Whilst Seth had been having a very polite, and absolutely not passive aggressive, conversation with the woman of the trees, the Ant Queens corpse had been busy. Naturally, being a corpse it was much like a platypus, in the way that it didn't do much.

Strangely, also like the humble platypus, it was also prone to leakage. But while the duck-billed mammal leaked milk from its pores like it was sweating, a corpse took the much less disgusting option and simply leaked blood instead.

Leaking, or perhaps oozing was the right word considering its gloopy, tar-like texture. Yes... Oozing from the stump of the Queen's neck, where a perfectly maintained blade had cleanly severed her head, was a steadily growing puddle of vile, green blood.

It schlopped and seeped from the wound with the appearance, and smell, of month old milk. However, after a few moments this began to change. The putrid scent receded, soon replaced by the sweet scent of nectar. As if it was the honey of a bee instead of the blood of an ant.

Much like honey, the blood also began to change its hue, shifting from mossy green to a dazzling gold as it oozed from the wound.

The golden honey separated itself from the green blood, crawling across the ground until it was completely uncontaminated, before beginning to rise off of the ground.

Pulled by an unknown force, it rose a few centimetres off of the ground and began to gather itself into a ball, like a miniature planet forming from the force of gravity.

Once the ball was formed, the golden goop immediately hardened, becoming a translucent material as tough as rock while preserving the slight waves it had when it was still a liquid. It became a ball of amber the size of a watermelon which was quickly ensnared by a set of unseen, ethereal threads.

The ball of amber launched itself through the air, pulled by these invisible threads, until it landed in the metallic hand of the threads owner. It was held aloft in the air as the threads owner spun and spoke once more.

"Although, I myself have two questions. Personal ones if you don't mind. Firstly, What does this do?"

At the sound of these words, or perhaps it was the sight of the ball, the entire forest around them bristled with agitation. An invisible wind cut through the branches, stirring the identical leaves and causing them to rustle as if a horde of creatures were secretly leaping through them. A few of the leaves losing their lustrous colour, turning pure white at the edges while the grass below their feet stood up straight in alarm before flopping back down as she tried to play the entire thing off.

"That? It's... It's a trinket. A lump of hardened sap the beast must have swallowed. That is all. It's utterly worthless, you may as well toss it to the side."

A playful smirk danced on Seth's lips as he tossed the ball of amber high into the air, forcing a stifled whimper to emanate from the wooden woman, before he caught it again. He did this a few times, tossing it high as if he didn't have a care what happened to it before catching it once more.

He kept his eyes on her the entire time, whilst she kept her eyes on the ball. Trailing after it with every throw, not daring to blink as if taking her eyes off of it for even the smallest moment risked losing it. Either that or because a woman with wooden eyes probably didn't need to blink, but the first reason sounded much better.

Catching it one last time, Seth let it rest in his hand and ignored the prompt from Angel which appeared, as it did every time he held it in his hand.

"Really? Useless huh? So you wouldn't mind if we kept it then, right?"

"You would keep something so useless? Why?"

"Hmm... You're right. It does seem like a pain to lug around. Maybe I should just destroy it instead."

"NO!"

He had barely raised his hand and formed a fist, in a vague threat to smash it to pieces, before the forest came alive once more. However this time it was in a more active capacity.

The grass beneath Seth's feet lunged forwards, lashing around his feet and squeezing tight. Binding him to the ground as each blade of seemingly ordinary grass was as tough as steel cables.

More blades of grass leapt upwards, surging like a freshly forming tornado, into a tendril made of pure grass that lunged towards the ball of amber in his hands. However before it could cross half the distance between the ground and the amber, Seth tossed it into the air once more. This time, he didn't toss it straight up, instead tossing it backwards towards the rest of the group, expecting one of them to catch it.

At the same moment, a streak of lightning streaked across the sky and struck the wooden woman directly in the chest.

The force of the lightning didn't throw her from her feet, as her feet were quite literally rooted to the ground. Instead, her wooden body simply exploded, a hail of blackened charcoal falling from the skies as the smouldering remains simply slumped to the ground before sinking beneath the earth.

However, despite her death, the grass remained tight around Seth's legs. The tendril before him retreated, as a new one sprouted up towards the Amber ball's recipient. Fox tossed the ball to Alexandra before slicing the grass tendril in half, which ultimately revealed itself to be a futile effort as more tendrils simply grew before the stone giant.

Just like that, the world's strangest game of keep away had commenced. The forest itself desperately reached out to try and grab the amber ball, while the humans tossed it between each other, keeping it just out of reach.

Eventually the tree's began to crawl forwards, their roots wriggling like the arms of an octupus as they crawled through the earth and left deep furrows in their wake. Branches leaned down, trying to scoop the amber ball from the air.

It was a truly ridiculous spectacle. One that unfortunately had to come to an end.

"ENOUGH!"

Branches broke through the surface of the earth, tree roots curling together until a new body for the wooden woman had formed, identical to the last.

The forest around them grew utterly still as the figure emerged from the ground, grass tendrils still hung in the air as they stretched towards the skies. Trees still leaned forward, trying to scoop up an amber ball that was no longer flying.

The only one that moved was the newly formed body of the wooden woman. The roots connecting her to the ground withered rapidly, before cracking as she took a step forward. The roots of her leg, no longer connect to anything, twisted until they formed a delicate foot that planted itself upon the ground.

She stood on two feet for the first time since they had seen her for a few moments, before collapsing to her knees. She stared ahead with an expression utterly devoid of emotion.

Not simply that she wasn't expressing any, but it was if she was feeling nothing at all. Her eyes were completely empty, her mind simply unable to process anything that she was feeling and so it shut everything down completely.

The woman sat there for a few moments, staring into nothingness, before slowly turning her head to gaze at the one who had spoken with utter despair. Beads of water formed at the edge of her eyes before trickling down her face, moving through the cracks and crevices of her bark flesh.

"H-how... how could you?"

Alfie shifted nervously, a growing sense of guilt and remorse building within his heart under that piercing, tearful gaze. He couldn't bring himself to look away, as if this single sight was etching itself in his mind and his heart, so that he would never forget it for as long as he lived.

"I'm sorry... I had to. You know I did."

His eyes finally broke away from the miserable sight, trailing to the side until they landed upon Seth. The man that he had sworn to protect, not just because of the absence of his pet, but because of a debt he had owed him for a long time now.

The man in question was leaning back where he stood, his body frozen just like the rest, as a tendril of grass was stopped before him. A tendril with a sharpened point, truly embodying the name of a blade of grass, and was barely a hair away from piercing the tender flesh of Seth's throat.

When the amber had landed in his hand, he didn't even think about it. Not whether it was right or wrong, or what would happen afterwards.

[Do you want to absorb the Amber of Origin?]

When that notification had appeared before him, just like it did every time he touched the amber, this time he had no choice. He simply said yes. But of all the things he expected to happen... this was the one he wanted the least and yet he always knew was a possibility.

Still on her knees, the woman of the woods hung her head in shame, her body trembling with silent tears, before she finally spoke once more. Her voice was timid, and utterly hollow.

"I know. I understand... Master."