??? ??? ??? [Perspective Switch: Saptal]

  Saptal was thrilled with Gilbud-boy standing at his side. Though he shifted with unease as the terrain began to move.

  Gilbud must have felt it too…the horrid change.

  The arena transformed into a gloomy, barren wasteland that one would see after a terror Treant had sapped it of its vigor. How terrible it was! Saptal hated witnessing an environment ravaged to such a pitiful extent.

  This stood in stark contrast to the vibrant forests he loved and the gardens he had taken great joy in tending. The air reeked of old tombs and rotting incense, nothing like the fresh scent of herbs and flora grown from the very soils he nurtured with his own hands. Grush and that Burdrel over there embodied the grim and derelict representation of corruption and contempt for the environment.

  Grush, a massive skeleton general rose, his ribs resembling cathedral arches, wielding a curved blade longer than a warship's mast. As his eye sockets glowed with baleful green fire, the earth split. Tombs heaved upward, and skeletal hands clawed from the dirt at his command.

  "I'll handle the stick. Burdrel do as you please with the elephant infant."

  Ginormous as Grush, the lobster-like horror burrowed into the earth while the terrain broke.

  "Y-yo! They're attacking already?!"

  "Prepare to defend yerself, Gilbud-bud!"

  Across the broken ground, Saptal crouched low, his bark armor shifting as his bow unfurled from his shoulder like a living branch, strung tight with vine sinew.

  He shot several times, halting the tombs with trees that erupted from the earth. This would do to grace the site with something more pleasant. It held up for the moment, but Grush began his slow gait toward him.

  Saptal grinned, his voice rolling like that of a seasoned pirate: "Yarrr… big bag o' bones, eh? I reckon yer thinkin' yer towerin' frame'll scare me stiff. But lemme tell ya! Yer barkin' up the wrong tree." Saptal chuckled. He found his joke to be a funny one. But despite humor. He kept his eyes on the behemoth before him.

  KiAera's teachings in sharpshooting with the bow would be in his best interest in this battle, ya. It would have been horrendous to clash with boneheaded muscle, so range would be far more suitable in this clash.

  "This will be over in a single strike, sapling."

  The skeleton general swung its graveblade, the arc so vast it rends Saptal's small forest.

  Saptal vaults backward, a vine whipping from his wrist to hook a boulder and sling him clear. He draws, the bow groans, and fires an arrow of hardened resin, glowing with floral power. The arrow splits mid-flight, sprouting into a cluster of thorns that explode into a rain of piercing brambles.

  They pepper the giant's ribcage, vines worming into the cracks. But the undead laughs, ribs reforming with necrotic light. With a gesture, gravestones erupt from the ground, smashing forward like siege-hammers.

  Saptal slams his palms to the ground, roots burst upward, weaving into walls of brambles that catch the stone tombs, halting their charge in a cage of living wood.

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  He acknowledged his opponents resilience. He couldn't deny that.

  "Yer little stone tricks ain't worth a spit o' dirt."

  Then he fired again, this time an arrow tipped with a glowing seed. On impact, it burrowed into the skeleton's leg, sprouting a snarl of trees that try to pin it in place. The general snarled back, ripping free. His blade sweeped again, smashing more through the rising forest. And this time catching Saptal square, sending bark spraying as he skids across the dirt.

  Saptal barely managed to block with a reinforced wood-shield he conjured at the last second. He groans, clutching his chest as bark knits back into place, sap sealing wounds.

  "Hrghh… ya cut deep, bone-bastard. But ya'll find I don't stay down long."

  "And it is for that reason that your lively kind is cleaved down like the timber you are," Grush pointed out, gesturing. "We of the bones always rise, no matter how you bury us."

  Saptal spat out sap, the taste bitter in his mouth, yet the wound already sealed itself with bark ridges. His thoughts rambled as he rose back onto his rooted legs.

  The land here was dead. Too dead. Nothing good grew in it. No herb patches, no flowers, not even a simple weed rising through cracks. Just stone and tomb dust. Ain't no critter would make a home in this graveyard. And that unsettled him more than the giant bone brute towering above.

  "Aye… this ain't right. Forests fall when lightning strikes or when beasts fight too long… but they come back. Always come back. Soil makes room, little sprouts poke through. But this… this here's been robbed o' life. Ain't no comin' back."

  He flexed his bow-arm, bark creaking, vines slithering along his shoulder like snakes ready to strike. KiAera's voice echoed in his head: "steady your aim, and make every shot count. A garden's tended not with haste, but patience."

  Patience. Right. He had none of that when his sap boiled.

  Grush's hollow laugh echoed, rattling through his head. "The soil belongs to the dead, sapling. Every bloom rots. Every forest burns. You will join the silence."

  Saptal grinned, even as he panted. "Yarrr… I heard tales o' ya folk, aye. Bones that never stay down, swingin' yer rusty blades till kingdom come. But lemme tell ya somethin', ya grave-rattlin' barnacle…"

  He slammed his feet into the dirt. Roots exploded outward in a circle, saplings sprouting from the barren land as if his very heartbeat forced them up. Little leaves unfurled in defiance of the tomb stench.

  "Life don't stay buried. Not when I'm tendin' the soil!"

  The crowd roared as his forest clawed upward, twisting around the incoming tombstones, cracking them apart in showers of dust.

  Grush snarled and swung his graveblade, the arc smashing through trunks, reducing the saplings to splinters. But Saptal was already moving. Vines whipped from his arm, latching to a broken tomb, yanking him into the air.

  He drew again, his bow creaking under the strain as a resin-arrow the size of a javelin formed in his hands, glowing green with pure forest power.

  His thoughts tangled like brambles. He thought back to the folklore of his people. Spoken by the elders of the Sapkins. One day he'd wished to be like them heroes.

  Guardian, aye… a guardian would stand tall. A guardian don't back down. KiAera trusted me… the crew trusted me. Sapshorla, especially. Can't let Gilbud-boy face that insect fiend alone. Can't let Ki down. I'll be the wall. I'll be the canopy. I'll be the bloody forest itself if that's what it takes!

  "Eat bark, ya marrow-suckin' scarecrow!"

  He loosed the arrow.

  It struck Grush in the skull, bursting into a crown of thorned branches that split through the bone, anchoring deep. Flowers bloomed mockingly from his cranium. The skeleton general staggered.

  But instead of falling, necrotic fire poured from the cracks, burning the vines black, and Grush tore himself free with a bellow.

  Saptal's breath hitched, as awe and horror mingled.

  "Even flowers don't wanna stay on yer ugly mug, do they?" He barked out a laugh, though his chest ached.

  "Aye, KiAera warned me. Told me urban-folk build their homes atop the graves of them before. Maybe that's all ya are, eh? Just another pile o' foundations."

  But deep in his core, where sap and dream mixed, Saptal felt the urge stronger than ever: be the guardian. This was more than a match. This was his chance to prove his garden's reach could choke even death itself.

  He lowered himself. His body groaned as the transformation started. His trunk split upward, branches thickening into colossal limbs.

  The crowd gasped as Saptal began to grow, spriggan form unfurling into a towering sapling giant, bark creaking, leaves fluttering in defiance of the barren field. And from above, his voice thundered with that same rambling drawl, full of determination and mischief both.

  "Now then, bone-barnacle… let's see how ya like fightin' a whole dang forest."

  ENTER THE SANCTUM: OFFICIAL RELEASE FEB 24

  Monster-LitRPG Kingdom and Guild Building Isekai Fantasy

  A human life lost. A monster life gained. When she awakens in a brutal world ruled by creatures stronger and hungrier than anything she has ever known, survival should be impossible. Yet she refuses to break. She chooses to build something better for those who cannot protect themselves.

  Welcome to Chimeron Sanctum. A dream forged by determination and compassion. KiAera stands at its heart, a mythical-class chimera scribe who refuses to bow.

  But the world shifts. Ancient powers turn their gaze toward her. Sovereigns watch. Systems stir. The Ultimatum approaches. The path she walks demands courage and sacrifice and the future of her sanctuary may depend on every choice she makes.

  Chaos rises Feb 24. New monsters. New power. A new beginning.