“CHARGE!” Kaju Yelled and everyone, including Mannat, started a mad dash toward the flower.

Only Tote and the hunter stayed behind to give cover to the others. They found the perfect vantage point and fired a volley of arrows at the flower. They hoped to nail the flower to the tree, but its stem proved much harder a target than everyone had expected. The light arrows of their region didn’t have the strength to penetrate through its shell.

Pandit being the closest to the flower was the first to reach its base.

Laughing, he slid to a stop underneath the flower with his machete in full swing in his hands. More than fifty points of strength showed their prowess. The machete tore through the air, spreading a woeful scream in the surrounding before cutting harshly at its target, the exact place Pandit had marked with his machete before everything went to shit. With the sharpness of the blade coupled with his torrential strength, the weapon easily sheared through the creature's steam and sheared halfway through the tree before getting stuck, immovable.

Pandit’s face fell at the same time.

The flower produced a screeching rattle with its petals. A snail covered in salt, the flower sheared stem flailed around the tree, sending acidic green blood flying everywhere like a leak in a pipe. Experience working in his favor, Pandit retreated the moment he saw smoke rising from the blade of his slime-covered machete.

There was no stopping the leaking blood.

“Fuck!” Pandit yelled as he retreated toward Kaju to the east. What else could he do? Another weapon was doomed in one strike. No weapon in hand, the tree still standing tall, how would they get the flower to the ground? The question was on everyone’s mind. Yet none had an answer.

Pandit hurriedly retreated, fearing retaliation from the flower only to realize the flower could no longer fire its acidic jets. He stopped running and started laughing. “Come out everyone it’s a sitting duck! It can no longer hurt us.”

Mannat rushed past him at a blistering pace, two blue balls of mana spinning tightly at his palms.  He rushed close enough that the mana balls wouldn’t lose their potency. Quickly coming to a stop five meters from the tree, he poured another twenty points of mana into the mana balls and they quickly became unstable.

He didn’t wait around for the gift he had prepared for the flower to burst at his face and launched them, turned around, and started running. He knew what these unstable mana bullets could do. A single one of them had the strength to blast a hole in the ground. Now with the two of them working together, he was sure of a disastrous future if he didn’t get out of their blast zone. His fear wasn’t unsubstantiated. A single point of mana added to the mana ball had obliterated half a tree back at the clearing.

The two skills struck their target. There was a flash of light and a portion of the tree disappeared, sending it in a freefall toward Pandit. The flower centipede stuck on the tree rattled in anger and fear, but the tree was already in motion, its death inevitable.

The flower's voice disappeared midst the sound of thrashing leaves and breaking branches. Thunder crackled in the forest. The tree fell to the ground with enough force to crack it open from the middle, sending splinters and branches flying everywhere. The ground quaked once as the tree bounced and then settled upon it, rolled, and suppressed the flower centipede underneath.

Pandit screamed in joy as did the other three people.

Mannat didn’t feel any joy. He stared blankly at the flower and examined it thoroughly. His expressionless face hid his thought from the others, but his silence spoke clearly and loudly.

His skill Examine was more than a simple tool to analyze others' status. It could also bring others' inner world to Mannat’s eyes, allowing him to see (in this case) a large amount of fluid compressed in the flower shoot. The thing wailed and shrank in size accordingly, ready to act.

“It’s coming.”

Mannat had just spoken when a tearing noise spread in his surroundings.

The flowers arm thin roots detached from the dead, broken tree. A cobra spreading its wings in warning, the flower centipede raised its head in Mannat’s direction. The tree’s dead weight couldn’t impede its movement. The flower centipede slid and wriggled around the tree. It stood up on its multiple claw-shaped roots, holding the tree between its folds. Angry at Mannat and his friends for disturbing its sleep, its petals rattled louder and menacingly. It was no longer the tone of warning, but a death sentence.

Slowly, the flower centipede’s head and torso rose from the ground until it was standing tall and wrathful, a giant vengeful rose discarded by a lover.

“Oh boy,” Pandit mumbled, sliding away from the flower.

 The others cursed around him, sharing the same enthusiasm and energy as their unusually silent team member.

“You just had to jinx us huh, Mannat.”
“At least we won’t have to worry about it absorbing more water from the tree and pining us motionless with its ejaculations,” Mannat replied casually. His was an optimistic voice midst the forlorn, a gust of hope against the swathing of treacherous heat.
“You pick the weirdest times to joke, man,” Pandit said.

“Can we outrun it?” Kaju asked, abhorring the situation caused by their little useless plan. Well, plans go awry all the time. Would have been better if their opponent wasn’t a hypocritical monster of inhuman nature. God damn it!

Pandit couldn’t help snorting. He glanced sarcastically at the old man’s limping limb. “Don’t worry. We’ll remember your sacrifice. My buddy there —He said pointing o Mannat— will put a giant statue of you at the village entrance. You will be remembered.”

Meanwhile, the flower centipede stared at the group without moving. Slowly, its petals also stopped rattling. It was not good news, however. Before the group could enjoy the silence, the petals that had come to a stop started moving. No more rattling warnings, the petals started spinning together around the dark sharp beak at the center. The groups watched the rotating blades of death accelerate, causing wind t blow, toward the flower. The dead leaves on the ground flew toward the flower only to be shredded by its rotating blades of doom.

“That can't be good,” Pandit mumbled.

The centipede crushed the tree between its legs and at the same time jumped into the air. Reaching critical height its body curled back and it dived head first toward the ground as if trying to slam its head against the immovable wall. Unfortunately, the wall moved. The ground split apart at the touch of the rotating chasm of horror and the flower and its more than twenty feet long body of spikes and legs disappeared underground.

“I say we run now,” Pandit said and looked around only to see Kaju already limping away from them.

Mannat noticed others' dejected stares and shook his head. He watched the ground for movement but his mana vision couldn’t find the flower as it had dived a little too deep for his capabilities.

The next few minutes passed calmly. Nothing odd happened. As if, the monster had run away.

“Now what are we gonna do?” Pandit said approaching Mannat.
“Did it flee?” The voice came from the west where the hunter and the boy were huddled together behind a tree. It was good to know that the two were safe and hadn’t gotten hit while the flower centipede was going crazy.

“Don’t know, yet. Stay where you are and don’t move” Pandit told them.

Mannat still ignored everyone and kept his eyes open and sense vigilant. He had sensed the monster's malice toward them, especially him, the killer of its sapling. There was no way it was going to spare them just like that. These creatures of miasma were violent and revengeful by nature. It was coming for them. There was no denying that.

Not a second later, his wish came true. Pandit had only gotten midway to Mannat when the boy sensed it… right underneath his friend, approaching him from underground at a frightening pace.

“It’s coming for you, Pandit!” Mannat yelled and hurried over. He had started too late.

The ground quaked. Pandit’s instincts also came awake at the same time. His hair stood up in fright. He knew what was happening. What goes around comes around.

Pandit started running, full sprint, straight toward Mannat. He staggered and barely kept his feet when the ground rose behind him.

A giant shadow loomed over him, covering the distance between him and Mannat. Following it intimately was an explosion of dirt and debris and the sound of a violent meat grinder, which cut through the forest faster than wind.

Pandit’s face was ashen. He didn’t look behind. He knew exactly what was happening. The fucking centipede was acting like an imbecile and attacking their blind spot! 

“Fuck!” Pandit yelled in dismay. Why the hell did it have to choose him. It could have gone for Kaju. The old man could have never gotten away with his limp. What a farce! It was not his day. Perhaps this was retribution for his savage deeds against the monsters. Now he had finally kicked a steel bucket.

The flower monster shrieked and fell right behind him, disappearing underground for the second time.  

Coincidence as it might be, Pandit saw his machete on the ground some distance away. Corroded and broken as it might have looked, he had a higher chance of survival with a weapon against being empty-handed.

Meanwhile, Mannat had conjured a giant mana ball at the full force of fifty points and waiting for the centipede to appear. Having failed to injure the flower with his skill, he no longer believed it was possible to kill the thing with brute force alone. He would not harm the monster if he fired the bullet now. He could destroy its miasma crystal, but he would need to find it first. Either his mana sense was lacking to find it, or the crystal was not on the flower's body.

Then where was it? Mannat’s attention fell to the dead trees. Each one of them had a pit underneath them. The kid, Tote, was right to think that the flower could move. Then how did it move and what caused the pits?

Mannat could sense a faint thread of energy between the tree and the flower. Not the tree, the thread was connected to the ground beneath it. He added one plus one and got two. Turns out, he had been looking in the wrong direction all along.

Meanwhile, Kaju had stopped retreating and returned to Pandit’s side with a spear in his hands. He had somehow found enough willpower to ignore his limp and reached the boy in time to save him the second time the flower centipede jumped out of the ground. He was there when Pandit dived forward as the centipede arose from the ground and brushed past him into the air.

Wasting no moment, Kaju pushed his momentum to the tip of his spear and stabbed it into the centipede’s thorny stem, piercing right through.

Its petals stalled by pain, the centipede wriggled in dismay. The spear was barely a toothpick stuck in its giant body. The monster was barely hurt. It was more annoyed than in pain. Green blood fizzled out from the wound, sizzled, and smoked wherever it fell.

The centipede lifted Kaju from the ground. He wanted to release the spear, but the monster flicked his tail in angst and swatted him away like a bug.    

Kaju fell toward Pandit who was there to catch him. The strength of fifty points was not a small number. Kaju barely weighed two hundred pounds. Even sent flying, Pandit caught him easily, though the momentum Kaju carried pushed them both to the ground and sent them rolling like pins struck by a ball. No harm done; Pandit quickly found his feet. Kaju also barely suffered a shallow laceration on his chest and a few blue spots on his limbs.

There was no time to waste, however. By the time, Pandit helped Kaju to his feet the centipede was hurling toward them, a boa constructer with its fangs spread thin and sharp.

A sudden shower of arrows slammed across the length of its body. They didn’t penetrate through and the centipede ignored the small itch they caused. It was keen to get the two people who had hurt it the most.

It quickly caught up with Pandit and Kaju and constricted them, restricting their movement. Petals spinning around its black sunken head, the centipede glared at the two with rage, implying no chance of reconciliation. It suppressed both of them in one move, ready to shear them apart.

Pandit somehow held against the crushing force by contracting his muscles. Kaju beside him had gone limp, his face blue.

However, just as the centipede was to turn them into a paste of meat and blood, it suddenly stopped. A muffled explosion rang in the vicinity, covering everything in a cloud of dust. Pandit saw from the corner of his tearing eyes, Mannat on his knees at the base of the broken tree and a hole in the ground in front of him. He was bent forward, his hand in the hole, fiddling with something. Whatever it was had the flower Centipede conflicted and attentive.

Mannat continued his action unabated ignoring the Flowers aggressive calls. Hurriedly the monster threw Pandit and Kaju to the ground and slithered away toward Mannat, singing a tune of high-pitched panic.

Kaju fell to the ground and took a long and deep resounding breath. A hint of color returned to his face, but he was done for the day.

Pandit knew Mannat was in danger. Hurt and painful as his broken ribs felt, he grabbed onto the spear sticking out from the monster's long tail and pulled hard. The centipede was too strong for him to hold back. He dug his feet in the ground regardless and the monster dragged him toward Mannat, etching his final act against the flower in the ground.

Pandit saw Mannat conjure another mana ball in the palm of his hand only for it to fizzle away into nothingness before forming completely. Mannat was out of mana.

“I can’t hold it off for long!” Pandit shouted.

Mannat heard him and grew determined.

Since he was out of mana, there was only one choice left. Mannat grabbed the mana core hidden inside flowers hidden ovary underground and leached the miasma leaking out of it. His mind buzzed as memories of the flower, its life poured into him. His mana pool started filling while the flower beast grew rampant.

The Flower centipede rampaged and one of its tail flicks stuck Pandit squarely in the back, forcing him to relinquish his hold on the spear. Free of the restricting weight, the beast dashed toward Mannat, petal crown vibrating at a murderous frequency. One-touch and Mannat would be meat paste.

Mannat opened his eyes at this time. The side effect of abusively absorbing miasma was a head-splitting headache, but he heard no voice telling him to commit atrocities as the Witch had explained. Bloody tears trickled down his face as he continued absorbing miasma from the core until there was none left. The core cracked and dissipated into ash, turning the flower's lower half and its succeeding root system into a lifeless monolith.

The miasma Mannat absorbed had already turned into mana. Still, there was too much of it. So much that he would have exploded had he not taken any action against it. The miasma might have changed shape and color and turned into mana, but it was still trouble. The Witch wouldn’t have asked him to rest for a whole day otherwise after absorbing a fingernail's worth of dark energy a week ago.

Raising both his hands toward the Flower centipede, Mannat pushed the rampaging mana inside his body out to the palm of his hands and let it out. All the mana in the mana core that he had absorbed poured out of his body into a torrent of unmatched force. What fifty points heavy mana balls he had been firing? This one attack was worth his whole mana pool! The resultant watermelon-sized ball of wind and fire stuck the flower squarely on its dark face. There was a quiet blue flash and then an ear-deafening explosion. The shock wave produced sent Mannat tumbling into the pit behind him, saving him further injuries as a thunderous sound erupted nearby.

Inside the pit, Mannat felt weak. He was conscious and somehow in one piece. Grabbing the ledge with one hand, he painstakingly stood up and pushed his torso onto the ground, then crawled his way out of the pit. He scrambled to his knees, and while trying to get to his feet, vomited his stomach out clean.

No demons waited for him outside. The monster was gone, obliterated into ash, as was six feet of the ground around it. Only a part of the flower centipede’s long green stem remained twitching before Mannat.  He wanted to deal with it, if only his sight wasn’t darkening, consciousness fading. He was falling when Pandit came to his side and caught his arm, saving him from falling on his stomach juices. 

“You fool—”

Mannat barely heard before darkness overtook his consciousness.