Seren charges in, her fury a furnace that ignites the divine essence coursing through her veins. Her golden aura blazes like a miniature sun, pushing back the oppressive darkness of the forest and painting the ancient trees in stark, otherworldly light.
Each step she takes crackles with raw power, the ground beneath her feet trembling as though it, too, feels her wrath.
The tree looms before her, its twisted visage carved into the wood like a mockery of life. The hollow eyes glow with a malevolent red light, their eerie shine cutting through the thick, spore-laden fog.
Its grotesque smile widens as if daring her to act, mocking the pain it has already caused.
The spores cloak the forest in a choking haze, clinging to her golden aura like parasites trying to extinguish a flame. Her breathing slows, steady and deliberate, as her ascended form sharpens her senses.
Her blue-golden eyes scan the chaos, the world around her a tapestry of essence flows, threads of energy weaving through the smoke and earth.
"Show yourself!"
The Sword of Light glows brighter in response to her demand. She swings it with an explosive burst of force, the blade cutting through the fog with such power that it sends a shockwave rippling outward. The spores scatter like ashes in a storm, clearing the area in an instant.
But there is nothing. No tree. No enemy.
'Impossible... how did it just vanish?'
Seren takes a look at her surroundings, her current ascended form allows her to have a deeper understanding of how essence flows.
'The thing still has to be connected to the Void Breach'
She notices a slight flow of essence, somewhere deep underground. It has to be its roots.
She leaps into the air with a grace that belies her intensity, her golden aura leaving trails of light as she ascends. Holding the sword high, she channels her essence into the blade, the divine weapon glowing brighter than ever.
The sheer amount of energy surging into it hums in the air, vibrating with the power of more than fifty Sparkbearers combined.
Gravity brings her down, the sword coming with her. The enormous amount of Essence pushed into the sword gets released at a moment's notice. The sound that erupts as Seren releases the divine energy is unlike anything the forest has ever seen.
It begins as a deafening, high-pitched whine, the vibration of pure essence condensing in the Sword of Light. This shrill note grows louder and deeper, transforming into a guttural roar as the energy reaches its peak. The earth groans, the very crust of the planet trembling beneath her.
As the energy explodes from the sword, the sound is a symphony of destruction, a layered cacophony of shattering wood, cracking stone, and a cascading rumble as debris is flung skyward.
The golden flash obliterates everything in its radius, and the resulting shockwave spreads out in a ring of pure kinetic devastation, shaking trees to their roots and flattening weaker ones far beyond the immediate impact.
When the light fades, the destruction is evident. A medium-sized crater, spanning at least 10 meters (35 feet) in diameter, lies at Seren's feet.
The ground inside is scorched black, the soil turned to glass in some places from the sheer intensity of the energy. It descends at least 5 meters (15 feet) deep, exposing tangled roots that writhe faintly as if still alive, though many have been severed or incinerated entirely.
The air above the crater hangs heavy, filled with the residual pressure of divine essence. Even the faintest breeze struggles to stir in the oppressive, golden-tinged atmosphere.
The once-thick smoke of the spores has been completely displaced, leaving a stark emptiness in its wake.
Seren stands in the center of this, her golden aura flickering wildly, barely under her control. The voices, those endless, maddening voices are unrelenting.
"More, more, more! Punish it!"
'So it is hiding its true form underground...'
Her grip on the Sword of Light tightens, the divine weapon trembling in resonance with her fury. Her ascended form surges, flooding her veins with power that no mortal body was ever meant to channel.
The aura around her becomes almost blinding, and the crater's edges crumble as the raw weight of her essence pulls the earth downward.
Without hesitation, she slams the sword into the exposed roots, each strike causing small explosions of light and energy that further deepen the crater.
Chunks of soil and shattered roots fly outward with every swing. The forest around her groans as ancient trees lose their stability, their mighty forms crashing to the ground like fallen titans.
The devastation leaves a stark void where the malevolent tree once thrived. The crater is now vast, an unmistakable scar on the earth, stretching well beyond the original diameter.
The roots are obliterated, leaving only jagged remnants, and the essence flowing from the Void Breach flickers weakly, crippled but not completely severed.
Seren, standing amid the devastation, glows like a solitary sun. The Sword of Light pulses in her hands, and her golden aura casts eerie shadows on the walls of the crater.
The air is silent now, the forest stunned into stillness. Even the voices seem to have quieted, as if satisfied, or momentarily sated by the scale of her wrath. Most of the forest is gone, leaving only a big crater of devastation.
'I guess it runs in the family'
Beneath her, the ground splits wider, revealing a large chamber below. Seren catches sight of it, a grotesque, pulsating heart, easily the size of a small house. Its surface is covered in a patchwork of sickly black and deep crimson veins, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm.
Roots twist and coil around it like serpents, leeching its power while spreading their corruption further into the forest. Spores waft from the heart's surface with each beat, thickening the air with their noxious presence.
The heart's ominous beat radiates a suffocating, almost primal pressure, even Seren in her ascended form feels its weight pressing down on her like an unseen hand. Yet, she knows, this overwhelming power isn't the tree's.
The once mighty tree, now a grotesque shell of its former self, is merely a parasite, feeding off the heart's immense energy.
The realization sends a chill through her.
'What, or who is the true master of this horrifying heart, and how powerful would the owner of it be?'