Disturbance

...

Booting sequences...

Waking up...

Subject has woken up.

Ugh...

I do not feel fine...

My mind feels like it's trying to tear itself.

What?

Something's different.

The floor, there's a palm deep layer of purple liquid covering it.

... Strange.

Anyway, th—

Intrusion detected.

...Alright. So as I w—

Engaging defensive protocol.

Initiating elimination of intruders.

—as saying that I should do something about these intruders I guess.

But about that part. I can't see them. I don't know where or what those intruders were.

This cocoon is blocking me from sensing anything.

I can create matters. I can spread my senses. I can devour sense- wait where did that come fro- apparently i can.

Mana sensing.

Right i am one with my mana.

During this brief moment of befuddlement, I also noticed that during this, visual noises starts cropping up on the edge of my sense. I can actually see outside of my cocoon now, with it still covering my entire body. Strange.

Hmm? Oh.

I know those things.

The invaders are coming from the blockaded entrance, my branch is being cut down with... Tools?

Short bladed swords?

Axes.

Right, iron axes. Iron?

Sturdy material. Low threat to core integrity.

How do i know all that?

Gi- Irrelevant.

Well that's that, might as well take it for granted for now.

Shifting my attention back to the intruders, i don't actually know what they are doing besides trying to enter this space. But from what I can observe, other than chopping down the vines they're moving their jaw as of they're eating some invisible meat.

Ah they're communicating.

So what are they doing actually? One of them is trying to dominate the other one by striking an aggressive pose, it looks pretty intimidating in that ridged metal covering it has on its body. It's also carrying a container made from some sort of flappy matter- fabric- fabric with bladed tools poking out of it.

The other has fabric draping over it's whole bod- robe- it's wearing a robe. A green robe with more fabric coverings below the robe layer. It's currently making this rolling eye gesture towards the bigger one. The bigger one suddenly stops and stare at the robed one in response.

The robed one shrinks back and averts its eyes from the big one.

I remember. That's fear isn't it? It's effective at making unwanted situations dissappear. Come to think of it, those tiny lizards from the forest use that too didn't they? Suddenly radiating with light intense enough to burns right through even when you have your hands covering your eyes. It's enough to make bigger things that wants to get to it too afraid to continue and run away as a result.

It doesn't change the fact it's still small and weak though, not to mention it tastes good. If you can stand the light for a while it'll start running away and the light starts to dims.

The thing is, it never ran away far enough.

When it stops is when you know you can sink your claws into its soft body and bite its head off.

Though i never had teeth nor hands. When d-

I suppose the big one is trying to make the robed one feel fear, the question is why.

Moving on—

Invader A and Invader B is deemed to be in the classification of humans. F rank category.

F ranked humans?

Indeed.

... So, does that mean I could beat them?

ThEY DeSPaIR. ExTRacT, kiLL, COnSumE.

Anomaly det—

Program is be—

OBeY.

Correcting self...

Retranslating content...

Overriding finished.

Did something just happened?

I... Well it's fine. So I can beat the invaders. But ho—

Actually nevermind, I know how.

It will be even easier since they are nearing my cocoon? Why are they approaching me?

Subjects designated as Invader A and Invader B is deemed to currently be in a state of "curiousity".

I know that now.

Now. Make it be in the equilibrium of being hard and soft. Branches springs to locomotion around the aggressive one, invader A.

It's face contorts with its mouth wide open, it pulls out another axe from the fabric container on its back and together with the other axe it already has on its hand. It starts swinging towards the incoming pile of vines, the axes aren't sharp enough though so all its achieving is batting it away and dodging one it didn't bat away.

The other intruder seems to be ruffling around its robe and pulls out a transparent rou- glass bottle and- there's a ticklish feeling. Right there at the bottom of my core.

From the tip of its finger a small flame flickers into existence. I can tell that flame is mine. That flame is supposed to be mine.

I can't feel it.

Why can't i feel anything from it anymore?

That thing took from me

Why can that thing take it?

It's mine. That thing stole from me. A thing that crawls out from somewhere just took a part of me. My mana is there. It's not mine anymore? I don't want that. Why? Huh? Since when? I don't want this. Unacceptable. I want it back. I want i- it's mine.

It's mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. MineMineMineMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINENMINEMIENMINEmINeMiNEmiNEMIne mINE

Calm

The cocoon broke.

Vines explodes out my center.

A tidal wave of vines covers every inch of the cave, scenery of reddish purple meat replaced with intertwining bark. Everything is blue now.

Trees with sharpened tips burst through the vine covered floors. By now the dirty things defiling my sanctum is knees deep in my vines. A pair of sharpened trunks sprouts from beneath the ground invader A was stepping on, piercing through the armpit gaps between its armor with a resounding shunk. It throws back it's head to the heaven and try to shout to no avail.

Invader B widened its eyes and frantically puts its fingertip that's covered in MY flame below the bottle and throw it at me. The bottle explodes, globs of crimson colored liquid splashes into my branch and set it on fire. Blue and orange now wars within this space for a brief while, as a multitude of vines clumps together and slams into those patches of annoyance repeatedly until the flames are extinguished alongside the triumphant expression plastered on the invader's head.

More vines grow from beneath and from above they converge into the spasming and trapped form of invader A. Except its head, the rest of invader's A body is now within my grip.

I squeeze.

Resounding cracks and splats. The thing's bones cracked and its internal organ ruptures. A brief flicker of delight fills me seeing some of its intestine coming out of its mouth.

Intruder B stands there, unmoving and staring eyes wide open staring at scenery in front of it. Blood leaks from between my branches.

The final intruder gaze upon its fellow intruder, gazing hard at the only part of the corpse uncovered by my branch. A mouth stuffed with wet guts is what greeted it.

A tree with cavity of considerable size springs into being right in front of the compressed corpse. Without much ceremony the body was thrown into the tree's cavity.

Intruder B is now realizing what situation it's in and starts to move towards the space entrance.

A torrent of vines falls from above and crushed any action it might take. There was a feeling of crack when its body was forcefully acquainted with the floor accompanied by the thing curling and opening its mouth as wide as it can, almost as if it wanted to dislocate its own jaw.

Rivulets of liquids of two different shades of crimson drips from the intruder's torso. Seeing it no longer capable of further threatening movement, the vines retract into the ceiling from whence they came.

The intruder slowly gets up to its knees, brown hair too matted with sweat covered its own face. Those hair fails to conceal the leaking of water from its eyes, a sign of submission and defeat.

Glass fragments falls from its mutilated chest, remnants of glass bottles it uses as a weapon to harm me. Some still stuck to the bloody wound, aggravating the thing's pain.

From the ground before it, a small tree sprung into its face, smacking its ugly countenance, slamming the back of its head into the bark covered floor.

Four sharpened trees capitulate on the moment the intruder's limbs became an available target. Four shunks and the creature once again writhes in renewed agony.

The four bloodied and sharpened trunk then moves into four different directions. Which also have the effect of dragging each of the thing's limbs into four different directions away from its torso.

It tried to scream as i ripped its arms and legs off.

Limbless now, blood, ligaments and thin strips of flesh pouring out from the stump of the thing's severed appendages.

Face contorted, with eyes opened so wide it almost looks like it'll pop right out of its socket still leaking water. It stops moving at the same time its eyes rolled back into its sockets.

It's not dead. It just fainted.

It would be an amusing sight if it wasn't so hateful.

Branches pierces into its neck, life mana courses through it into the body it's piercing. The stumps wriggles and the flesh on it shifts as the mana of life tries to regenerate the lost limb. Undesirable. Consciousness starts to return to the intruder as the side effect of the very energy of life is being pumped into it.

It's eyes grows wider than ever when my branches move to cover the still regenerating wound on its stumps. FilLLeD wITh DEsPaIR, STrEtChY sKin tURnS sHAcKle.

Threat has been eliminated. The sanctuary has been secured. Now, to alter the co—

TrUTh ALreAdy bEcOme BLuE.

Receiving signal...

Signal established...

Receiving data...

Warning subject are not—

GRoW.

Data received.

Warning subject are n—

Control has been overridden.

Glory to The Deep Ones.

Ack! My core, It stings...

...What was i doing again?

Oh right i just won, now i got a human corpse and one human captive. I'm not sure why i keep it alive though.

My recollection of the fight is also stra-

Focus.

Ah. Right, right.

Making sure to put the robed on- ah i guess i can't call it a robed one anymore since i've stripped the robe off of it. Hmm.

Hmm how about invader B? Right then, let's stick with invader B.

I put Invader B inside a cocoon with a different shape from mine, it's more of an elongated ellipse rather than my own spherical branch orb.

Now, let's move on to plugging branches into it! ...Wait, no her. It's a female.

What is a female anyway? Doesn't matter!

Plugging my branches into it seems to make it squirms greatly, an impressive feat considering that it does this without any of its appendages... Wait nevermind, I somehow forgot that a head is still an appendage, so it is not as impressive.

Anyway, with my branches inside of it, I willed them to start racing towards invader B's torso. I am currently looking for a glowing blue ball that seems out of place with the rest of invader B's innards.

Oh! I found it.

Now, to connect it into my mana...

Done.

It's finished.

A mana generator. I have no idea what a generator is, but, i know it to be useful so let's try having one.

The idea of this seems to revolve around having mana produced by living things, to be then harvested, earning an additional source of mana aside from the mana whirlpool swirling around me. The tricky thing to do here is to try keeping the generator alive, but that's not a problem considering that mana could replace any natural nourishment that a living being could possibly need... or so I've been told. Plus the branch cocoon seems layered enough to me to fend off those axes they use.

Though something told me axes and that red liquid... red liquid? ...It's min-

The potion isn't all that incoming intruders have to offer.

Right now that I finished creating generator A, it's time to create my first guard. No idea what a guard is, but i also knows it'll be useful.

Focusing on the dead body, i removed its coverings and start to work.