realizing with horror that the “projectiles” weren’t just blobs of blood—they were smaller, parasitic fiends. They burrowed into his skin, their tiny claws, and teeth tearing at his flesh. He howled in pain, struggling to pull them off, but more latched on, wriggling deeper.
“Embrace the pain,” he whispered to himself, the red-suited man’s voice echoing in his mind. “Burn it away.”
Closing his eyes, Leo imagined the fiery sensation from before spreading through his veins. The parasites screeched as his body burned with intense heat, their forms disintegrating into ash. When he opened his eyes, the towering fiend attempted to crush him, but Leo was ready. In an instant, he vanished completely.
Pendragon, meanwhile, had aimed for the eye of the second fiend, but it was fast. It easily blocked his attack and pushed Pendragon backward down to the ground. It stumbled forward to crush him, forcing Pendragon to shift his form. His limbs lengthened, his body morphing into something serpent-like, covered in writhing tentacles before the beast fell on top of him. But he simply slithered around its waist, making a beeline towards its face.
The beast pummeled itself in an attempt to shake him off, but Pendragon dodged its massive fists with nimble precision. His tentacles slithered and latched onto its single eye, crawling into it. The beast roared in fury, thrashing wildly, and rolling on the ground as Pendragon unfurled itself to cover the eye. He opened his maw and blasted a torrent of flame directly into its eye. The creature let out a guttural, dying wail before collapsing in a heap.
Pendragon reverted to his original form, panting heavily. “One down,” he muttered, turning just in time to see the second fiend looming over him, its massive fist poised to strike.
Before Pendragon could react, the fiend froze. Its grotesque body shuddered violently as sickening sounds echoed through the chamber. One side of its face dropped a little, revealing a line that bisects its entire body. The two halves hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud and in the middle appeared Leo, his entire body dripping with blood, his expression cold and determined.
Pendragon raised an eyebrow, his mouth curling into a sly grin. “Not bad, Winfield. Not bad.”
Leo jumped down, his body feeling strangely light despite the exhaustion creeping back in. He wiped the blood from his face and nodded toward the hole in the inner tree. “Let’s finish this.”
The two entered the tunnel, the fleshy walls pulsing and dripping with a viscous, foul-smelling liquid. The floor was slick, forcing them to move carefully as they delved deeper. The glow of the inner tree grew fainter, and an oppressive darkness began to surround them.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“This place keeps getting worse,” Leo muttered.
Pendragon chuckled darkly. “You’ve got no idea, kid.”
The tunnel grew darker and more oppressive as they crawled deeper. The air was thick, almost suffocating, but they pressed on, ignoring the burning in their lungs. Pendragon could start to feel the tunnel begin to close in on them, attempting to crush them as they traversed. But this defense mechanism would be useless. Leo slipped through the walls of the tunnel straight to the other side while Pendragon released a burning fire that made the tunnel retract back, giving him more space to move.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a massive hollow space. Thousands of faintly glowing lights dotted the darkness above them, like stars in an artificial night sky. For a moment, Leo felt a strange sense of awe.
Then he realized they weren’t stars. They were pods.
Each one contained a fiend suspended in a thick, glowing fluid. This was where they were born, an eerie, grotesque nursery hidden within the tree’s depths.
“Quit gawking,” Pendragon’s voice called from above. He dropped down to meet Leo on the floor. Pendragon laid out the plan with a sharp, commanding tone. “We need to destroy this thing from the inside,” he began, pointing toward the glowing pods above them. “Blowing it up is our best option, but there’s a problem. Those pods are packed with fiends—thousands of them. They’re probably just Delta level, but sheer numbers will tear us apart if they get loose.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “You’re saying there are ten thousand fiends in those pods?”
“Give or take,” Pendragon replied nonchalantly. “I could try to torch them, but that’d pop every single one. The swarm would bury us alive.”
Leo felt a chill crawl down his spine. “So what’s your plan, then? Just hope for the best?”
Pendragon smirked and reached into the satchel slung over his shoulder. From it, he pulled out an imposing, futuristic firearm, sleek and black with glowing blue lines pulsating along its surface. “This,” he said, holding it up like a trophy. “Omicron-2. Packs the biggest punch you’ll ever see relative to its size.”
Leo frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a hand-held nuclear cannon meant for destroying enormous threats,” Pendragon explained, his tone almost smug. “Took it from the armory back at base. Those Cleaner bastards love their toys.”
Leo’s blood ran cold. “You’re insane. That thing will kill all of us!”
Pendragon shrugged. “Maybe it’ll kill you, but I’ve adapted to worse.”
Leo’s jaw tightened. “I have to tell Bill and the others.” As soon as he tried to, Leo could hear only the empty thoughts of his mind. There was no connection. “Why can’t I reach them?”
Pendragon’s expression darkened slightly. “I tried relaying intel to him, but he’s not picking up. That means one of two things: Bill is dead, or something here is interfering with his signals. My money’s on the latter. This tree’s got its own electromagnetic waves—it probably uses them to communicate with its little spawn. That’s most likely jamming our comms.”
Leo’s question hung in the air, his voice trembling as he asked, “So what’s the plan? How do we even get out of here alive?”
Pendragon’s reptilian eyes narrowed as he studied Leo, his expression unreadable. “Let’s talk about that neat little trick you pulled earlier. You can phase through matter, right?”
Leo nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, but it’s... tricky. It only lasts for about thirty seconds, and I have to focus. If I get distracted, I snap back, and if I’m halfway through something, let’s just say it won’t end well.”
Pendragon grinned, his sharp teeth glinting in the dim, pulsating light of the tree’s interior. “Sounds like you’re our ticket out of here. You’re going to float your way to the top. There’s less resistance up there. Climb out through the ceiling—there’s a weak spot in the flesh I noticed earlier. Once you’re out, you’ll signal Bill and the others to evacuate. Trust me, when this place blows, you won’t want to be anywhere nearby.”
Leo frowned. “And what about you?”
Pendragon snorted, slinging the heavy bag off his shoulder. “I’ll stick around and make sure this party ends with a bang. Now, quit wasting time and move.”
Reluctantly, Leo took one last look at Pendragon before nodding. He steeled himself, taking a deep breath as he summoned the focus needed to activate his phasing ability. His body became lighter, almost translucent, and he felt gravity lose its grip on him. He began to float upward, weaving through the organic, fleshy labyrinth of the tree’s interior.
As he ascended, his surroundings became more grotesque. Thousands of pods hung from the walls, each pulsating with an eerie glow. Inside the pods were immature fiends, their twisted forms suspended in a viscous fluid. Some had elongated limbs, others had grotesque features that seemed to defy logic, but all were undeniably monstrous.
The sight was disturbing enough, but as Leo climbed higher, the pods began to change. The fiends inside started to look... human. Their faces were less distorted, their limbs more proportional. It was as if they were evolving into something uncomfortably familiar.
Leo’s stomach churned, his concentration wavering. Why do they look like that? The question gnawed at him, and his focus faltered. His phasing ability flickered, and suddenly, he was solid again. Gravity yanked him downward, and before he could react, fleshy tendrils shot out from the walls, wrapping around his limbs and torso.
“Damn it!” Leo yelled, thrashing against the tendrils. But they weren’t hostile—they didn’t squeeze or crush him. Instead, they lifted him, almost gently, carrying him upward. He struggled out of instinct, but the tendrils were unrelenting, cradling him as they ascended.
The ceiling above him began to shift, the fleshy surface peeling back like a flower in bloom. Beyond it was a chamber, unlike anything he had seen before. It was disturbingly... normal. The room resembled a human living room—there was a sofa, a coffee table, even a lamp—but every surface was made of the same pulsating, organic material as the rest of the tree. The air was thick and warm, carrying a faint metallic tang.
Standing in the center of the room was a woman. Her body was made of the same sinewy, fleshy texture as the walls, yet her features were unnervingly human. Her face was serene, her eyes glowing faintly with an otherworldly light. She turned to face Leo as the tendrils gently set him down on the floor.
Leo’s claws scraped against the fleshy floor as he stepped cautiously toward the woman. She stood motionless, her glowing eyes piercing through him. The room pulsated with a strange rhythm, like a heartbeat, and the air was thick with the scent of decay.
“Stop this now, Devourer,” she said, her voice firm but tinged with something almost pleading.
Leo froze, his body tense. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice ragged and disturbed.
The woman tilted her head, her alien features oddly familiar. A name floated into his mind, unbidden, a fragment of something buried deep within his fractured psyche. Melissa.
“Melissa?” he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes widened slightly, then softened into a faint smile. “I didn’t think you’d remember me,” she whispered. “But I’m glad. It means you’re not entirely gone.”