Plant troubles

"Dante! Hurry up!", Serena said as she turned back looking at him with a serious face.

They had been walking for two hours none stop and this was something he was not use to. Along the way he had to take some breathers in order to regain himself. Sure he had eaten, however it was a totally different matter when it came to his personal strength. This was something that would take sometime to build up to. Serena was clearly use to this as she showed no sign of fatigue in her body. In the eyes of Dante she was either a god or a robot.

"Come on, we have been walking for two hours, I ain't use to this you know. Why can't we just take another break?", Dante asked.

"That's because the sun will soon be up", Serena said moving forward once again.

"I think it would be best if you gave me a better explanation", he said stopping her in her tracks.

Serena sighed before looking up and then backwards. It was clear that she didn't like to answer questions so much, however this was something she would have to get used to since they would be together most of the time.

"The carnivorous plants I was talking to you about usually sleep at night due to the absence of sunlight. Even though they are mutated plants they are still plants. The path we are to follow has a tone of them so guess what happens when we try to cross them in the morning. For sure we would be plant food."

"Can't you just slow them down and dodge them with Nano Lites like you did with the Fractures?", Dante asked as he was curious.

"You remember when I said some plants are much more dangerous than any Fracture I have encountered so far?", Serena asked to which he nodded.

"Well that's because they suck the Nano Lites around them so much that it is barely existent around them, so it will make me powerless."

On hearing this Dante couldn't help but worry all of a sudden. It seems those plants were much more dangerous than he had originally thought. He should have known this though since someone like Serena who had casually fought many Fractures at the same time was being cautious about them. This new revelation suddenly gave Dante the strength he was previously lacking causing Serena to make a weird smile to which he scoffed at.

They continued to move forward without any form of conversation. At this moment Dante wondered if he should tell Serena about his strange abilities. If he did so it was possible they would come up with a plan that could help them escape some dangerous situations. He had even thought about giving her the Anti-Fracture sword since he believed she would do a way better job of utilizing it than he ever could. The problem though was that he knew nothing about her so it was a risky thing to do. It was possible that if he told her she would use him and it was also possible that she would do the opposite of this. Since he didn't really know her too well he decided to keep this secret to himself.

Serena who was ahead was carefully inspecting Dante who was currently lost in thought. She became suspicious of him after he had some how survived the attack of a Fracture. Dante may have been smart but he was not able to hide details from someone like her. Even though she was curious about this secret she knew it would be best to find out about it after sometime. Though she wondered what could be so important that he would keep it as a secret during such a period of time when the world had under gone a massive change.

After walking for about thirty six more minutes, Serena finally came to a stop which caused Dante to give a sigh of relief. He collapsed on the floor smiling before changing his expression when he noticed Serena was hiding behind a rock.

"What are you doing?"

"Come and see for yourself", she said in a rather serious tone.

He carefully crawled on all fours before reaching her spot. Raising his head he was confused as to what she was looking at exactly.

"I don't see anything", Dante said.

"Exactly. something is wrong"

Dante turned to her giving her a look that she knew all to well by now. It was his explain yourself look. After covering her face with her hand for about three seconds, she removed it from her face prepared to explain to him.

"The sun may not be up but the plants should have been moving slightly. They usually use such times to absorb Nano Lites from the environment."

After hearing this, Dante understood her concerns. With a bit of understanding now, he looked at the trees and plants in sight and noticed that they were dormant. It was almost as if they were dead. How could he tell? It was simply because the leaves from the plants seemed to be withering on an abnormally large scale. Even the air around the place was starting to return to it's bluish color.

"I think the plants are dying, though I have no idea why", Dante voiced out to Serena.

"Well I do. Look over there", Serena said pointing to a tree by his left.

Dante quickly looked in that direction only to regret turning in the first place. From within one of the trees emerged some kind of worm like creature. It's body was made of crystals similar to the Fractures and it seemed to have no eyes as well. It seemed to look like a plain earthworm, however there were two differences. The first was that it was really huge as it was 4 meters tall with a length of 6 meters. Secondly was the fact that it had razor sharp teeth capable of eating any part of the huge plants. Dante knew for sure that he didn't want to be in there.

"Ewww. I hate worms", Serena said with a face of disgust.

"Wait if those things ate those trees does that not mean they are much more dangerous than they were", Dante asked.

"Yes, most likely", Serena said confirming his theory. "Now the question is how are we going to get past without attracting them?"