Reinhard tapped into the Herald Mark, the necklace shone. He accessed Marie's Purging Lance, Zenuken shine with a golden-white light before Reinhard hurled it forward.

A pillar of light blasted through a cluster of wooden beasts, clearing the path ahead, and Zenuken reappeared in his hand.

Joseph's Elemental Control followed immediately.

The wind that the warriors generated through their movements gathered under Reinhard's command. He directed it upward, creating a current that pushed them faster while hindering descending roots.

Then he used Janus's Roots Control to control a few roots not held by sleeping victims. Instantly, roots suddenly wrapped around attacking constructs, binding them long enough for warriors to finish them.

The formation reached a wide platform where multiple pathways converged. Hundreds of humanoid constructs appeared, forming a barricade designed to stop their advance.

Three warriors with tower shields rushed forward, forming a wedge. They positioned themselves, shields locked together. "Commander! Use us!"

Reinhard understood immediately before running toward them, building speed. When he reached the shields, he leaped, and then his boots hit the shields' top edges, and the warriors thrust upward with perfect timing.

Reinhard launched skyward, propelled by their combined strength.

Gravity Step.

He sailed over the barricade before purple-black energy erupted around him. The gravity well swept over the constructs before pulling the barricaded constructs together, compressing them into a tight mass.

He landed behind them and then instantly reversed the gravity, leading to the well to erupt. The constructs shot backward, slamming into walls with enough force to shatter their wooden bodies.

The warriors surged through the gap Reinhard created, weapons striking in beautiful combinations. One warrior thrust his spear, piercing into the surviving construct's head, before his partner's axe followed and cut it in half. A third warrior's hammer finished another construct, pulverizing it completely.

The pattern repeated across as they quickly finished the other constructs that weren't destroyed.

After that, they continued ascending another fifty feet. Roots shaped as massive hands descended, fingers spread to crush or grab, but the Golden Melo Warriors reacted immediately.

A warrior hurled his spectral spear upward. It blasted through one hand's palm, the force carrying it completely through before the weapon vanished and rematerialized in his grip. He threw again, same target, widening the hole until the hand collapsed.

Another warrior released her Beast Spirit weapon, a massive war hammer that flew like a missile. It struck a second hand with explosive force, shattering wooden fingers. The hammer returned to her hand automatically, and she released it again toward a different target.

Reinhard switched to Fenrir before Azure portals formed behind him, a dozen small circles swirling with light. Ice beams shot forward, striking descending hands, and the ice spread rapidly, freezing the wooden constructs solid.

Warriors with physical weapons rushed forward, shattering the frozen hands before they could thaw.

They reached a section where the pathway became nearly a vertical climb rather than a run. Warriors took positions, creating a living ladder, bracing against walls, extending hands and weapons as handholds.

Reinhard climbed rapidly, using the warriors' assistance to maintain speed. Behind him, the formation adapted, some warriors remained below to guard against pursuit, while others followed his ascent, maintaining protective formation.

A warrior at the top pulled Reinhard onto the next platform.

Immediately, Reinhard activated Honor's Threshold from the Herald Mark. His form became ghastly and ethereal as roots tried to blindside him.

Roots lashed at him, piercing through his now-ghostlike form with no more resistance than air, but the moment he deactivated the ability, they would become lethal again.

He sprinted through the attack, moving as if on a time delay, arms and legs trailing afterimages. He closed the gap to the Root Chimeras, then dropped his intangibility just long enough to swing Zenuken in a wide, spinning arc.

The first Chimera was bisected, toppling in a spray of black sap. The second spat a cloud of spores in his face, but Reinhard instinctively rolled left. Then he hurled his sword forward, piercing through the second Chimera's head, and then continued moving.

The entire sequence took less than two seconds. When he rejoined his team, the Golden Melo Warriors had already cleared the remaining enemies, the corpses falling into the shaft below like wet logs.

Reinhard didn't pause to celebrate as he called out to the formation. "Climb! Go! No delays!" The urgency was not lost on the others.

As they continued rushing up, they saw root Kabas begin to fuse together, creating a grotesque centipede of human heads and hands that skittered up the walls.

The golden warriors countered in kind. A warrior with octopus limbs anchored himself at a tight bend in the shaft, simultaneously reaching out in eight directions to provide handholds for the next climbers while using his free limbs to ward off attacking roots.

Another one with a reinforced, rhinoceros-like frame planted himself as a stationary pillar, taking the full brunt of a descending mass of Kabas, absorbing the impact and then tossing them aside with a snort of contempt.

The Seeker with mantis arms doubled as a combatant and a ladder, alternately slicing at enemy constructs and then swinging his limbs into position to brace for the next climber.

Reinhard rotated his Mark's power set to Marie's, then Zenuken, then Janus, each time exploiting a specific window of enemy weakness or environmental hazard.

When a cluster of fungal bombs blocked the path, Reinhard called forth a wind with Joseph Elemental Control, scattering the spores before they could ignite.

When a Kaba construct tried to rip a warrior from the wall, Reinhard used Janus's Root Manipulation to seize the Kaba in place, giving the warrior time to recover.

Each invocation of the Herald Mark cost him a little more of his reserves, but Reinhard ignored the burning ache, focusing only on forward momentum.

The pathway twisted, then opened abruptly into a chamber of impossible size. A hollow, cathedral-like space within the tree, where curtains of root lattice hung like the ribs of a fossilized beast.

The walls pulsed with golden light, and for the first time, Reinhard saw the sleeping victims with clarity.

Hundreds of them, adults and elders, suspended in root caskets along the inner walls, each connected by a network of living cables to the tree's core. Their faces were lit by a beautiful glow, their lips parted as if in some ecstatic dreaming.

The energy of their collective will had formed a literal chorus, every vibration in the air, every echo in the chamber, was a wordless encouragement. The sleeping victims were not only holding back the roots, but they themselves were now part of the fight.

Reinhard felt the silent command from the thousands of sleeping souls. Do not stop, do not give in, you must reach the top. He looked to the fifty-plus warriors around him, all of whom wore expressions of childlike joy.

The tree responded in kind. Roots thicker than city walls crashed down, attempting to seal the group inside the chamber.

Toxic seeped from above, raining down like an inverted waterfall. The sky-blue lightning of a Golden Melo Warrior flashed again, one after another, carving temporary safe zones in the storm of hostile wood and acid.

Reinhard pressed forward, using the still-intact platforms as springboards, leaping from one to another in a race against the ever-narrowing windows of safety.

As they climbed, the environmental hazards grew stranger. Some roots exhaled clouds of rainbow mist while others crackled with static, sparking off the armor of the warriors.

At one point, a living membrane stretched across the shaft, covered in twitching sensory organs, like a giant's tongue.

Reinhard led the assault, every warrior stabbed or cut at the membrane in unison, rupturing it and sending it falling. For a moment, the path was clear, and the group surged upward at twice the speed.

The golden warriors cheered, their voices mixing with the sleeping victims' encouragement. The entire interior resonated with sound, not just noise, but a unified will made audible.

Another hundred feet, the Kabas waited as a solid mass, bodies fused into a single, continuous wall of muscle and bone. They blocked the path completely, and for a moment, Reinhard frowned.

A Golden Warrior with a vulture's face screamed, "Cover your eyes!"

The warning was just in time. Another Golden Melo Warrior at the back released a pulse of golden brilliance, a flare so bright it reduced the wall of Kabas to white shadows.

The enemy writhed, blinded, but Reinhard and his team had already closed their eyes, counting on muscle memory and each other's positions to navigate the next few seconds.

With a shout, he led the rush, driving a wedge through the stunned enemy line. Zenuken blazed, its blade a perfect line of light that cut without resistance.

The top is visible above, light filtering through gaps suggesting open air beyond.

Reinhard gripped Zenuken tighter, golden cape blazing behind him.

Around him, fifty-plus warriors fought with undiminished enthusiasm, their laughter mixing with battle cries. Above, the sleeping victims held back thousands of roots, their wills creating the opportunity for this assault.

"Forward!" Reinhard commanded, his voice carrying absolute authority.

The charge continued, it was an unstoppable golden tide ascending toward the flower that had terrorized Eastern Hesod for three centuries.

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