Echoterra: Rise of the Verdant King
Chapter 44: Brink of the Verdant Abyss

Chapter 44: Brink of the Verdant Abyss

Clayton had thought this was a marathon, a chess game he could drag out in the Forgotten Atlanta Expanse’s tangled ruins.

Well, he’d been wrong.

The Ironblood Remnants didn’t play long games. They burned the board.

He’d taken one of their pawns; a pinned soldier, roots blooming through his chest in the alley’s choke point. Three Initiate Ember grunts and their Luminous Seed leader, Commander Drayce, remained.

Clayton crouched behind a fossilized tram, his Mycoglyph gauntlet pulsing, Regalia of the Verdant Warden in bow form, its bow string taut.

His shoulder burned from a plasma graze, and his Heartseed Core throbbed under the Genesis Suppressors’ relentless pulses.

The Expanse’s roots, alive with Sovereign Bloom, whispered beneath him, but they were sluggish, weakened by the Ironblood’s tech.

"Thought you’d chase me all day, huh?" He muttered, his dark humor a thin shield against the rising soul pressure. "Guess you’re in a rush to die".

He’d baited them deeper, vines coiling through the alley’s crumbled walls, ready to trap the grunts; Rhea, the rookie, and a third soldier.

But Drayce wasn’t biting.

The leader’s black allow exosuit glinted, his chest-mounted core glowing with scavenged Genesis energy, not an Aspect. The Ironblood despised the Genesis Protocols, the cosmic code that birthed Clayton’s Verdant Tyranny.

They’d rejected Aspects, natural or trial-born, fearing they’d turn humans into Behemorphs, abominations like the Charhound Tyrant.

Instead, they grafted old-world tech with controlled Genesis fragments, stabilizing their souls with suppressors to avoid mutation. Drayce’s power was tech-forged, not soul-forged, but it was no less deadly.

"Omicron Cell, converge!" Drayce’s vox crackled, cold and precise. "End this infestation now".

Clayton’s eyes narrowed.

They weren’t spreading out like he wanted, rather, they were tightening, plasma lances humming, suppressors pulsing harder.

He triggered Rootlash Dominion, roots erupting to collapse a steel beam, aiming for Rhea. She dodged, her patched exosuit groaning, but the rookie hesitated, eyes wide behind his visor.

"Move, Joren!" Rhea snarled, shoving him. The rookie, Joren, froze, his lance wavering. Doubt, again, Clayton saw it; a crack in their zeal, but he had no time to exploit it.

Drayce raised his rifle, and the air screamed.

BAM!

A plasma beam tore through Clayton’s vine-barricade, scorching his thigh. He hissed, rolling behind a concrete slab, pain lancing through his leg. His Genesis Threshold spiked, Aspect Strain clawing at his core.

DING!

~----~

[WARNING!]

[Genesis Threshold: 92%]

[Aspect Strain: Critical]

[System Warning: Genesis Suppressor Interference at 30%. Core destabilization imminent.]

~----~

"Rot me sideways!" Clayton growled, his gaze darkening even further. "Alright Drayce, you want it quick? Let’s make it quick".

He loosed another bone arrow, venom-laced, this time at Joren. It punched through his shoulder, roots blooming to bind him.

Rhea fired, plasma grazing Clayton’s arm, but Joren screamed, dropping his lance. In response, Clayton vaulted forward, Regalia shifting to spear form as he aimed for Rhea’s chest.

Then Drayce moved, too fast.

His core flared, and a suppressor pulse hit like a hammer, shriveling Clayton’s vines mid-strike. Rhea rolled free, but Joren wasn’t so lucky.

Clayton’s spear found his heart, thorns erupting inside.

DING!

~----~

[Target Eliminated: Initiate Ember Soldier]

[Genesis Embers Acquired: 3]

[Aspect: None]

~----~

"Joren!" Rhea screamed, her voice raw.

Even Drayce paused, his visor glinting. When they accepted this mission, none of them expected it to be this hard.

They never expected to lose so much to take the Verdant Lord down.

Joren’s death became a catalyst for uncertainty, hesitation; a crack in their unity, but it came too late.

"Enough," Drayce growled, his vox dripping venom. "You’re no Warden. You’re a blight".

He slammed a device into the ground; a jagged orb of black metal, pulsing with red veins. Clayton’s instincts screamed run, but his leg buckled, plasma burns slowing him.

BZZZ!

The orb detonated, not with fire but with nullness. A wave of anti-Genesis energy, Drayce’s Voidstar Crucible ripped through the Expanse, a trump card scavenged from a fallen Null Crown Behemoth.

It didn’t burn roots; it erased them, starving Genesis matter like a cosmic vacuum.

Clayton’s Heartseed Core seized. His vines collapsed, dust in the wind.

His Mycoglyph gauntlet flickered, Regalia trembling in his grip. Pain exploded in his chest, like his soul was being unmade.

He felt too much pain to even curse.

He dropped to one knee, blood trickling from his mouth, vision blurring.

DING!

~----~

[WARNING!]

[Genesis Threshold: 97%]

[Aspect Strain: Catastrophic]

[System Alert: Core collapse in 30 seconds. Survival probability: 12%.]

~----~

"You... cheap... bastard," Clayton gasped, his humor a dying ember.

The Ironblood closed in, plasma lances raised. Rhea’s face was twisted with grief, the third soldier silent, but Drayce’s visor was cold, his core blazing.

He’d burn the Verdant Lord to ash, salt the earth, like they’d done to Verdant Lords before him.

His fate was sealed, so they thought.

But Clayton didn’t die easy. Not in the Scorchpath, not in Echoterra, and definitely not here.

And there was always one catalyst for it... spite.

’I’ll be damned if I let you bastards watch me die!’

’I’d rather watch us die together!’ He growled in his mind, and then...

Something changed. Something snapped.

Something stirred deep inside, older than his Verdant Tyranny, older than the Genesis Protocols. A primal roar, buried in his soul since the Verdant Cradle.

His Dual Consciousness snapped taut, reaching miles away to the moss-bone temple where his Verdant Lord form slumbered. Green light flared in his eyes, bioluminescent roots surging through his veins.

"Fine," he snarled with the last bits of strength remaining in him, blood staining his teeth. "You want a monster? I’ll give you one".

The ground quaked.

Roots; massive, sentient, untouched by the Voidstar Crucible erupted from the Expanse, coiling around Clayton like a throne.

His body shimmered, bark-armor splitting, chloroplasmic energy flooding his form. The air screamed with Genesis fury as his humanoid shape unraveled, giving way to something vast, radiant, and unstoppable.

The Verdant Lord awoke. Towering, its bark-split chest glowing with green fire, thorns like spears, vines like a god’s wrath.

Clayton’s consciousness roared through it, no longer split but fused, a king of roots and ruin. The Ironblood froze, their suppressors useless against this titan.

Drayce raised his rifle, but the Verdant’s Lord’s gaze, Clayton’s gaze locked on him and it felt like the weight of the whole world came with it.

A single vine, thick as a tree, lashed forward, and then...

BZZZ!

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.