CHAPTER 144: CHAPTER 143: SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP (2)

Blaze’s head snapped sideways as soon as he heard those words. Yet, there was no one other than the tree and himself in the clearing.

"I’m losing my mind," Blaze mumbled, before hitting his ears.

He thought he had imagined the sound, but then he heard the choir of voices again. Slowly, he looked up and saw the mouths of the corpses moving in unison.

"Food... you are."

Blaze’s mouth fell open in shock. The tree was talking through the corpses hung in the air!

"What the hell—?"

Just then, the vines struck him again. Blaze ducked and sliced more of them.

"Futile... resistance is," the tree spoke again.

"Yeah? That doesn’t look like the case to me," Blaze scoffed, ripping another vine in half.

Even though he said that, Blaze couldn’t wrap his head around the strange situation. A tree was talking through the corpses connected to its vines. What kind of sorcery was it?

He could think of a hundred ways the cypress was using the corpses, but to think it had control over their minds to speak through them was absurd.

"How is it controlling them?"

Blaze wanted to know it since it was a useful ability, especially if he wanted to fool someone.

There would be times in the future when he finds a dead individual who could’ve been useful if they were alive. Since they’d be dead, even resurrecting them as zombies wouldn’t work, as they’d lose their voice.

For example, the dead enforcers.

If he had the tree’s ability, he could use it to lure someone or feed false information to the cult without the risk of exposure.

Just then, another vine shot towards him. As usual, he swiped it with his claws. The vine split open, shooting a strange liquid everywhere.

Blaze jumped backwards as the water-like liquid fell to the ground, burning away the moss and fungi.

"Acid?"

He couldn’t even start imagining how it was possible.

The vines could probably be thought of as tubes to leak acid into the prey’s body to melt it and then consume the nutrients. But such a potent acid should have burned through the vines themselves.

Blaze looked into the tube-like vines and noticed they didn’t have any protection against the acid. The only plausible explanation was that the tree itself controlled the flow of acid, so the vines weren’t harmed before the acid was used.

It had to be storing the acid somewhere inside. Somewhere from which it could shoot the acid out with a certain force on short notice.

If I can find the container and break it, the acid should overflow within the tree, killing it.

However, he didn’t want to kill the tree. Not until it revealed how it was controlling the corpses.

Besides, if he wanted to kill it, all he needed to do was attack the tree’s main body three times with Necrophage, and it would be gone.

Since the tree could speak its thoughts, Blaze assumed it had gained some kind of sentience. Anything that has sentience must feel pain or fear.

He hoped that by destroying the acid source, the tree would feel pain, panic, and spill the beans in exchange for being saved. It was a long shot, but in the twisted new earth, what wasn’t?

Blaze kept striking the vines while jumping around, hoping to find the source of the acid.

"Searching for something, you are."

"Will you stop talking like that?" Blaze asked, spraying the acid back on the tree. "It’s annoying!"

Instead of stopping or feeling pain from the acid, the tree seemed to have taken note of Blaze’s annoyance and began talking nonstop.

"Foolish... you are."

"Food... you are."

"Desperate... you are."

Despite trying its best to annoy Blaze, the tree’s vocabulary seemed limited. Not only that, its taunts were also childish.

It hasn’t been long since it developed thoughts of its own. It’s like a kid. A superpowered kid.

If it was indeed a kid, then Blaze knew how to deal with it. He kept dodging and striking the vines when he could.

Sure enough, like a spoiled child denied their favorite toy, the tree threw a tantrum. The vines became erratic; some of them got burned by the acid before they could spew it out.

It was the first time the tree was so desperate to catch prey. It didn’t have to work this much before meeting Blaze, as the creatures were taken by surprise since they were unaware of the swamp’s dangers.

Blaze knew something was off and was alert. He wasn’t fooled or taken by surprise like those before. Besides being a Grade-5 zombie, taking on the tree was a piece of cake for him.

"Come on, tree, show me what you got."

As the number of vines reduced, Blaze could close in on the area where it potentially had the acid gland stored. As if that wasn’t enough, he began pruning the tree, one branch at a time.

Since he was using onyx claws, the tree wouldn’t die no matter how many times he struck it. However, it infuriated the tree and caused a great deal of pain.

However, he made sure not to touch the branches that supported the corpses. With time and patience, Blaze located what he was looking for.

"There you are."

A huge bulb was stored at the top of the tree. It made sense since gravity would help the tree release the acid quickly and naturally.

The tree realized what Blaze had planned since the beginning, and its panic worsened.

"Alone, leave me!"

"After all that trouble?" Blaze smirked. "Not a chance."

The tree’s vines were useless against Blaze. It was its only way of offense and defense. The tree could only sense the zombie climb to the top using his tendrils while alternating between taunts, abuses, and pleadings. All of which were equally laughable.

"It was good knowing you," Blaze said, aiming his claws at the pod of acid.

"Begging you... I am! Stop, you must!"

"Why should I? What’s in it for me?"

"Anything you want. I will do."

"A weak argument, but fine. Let’s start with some questions, shall we?"