Chapter 34: Verdant vengeance

Words : 1147 Updated : Sep 16th, 2025

Chapter 34 - Verdant vengeanceChaos. Shock. Panic. The once coordinated Spore Choir was in as state of chaos and panic. Not even in their wildest nightmares did they imagine that the Verdant Lord that barely just survived their initial invasion would dare to invade back. Invasion... it was such an alien term to the Spore Choir when it was not them doing the invasion. After all, it was always them before today. By the time they detected what was happening and their perimeter nodes activated, I had already assimilated ten more meters of territory; ten meters of them. The network howled. Spores surged, desperate to regroup. I didn't let them. I summoned the bloom. Not the Bone Bloom, no. That had failed me against Thryss, it was still experimental. But this was something even worse. Something I'd hidden even from myself. A Fungal Bloom taken from their own rot, reengineered through spite and rooted alchemy. A corrupted Choir strain turned into a weapon just like the one I used to defend my territory. I released it. And it sang. High-pitched, full of deranged madness, and eerily beautiful. A shrieking fungal hymn twisted with commands only I understood. My aphids carried it on their legs. The rodents screamed it into tunnels. The wind caught the song and dragged it into every crack of the Choir's domain. And then, they began to die from the inside. No invasion. No war. Just rot. Implosion. Collapse. The once mighty Spore Choir could not deal with the invasion of a single Verdant Lord. This is because they never saw it coming, they were not prepared. And nothing prepared them for such an unstoppable attack pattern. They were used to regular enemies; plantoid monsters, beasts, Verdant Lords, but not this. This? This was a reverse-engineered cousin of the Spore Choir whose sole purpose of existence was to bring the end of the Choir. Echoterra reshaped me from a mere outskirt kid, forging me through life and death encounters into the Verdant Lord. And this was my masterpiece. This was the peak of my treachery. It was swift, relentless, ruthless and unstoppable. By the time I reached the 100 square meter mark, the earth beneath me throbbed with power. Recognition. Evolution. I had done the unthinkable. An entire Choir quadrant, silenced. The ecosystem froze in horror. The Assembly would come. The Hollowroot would watch, and write records of what happened. But for now? I stood alone at the edge of my newly claimed world. Verdant. Violent. Unapologetic; murderers don't apologize. 'You made me a monster,' I whispered into the roots. 'Now watch what I do with it'. And then... DING! ~----~ [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – WORLD EVENT] [Verdant Protocol Synchronization Complete.] >Subject Designation: Clayton Hunt (Verdant Seed – Rogue Origin). >Status Update: Trial 1 of the Genesis Protocols has been completed. >Territorial Milestone Achieved – 100.00 Square Meters. [Global Anomaly Detected: Subject has achieved the milestone without ascending into a humanoid Verdant Form.] [Ecosystem Impact: HIGH] [Recording Entry: 'Verdant Vengeance' – The First Strike.] ["Clayton has successfully initiated a non-linear territorial expansion through hybrid warfare, symbiotic subversion, and apex ecological adaptation. Annihilation-level pressure was applied on the Spore Choir, resulting in collapse of their Border Sprawl Quadrant 4. Survivors now refer to the event as..."] ["...The Day the Choir choked on its own song."] ... [System Rewards:] >Title Earned First Verdant Lord – "You claimed 100 square meters before a major Verdant Humanoid evolution. You are the storm that seeds fear." >System Pathway Unlocked: Rootwalk Protocol (Locked until Verdant Form attained). >Network Clearance Level II Unlocked: You may now receive encrypted signals from deep-tier Verdant intelligences. >Mycorrhizal Archives Updated: You are now part of ecosystem legend. Other plantkind will reference your methods. [Trial 1 Clearance Confirmed. Subject to be extracted to Earth Nexus for Reintegration.] [Final Warning: The other factions will not forget.] [Transition countdown initiated...] [23:59:59] Sёarch* The Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. ~----~ I looked upon the verdant land one last time, engraving the memory in the deepest parts of my consciousness. I would never forget. And then... BZZZ! In a bright flash of light, I disappeared. ... But before I disappeared... What followed was an ecosystem's collective gasp. It didn't happen immediately. No. For a while, silence ruled the roots. The winds held their breath. The spores dared not drift. Even the sun filtering through the upper canopy dimmed as though reluctant to touch me. Then it came; like the shifting of tectonic plates beneath taproot. The Network shivered. The fungal strands that webbed the underground pulsed once, twice, then flared. The ecosystem was in turmoil. A single word rippled through the web, carried across thousands of plant minds. 'Impossible'. From the Hollowroot archives came whispers, astonished and horrified. 'He outgrew the Choir in a single cycle!' 'He weaponized their own strain against them!' 'He's not one of us. He's something else!' The Thorn Assembly bristled with newfound urgency. Their message came through a pulse of crimson thorns planted into the edge of my territory. 'You should have waited. Now, we must act'. Little did they know that it was too late already. 'What will happen to my territory at the end of the trial?' I wondered. 'This gigantic tree-form of mine, will I leave it behind?' 'Will I take it back to Earth?' 'Heck, what has become of Earth after so long?' I didn't even know how long I spent in this verdant world anymore. At some point, I lost track of time. But all that didn't matter now. What mattered was that I was about to return home for the first time in what felt like forever. I could feel my imaginary heart beating rapidly. I felt the ground below me resonate. A low hum that stirred every inch of my core. Earth was calling me home. Even the fungal spores dared not follow, even the apex beasts that once bordered my territory had long fled. The sky above me split with soft gold as the countdown began to zero. I had become legend And legends... return with teeth. END OF VOLUME 1. THANKS FOR READING. [NOTE: I'll be locking from the first Chapter of volume 2, that's the next Chapter. Also, I'll be switching to 3rd person POV as we enter an entirely new phase of the story.] [If you've enjoyed the story so far, please support to make a happy author. I'll appreciate any support, comments, reviews, power stones, golden tickets. Thanks.] [Also, I want to make milestones for bonus Chapters. If I receive 100 power stones in a week, I'll give a bonus Chapter. Another one for 50 golden tickets.]

Chapter 34: Verdant vengeance

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