Chapter : 234

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“Hey,” he said. His voice was quiet, barely audible over the clash of weapons and the crackle of magic. But there was something in his tone that made everyone pause, just for a heartbeat. “I think I saw something back in the jungle. When we were walking here. A big tree with weird markings on it.”

“A tree?” Naomi said, deflecting another attack. “This is not the time for tree watching, Ken!”

“No, listen,” Ken insisted. He was still crouching behind Naomi, but his voice had an unusual quality to it. Not his usual lazy drawl. Something more focused. “The markings looked like the symbols around the altar. I think they are connected. If those trees are part of the same magic network, maybe they are like the prison bars holding these people.”

Sayma’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “A network of magical anchors. That is how the control spell covers such a large area. The altar is the source, but the trees are the transmitters. They spread the mind control signal across the entire village and the surrounding jungle.”

“So if we break the trees,” Laxmi said, catching on, “the signal gets weaker?”

“Not weaker,” Sayma corrected. “Disrupted. The signal would become unstable. The skeleton would have to redirect all its mana to maintaining control, which would leave its shield vulnerable.”

Iris turned to Ken. “You saw these trees? Where?”

Ken scratched his head and pointed vaguely toward the eastern edge of the village. “Back that way. Three, maybe four big ones. They have purple veins running through the bark. Hard to miss if you are looking for them.”

“How did you notice them?” Sayma asked, suspicious. “We were all focused on following the map. You were complaining about your shoes the entire time.”

Ken shrugged. “I notice things. My brain is weird like that. Also, I tripped over one of the roots and the bark glowed at me. That was pretty memorable.”

Naomi glanced at Ken with a mixture of suspicion and exasperation. He had been complaining about his shoes, tripping over roots, and whining about hunger for the entire journey. But somehow he had also noticed magical marker trees that every other member of the team had walked right past. It did not make sense. None of it made sense. But they did not have time to question it right now.

“It is worth trying,” Iris decided. She looked around the battlefield, assessing the positions of her team and the remaining enemies. The villagers were still attacking, but their movements had a mechanical quality that suggested they were running on pure instinct and dark mana, not strategy. That meant there was a brief window before the skeleton adapted to any new threat.

The skeleton warrior shifted on its feet for the first time. Its massive skull turned slowly, those burning purple eye sockets scanning the perimeter of the village. It sensed something. A disturbance in the network of dark mana that held the jungle in its grip. A tiny crack in the prison it had built.

Iris noticed the skeleton’s movement and her jaw tightened. “It knows something is wrong. We need to act now before it reinforces the anchor trees. Laxmi, Zinia, go!”

But even as Iris gave the order, three more tribesmen broke through the defensive line. One of them lunged at Sayma, forcing her to drop a barrier to protect herself. The children behind the barrier were suddenly exposed. Sayma threw up a new wall instantly, but the strain showed on her face. Her nose was bleeding from the effort.

“I cannot keep this up much longer,” Sayma admitted, wiping the blood with the back of her hand. “My mana reserves are below thirty percent. If the attack continues at this intensity, my barriers will fail within ten minutes.”

That changed the calculation. Ten minutes. That was all the time they had. If Laxmi and Zinia could not find and destroy the anchor trees in ten minutes, the barriers would fall and the children would be exposed to the full fury of the mind-controlled tribe. The thought of those purple-eyed villagers turning on their own sons and daughters was too horrible to contemplate.

Ken watched the unfolding crisis from his position behind Naomi. His half-closed eyes tracked the skeleton, the villagers, the children, and his exhausted teammates. His face showed nothing but his usual lazy anxiety. But behind those droopy eyelids, his mind was racing. Ten minutes was more than enough. He just needed to make sure the pieces moved to the right places on the board.

---

Iris made her decision. “Laxmi, Zinia, you two find those trees and destroy them. Ira, Naomi, hold the line here and keep the villagers back. Sayma, maintain the barriers. Ken, stay out of trouble.”

“That is my specialty,” Ken said, giving a lazy salute from his crouching position.

Laxmi and Zinia broke away from the main group and charged toward the eastern edge of the village. Laxmi’s fists blazed with renewed fire, and Zinia’s footsteps left cracks in the earth. The enslaved tribesmen tried to intercept them, but Ira’s water whip cut through the air in rapid strikes, knocking weapons aside and creating a path.

Naomi held the center with grim determination. Her twin daggers moved in a constant blur, parrying and deflecting and striking. She was not fighting to win. She was fighting to hold. To protect. To keep the people behind her alive for one more second, one more minute, one more hour if that was what it took.

Ken stayed right behind her, exactly as ordered. But his half-closed eyes were not as empty as they usually were. They were tracking something. Watching the skeleton warrior on the far side of the village. Waiting. Calculating the precise moment when the shield would flicker and the path would open. He had done this calculation a hundred times before, in a hundred different battles, behind a hundred different masks. The timing had to be perfect.

Laxmi and Zinia found the first tree a minute later. It was enormous, easily fifty feet tall, and its bark was covered in glowing purple veins that pulsed like a heartbeat. Strange symbols were carved into the trunk, and the ground around its roots was dark and corrupted.

“This is definitely one of them,” Laxmi said, grimacing at the pulsing veins. “It is disgusting. I am going to enjoy burning it.”

She drew back both fists and unleashed a torrent of flame directly at the tree’s base. The fire hit the corrupted bark and something unexpected happened. The tree screamed.

It was not a human sound. It was a high, piercing shriek that came from the wood itself, as if the tree were alive and in pain. The purple veins flickered wildly, and a shockwave of dark mana rippled outward. Laxmi staggered back, her ears ringing.

“The tree is fighting back!” she shouted.

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