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Chapter 6

The Forest Cure.

When Liki woke up the next morning, the sunlight was pushing into the small hut from the open doorway, shining right onto his face. The bare and dark branches of the forest canopy beyond the small grove shook with the wind of the morning.

A loud snoring filled his ears then as the Foxen laying next to him breathed in. One-Eye laid sprawled on the bed next to him, one arm on his chest, head pointed up, and the fur around his groin looking matted and sticky with his dried cum. He had popped free of Liki's tail in his sleep, the wolf sleeping through it.

Liki stirred a bit, grunting as his felt his ass sting with that well known feeling of a sore tailhole.

He used one paw to lift himself up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, then wincing as his ass stung again. "Damn...crazy fox...I've never had anyone go at me that hard before..." That was true, Kaz was bigger sure, but he was gentle about it. Blackpaw was smaller than One-Eye, and was also gentle. He wasn't used to that kind of roughness.

"Crazy Fox huh?" One-Eye chuckled behind him then, and Liki turned his head to the larger canid, who apparently had just woken up by coincidence, his one eyeball seeming to glow with mischievous delight. The Foxen was grinning smugly while looking at the Fangren, one arm holding up his head, the other paw playfully groping his sheath, the tip of his foxhood slipping free and back in over and over as he did.

Liki pinned his ears back and he huffed, turning his head away and One-Eye continued taunting him, "I've never taken another guy before, but I could get used to it."

"Humph, better not let Kaz find out about this, he'll pound you a new hole with his cock."

The fox stayed silent a moment, until he said silently and almost like he was thinking aloud, "Maybe I'd like that..." then he shook his head a few times, sighing and taking his paw off his slightly emerged cock, letting it slip back into his sheath as he stared up at the ceiling.

"Ya know though...seriously...thanks..."

"For what?" Liki asked, closing his eyes as he focused a moment, touching Blackpaw's mind with his own to let him know he was okay. The other wolf responded with assurance, he had known where Liki was the moment he had woken.

"For that tail of course." The fox chuckled, but then became serious again, "But also...for rescuing me from his clutches...if what we just did hadn't happened, I wouldn't have believed your story one bit."

"That you're being controlled by a pair of children in your head you mean?" Liki asked while opening his eyes, bringing himself to his feet and starting towards the corner of the hut where his and One-Eye's armor had been tossed.

"Yeah, I've never felt attracted to any male before, but you..." He looked at Liki, his eye locked onto the wolf's tail and rear pointedly, "It's a different story." He growled lightly, grimacing again as his cock swelled rapidly, pushing back out of his sheath a few inches, until Liki pulled up his pants and blocked the fox's view of his ass.

Liki grinned and chuckled, buckling his pants tight around his waist and getting the rest of his armor on before he turned to the naked fox, "As long as you're okay with it, you're more than welcome to travel with me. Next time, a little less rough though please." He walked up to fox, still grinning. He leaned over him, bringing the edge of his muzzle just a few inches from One-Eye's own, his paw reaching down his body to grasp the fox's balls.

One-Eye gasped, as Liki's paw squeezed both of the orbs and he said, "You better watch yourself too foxy...I'm not always on bottom..." Liki moved his eyes to the side and watched a moment as One-Eye's foxhood grew inches in only a few seconds, smiling as it twitched and his sheath began to swell as the knot at the base of his cock emerged, but it stayed trapped inside the furry cover. He was so easily aroused by even a few words. The wolf inside One-Eye's mind was a horny teenager, and as directed towards Liki as he now was, One-Eye was bound to do anything Liki told him.

He let go of the Foxen's balls then, who shivered and pinned his ears against his head while the wolf stood straight up again and turned away from him. He seemed rather upset to be played with so easily by another male, and to be reminded that it seemed, this wolf had him by the balls, literally. Though, as Liki bent over again to take One-Eye's armor, the fox realized it was a much better situation than he had been in with his lord Salvis.

"Get your stuff back on." Liki said to the fox while throwing all his armor at him, all hints of playfulness gone, "we still have a job to do."

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When Liki and One-Eye returned to the campsite, the soldiers that had been stationed there were gone already, all but one.

"Nick!" Liki exclaimed as he saw the other fox standing with Reyals and Blackpaw.

"Hello." The Foxen Knight smiled and his bright blue tail gave a few wags, "I've been instructed to assist you. The way to the maze can be dangerous, Rotted roam this whole forest."

"No...actually." One-Eye said, "The Rotted are all here." He looked around the still corpse littered landscape left behind by the Knights.

"All here?" Nick said while he looked around himself. "There's not very many of them...but come to think of it, they never did increase in number..."

He stopped his gaze at the dead black eyes of the head of one of the Rotted, who stared back, still alive, its mouth opening and closing repeatedly. The rest of its body was nearby, torso and legs still trying to reconnect.

"We cut them down every three days...and then they get back up and we cut them down again, but there's never anymore than there already is." The fox knight moved up the hill close by and he looked down into the small alcove.

"The Rot has already taken over the entire alcove..." He said sadly, and Liki moved up to stand next to him. Indeed, without the druids there to keep the Rot at bay, it had spread quickly and taken over the alcove. The few houses that had been built were already dark and rotted, oozing that black slime from the woodwork, the trees were nearly completely taken over, many green leaves beginning to fall from the canopy as they started to die. As soon as a leaf would touch the sickly forest floor, it would shrivel and melt into the same black ooze.

"If we don't hurry, it'll reach Heartwood, and the druids won't be able to keep it all at bay forever there, it'll spread out and eventually surround the forest. The only reason they were able to stop it here is because the Rot was not able to go around the alcove, since it is surrounded by rocks, not grass. It had to go through it. Now that it has though, there's no limit to how much it can spread and eventually, it will surround Heartwood..." Nick sighed.

Liki nodded, "Don't worry...Kaz is with them, and they've begun to evacuate everyone to safety until this all blows over. We have our own job do to, and if this is going to end, we can't fail."

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"No, get everyone to the coastline. The Rot has expanded past the alcove by now, it'll spread out across the forest. Even if we surrounded Heartwood with enough druids to keep it at bay from entering the city, there is no way we could continue to station them 24/7 without rest, we don't have enough druids here to do that." Kaz said, standing before the King and Queen of Heartwood.

Kaz was with the Urson General that Liki had met, discussing what to do with the Royal Family of Heartwood. The Borians were very reluctant to leave their ancestral home, understandably, and were arguing with them both.

"Kaz is right." The general added in standing beside him. Despite being an Urson, which were usually large in size, he still only came up to Kaz's neck in height, the wolf held a still considerable size advantage, "Besides that, there is already an infection on the inside of the city, to put focus on protecting the borders of the city from the spread would mean that the infection in the middle will take over. Your people cannot stay here, you must evacuate."

"But to a different land all together?" The King questioned in half anger, "General, I was never told of this back up plan of yours."

"King Arthur believed you would not agree to the plan, so he kept it hidden. I understand that asking you and your people to leave the land which you've inhabited for centuries is a hard thing, but staying here only means your death."

"You plan to take my people across the sea, we cannot live long without solid land under our feet, we are not Beasts, we are plants. We don't eat, we get our nutrients from the soil."

The Urson snarled, his temper flaring at that, "Which means you should be grateful that Beasts even bother helping you."

"What was that?" The Borian King snarled back.

"We're the ones who end up giving up most of our lives to help you stupid trees!" The bear roared, shaking a fist at the King, while Kaz looked at him in moderate surprise. "You can't stop it yourself so you asked us to do it for you, I've wasted three years of my life protecting that forsaken little alcove! And I will not allow your foolish pride to make the mission my King gave me a failure."

The Kings eyes narrowed, staring at the Urson, "Do you mean that you would take me hostage and kidnap me from my home?"

The few Borian guards that were in the room seemed to snap into a high alert, their weapons clanging as they drew them into the ready.

Kaz jumped at this, "Hey! Easy!" He growled and he bared his teeth a moment, before stepping forward, hand glowing green.

"The Druids and Borians are of the same affinity, I don't want to see this amazing forest destroyed anymore than you do, King, but the situation is no longer what it used to be. The Rot will take the forest, that much is certain, and it will take Heartwood with it. There is no saving the city King..."

The king stayed silent, staring at Kaz, who continued after a moment of silence, "The forest can be restored, the Rot purged, once my companions destroy the Rotted King. However, your people, once infected, cannot be saved. If you refuse to leave the forest, even if we stop the Rot, what matter does it make when your people would have to be destroyed? You must move your people to a safer location, as far away from the Rot as possible until it is removed from the forest."

The King stayed silent again a moment, until he sighed and he asked, "How close has the Rot already gotten to Heartwood...?"

"My lord, the Rot is spreading quickly...reports say it is only two miles away now...and spreading outwards from the alcove at a rate of one foot per second..." The knight closest to him responded, "If we're to evacuate the city, we should start now, at the rate it is spreading, it will be here within hours...

The King was silent again, before he spoke, "Very well, begin a full evacuation and direct the civilians to the coastline, all non-Borian druids are to follow them, and make sure the Rot does not infect the pathways or them."

"The pathway to the coast is still clear, the Rot will take longer to reach the paths beyond the city." The Urson general grunted.

"Hmm, then line the druids along the pathway to the coast, line them up along it so that if the Rot does reach it, it will not penetrate beyond them."

"Do that right now, the Druids will exhaust themselves and the Rot will penetrate anyway."

The King eyed him, "You are not one of my druids in the city."

"No sir, I am Kaz, I'm an adventurer mostly." Kaz said, stepping forward a moment.

"How does that sound familiar?" The King asked lightly.

"The name of Liki Wolfspirit might be better associated with me..." Kaz grumbled a bit, annoyed slightly that Liki was always the one who was more well known than him, "I am his mate."

"Ah yes...Liki...the fabled Shadow of EarthEnd." The Borian nodded.

"Yes..." Kaz sighed, "He's the one currently making his way to the Rotted Maze, to try and take down the Rotted King."

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Liki pushed aside a brach as he walked, suddenly taking a deep breath and sneezing, "A-choo!"

"Geeze. Some rogue you are, that's not sneaky at all." One-Eye growled a bit close behind him.

"Oh boo hoo." The wolf retorted back while turning around, stopping a moment to let everyone rest. "There hasn't been a soul, alive or dead, since we started walking. Nick was right, there is litterally nothing guarding this pla-"

Liki cut off his sentence as he spun around, slashing out with his dagger at the air.

He stood still as the others paused, until One-Eye stared, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shut up..." Liki stated loudly yet calmly, then he reached out to the air and his hand met some kind of resistance, until he pushed against it, and it fell down.

The invisible being, who's body was colored exactly so that it would merge in with the back ground around it, fell from the air slowly, eventually, the large gash Liki had just cut through it's arm turning visible in the air.

"What the hell?" Blackpaw said as the Rotted groaned when it hit the ground, and Liki grimaced.

"The Rotted here have become one with the land...that's why there never seems to be any more...they can't move." He looked around the area, "They could be anywhere, merged into the landscape, invisible..."

"You're kidding..." Nick said agasp, but the undead Borian that laid at their feet now could not be mistaken.

"No." Liki said, drawing his second dagger into his other paw, "Stay alert, stay close together, this must mean we are close to the entrance."

"Yooooooou..." The forest shook around the group suddenly, everyone snapping to attention and forming a circle around each other. "Intruders..." The voice vibrated through the forest loudly, the trees actually shaking from the force behind the voice.

Suddenly, the whole forest seemed to start to move. Dozens of Rotted peeled themselves off the trees and rose up from the ground where they had been laying silently.

"RRRRRAAA!!!!" The voice roared out, "Nooooooo..."

The zombies reached out to them, groaning, black ooze dripping from their mouths.

"Defend!" Liki shouted, stepping back up closer to everyone else.

"NOOOOOO!!!!" The forest shook again, the ground shaking. The Beasts lost their footing one after the other, falling to the ground on their sides, rears, or knees. The Rotted paused, their heads all turning beyond, and Liki followed their gaze, and he saw it.

Two hedges sprouted up into the air, side by side, leading deeper unto themselves till the turned at a corner. It was the entrance to the Rotted Maze.

"With...the last of my will...I will not...let you..." the voice shook heavily, the Rotted seeming to shiver and a few of them growled out in what could only be frustration.

Then, to Liki's amazement, the Rotted that had surrounded them began to back a way, arms lowering. They slowly turned, and, only while a few of them would glance back behind themselves at the group.

It was then, as they vanished into the forest out of sight, that One-Eye clasped his empty, furred over eye socket with his paws and cried out, falling to his knees after just managing to get up to his feet. "AHHH!!! SHIT! THAT PAIN!"

"One-Eye?!" Liki barked and he knelt beside the fox.

The Foxen's one good wide was wide, darting left and right rapidly. "He...he's coming..."

"Who?"

"S-S-Salvis..." The fox whimpered out, "He's coming...He's not happy...the Rotted King is disobeying him..."

The voice of the forest called out to them again, "Please...heros...hurry...you must hurry...before...he returns..."

Liki patted One-Eye's back lightly, "Remember One-Eye, you're safe with me... as long as I'm alive, my magic protects you from his influence."

The fox stared at him with his one eyeball, eventually nodding his head slowly as he panted, sweat matting his forehead, "Y-yeah, right..." He stood up shakily, a poof of black smoke appearing as he summoned his sword.

"I'm ready." He said, trying to sound calm, but Liki could feel the emotions coming from the fox. He was scared, very scared.

Liki nodded and he stood back up with the fox, staring at him a moment longer before he turned towards the rising hedges and he started to take the first steps towards them, leading the others into the Rotten Maze.

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The maze seemed to creak and chirp noisily. It was like they had stepped into a completely different world. The ground was spongy with dead grass, flowers, and was covered in a dreary white fog.

"The ground here..." Blackpaw started, picking up his footpaw to stare at the grimy muck covering the underside of his boot. "It's..."

"Dead." Reyals stated firmly, "The grass outside still had a tinge of life to it, it still made crunchy noises underfoot." The felines eyes surveyed the ground keenly, "In here though, it's completely destroyed..."

"Even if we do defeat the Rotted King, this sanctuary cannot be restored to what it had been years ago." Liki said sadly as he stood in the middle of a small clearing, four different pathways shown in the wall that split from this center point of the maze.

"There's four different paths..." Nick said lightly as he looked down the rows, "Which one goes to the Rotted King?"

Liki thought a moment, until he turned toward the others while holding his paw, "Here's what we'll do, One-Eye and I will go one way, you guys all go the other way. If you find a dead end, return here. Blackpaw," He looked at his student, "Keep yourself in contact with me, if you find him, you yell for me, all right?"

"Will do Master." Blackpaw responded while nodding, in complete focus.

"All right then, One-Eye, come on."

"Sure..." The fox answered the wolf wearily, his eye darting back and forth between all the shadows.

Liki and One-Eye took the path to the farthest right of the entrance, while the others began down the back to the farthest left, in opposite directions.

He recalled what he had learned about the maze before hand from the druids in Heartwood before he had sat out to the front lines.

"The maze has become corrupted by the Rot." The druids had told him, "The walls shift and change constantly. Only one true path leads to the nursery in the very center of the maze. But...that was years ago...there is no telling, by now, the Rot may have changed and altered the walls..."

"It's definitely not the same as it was before." Liki said to One-Eye as they walked, taking a turn slowly along the edge of a corner to the left. "The druids had told me that the entrance only had three different pathways...but there's four now."

"The maze changes itself constantly...seemingly at the whim of no one." One-Eye said lightly, still acting very weary and nervous.

The forest around them seemed to groan again, that voice that had spoke to them moaning on the wind again, "Ohhhh....I grow...weak...I cannot...control them anymore...I'm sorry..."

"AH!" One-Eye yelped, and Liki turned to him in surprise.

The blackened arm of a Rotted had reached out through the wall of the maze, grabbing onto One-Eye's body and pulling him against it, the zombie's head following, mouth open wide as if to take a bite out of his neck.

"graaahhha-CK..." it made a cracking noise, as suddenly a throwing star embedded itself into its forehead, snapping it back with a loud cracking noise. Liki stood with his paw held out at it in the middle of the pathway, having just thrown the star.

The impact of Liki's attack gave One-Eye enough time to summon his own sword and he sliced off the Rotted's arm, jumping away from the wall beside Liki.

The Rotted groaned, it's head tilted back from the attack, neck cracked open from the force. Black ooze flooded out from it's neck like blood, but the corpse shambled out from the wall and stood before them.

Liki drew his daggers, his ears twitching as he picked up the sounds of snapping twigs and he looked down the length of the pathway to his right. More Rotted were coming out from the walls, pulling themselves free of the entangling roots.

"It seems..." One-Eye said as he put himself back to back with Liki, looking down the opposite left side, as dozens more of the undead emerged, "That there really were more than just the ones attacking the border around..."

"We need to move, we have to find the King." Liki snarled, glaring at the Rotted he had thrown his star at, the head snapping and rolling off to lay on the ground, black drool seeping from its lips, its body slowly falling to the ground with the same black blood flowing from its neck.

"Think you can keep up?" One-Eye grinned lightly as he talked back to him.

Liki grinned as well, "Well well, there's your attitude back already huh?"

"Call it the spur of the moment." The fox growled and he held his weapon firm in his paws as he struck out to slice the nearest Rotted in half, the top half of the body sliding off the bottom with a sickening 'slooooop' noise.

More like Folvar handed over control to Wolff cause the situation got dire. Liki thought to himself.

"Come on!" Liki shouted and he dashed, pushing his way between the mops of Rotted, slashing only at those that got to close or were in his way. One-Eye kept close behind him, wielding his sword in one paw while using the other to shove the Rotted away himself.

They pushed their way through countless numbers of the undead Borians as they ran through twists and turns of the maze, the numbers seemed never ending though!

"Damn it!" One-Eye growled as he blocked one of the infected creatures with his sword, pushing it away and bowling over a dozen other of them. "They keep coming and coming!"

"It's this maze!" Liki shouted as he stabbed into one himself, ducking over to heave the husk over his body and toss it against a group, making them fall down into a jumbled heap as well. "They're a part of it! We run away, but they just merge into the wall and reappear in front of us!"

"You think huh? Why not use some of that fire magic of yours to burn the wall away then!?"

Liki blinked, that was actually a good idea and he wondered why he hadn't thought of that himself. He held the paw that had his flame mark on it and he called on the Flame Elemental for assistance, but the mark did not glow.

Liki growled, unable to focus as he had to defend again, blocking first with one dagger against the arm of a Rotted, then slashing upwards with his other to cut off the arm, black blood spurting from the severed limp as the undead howled out, stumbling back away from him.

"It won't work! The flame isn't answering me."

"What?! You mean you don't just use your magic whenever you want?! Like this?" The fox growled and he brought his paw up into a fist, clentching it tightly, a dark mist surrounded it and he yowled while holding his palm out at the undead horde behind them. The mist exploded out from his paw, covering the Rotted, who began to flail and stumble about.

"Move! They'll be stunned awhile now!" He shouted at Liki while dashing past him and slashing the few Rotted that had been in front of them, the wolf dashing after while he explained.

"My Shadow magic is fine, my fire magic depends on something else!"

"Whatever, just run!" One-Eye shouted, his breath coming in pants as the two of them ran through the maze.

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"It seems we lost them..." One-Eye panted heavily as he knelt, his sword vanishing from his paw as he did. Liki stopped next to him, panting only lightly, his Shadow magic helping him maintain himself so far.

"Yeah..." The Shadow nodded, keeping his daggers in hand as he looked around. They had ran into a clearing. There wasn't much here, but there was an interesting thing that didn't seem to belong.

"Look there. There's a hole in that hedge." He pointed forward and One-Eye looked up from his kneeling.

"Huh? Oh hey...there is..." He stood up straight, calming his breathing while he and Liki stared at the hole.

"What do you think did that?" He asked the wolf while they walked up to it.

Liki shook his head a bit and stood beside the fox as they stood in front of the hole. They stayed like that a moment, resting themselves up while they good. Liki closed his eyes and let his mind expand.

"Blackpaw." Liki thought out in his head to his Student, "How are you doing?"

"We're doing fine!" Blackpaw responded back quickly, "We're able to hold our own against them with the three of us here, they're not very bright."

"All right, keep gathering their attention for us, me and One-Eye will keep trying to find the Rotted King and-"

"Watch it!" One-Eye snapped at him suddenly, forcing Liki to lose his focus and open his eyes. The Foxen pushed him, making Liki fall to the ground. He leapt back at the same time himself, and a huge black slap of something slammed into the ground where they had just been standing.

Liki grunted as he hit the ground on his rear, looking up to the equally huge carnivorous plant that loomed over him in the middle of the clearing, having somehow gotten behind them.

"Oh great Gaia!" He shouted in surprise, and the meat eating plant roared at him, the middle of its flower like head splitting open and showing him four rows of sharp, gleaming teeth.

A rope of black mist snapped tight around one of the weeds that acted as the feet for the plant monster, the whip like weapon attached to the hilt of One-Eye's sword, which he pulled on with all his might.

The plant fell over with another mighty roar, its enormous petals and body kicking up a cloud of dirt.

"Get of out there!" One-Eye shouted and Liki scrambled to his feet, joining the fox as they again starting dashing through the maze at random. The beast roared in the distance behind them, but it seemed not to make any attempt to follow, its body too bulky to probably keep up.

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"Gaia...fuck..." One-Eye panted heavily as he stopped suddenly and fell to the ground, sweat matting down his face as he sat on his rear.

Liki stood beside him, still only panting slightly, and One-Eye looked up at him.

"How the hell are you...still able to keep going...? I'm exhausted..."

"My Shadow Magic helps me out." Liki said simply while he checked behind them. No, there weren't being followed at all still. The plant monster had been awhile ago now, there were deep into the maze by this point.

As One-Eye's breathing starting to slow, Liki's ears began to pick up a different noise.

"What's that...?" He said while perking his ears to the direction. "Sounds like...breathing?"

Indeed, it sounded like a very shallow, very slow breathing, coming close by.

One-Eye had fallen deathly silent as he heard it as well, "Could that be...him?"

Liki started walking briskly, the fox hurrying to get to his feet and follow. Liki followed the breathing, ears perked and twitching as he did, until he came to another clearing, but this one was much much different.

One-Eye came up beside him as he took in the sight, a small flower bed, the flowers long since dead and wilted and black, and in the middle of them all, facing the entrance to the clearing, was the Rotted King.

He stood taller than any Borian Liki had ever seen, and his body seemed to be bloated up to a massive size, oozing the black blood of the Rot constantly between the cracks of his bark skin and mouth, which seeped into the ground around him.

The big Borian took a deep, raspy breath, "Heros...you've come...at last..."

"Yes..." Liki said softly, tilting his head as he took a few steps forward.

"You know what I'm here to do?" Liki asked as he drew one of his daggers into his paw.

"Yes..." The blackened, sickly tree stated, his lips coloring themselves black with the inky blood as he spoke slowly "To kill...the source of the Rot..." he coughed, hacking up a large ball of Rot onto the ground at his feet.

Liki started at the ooze that dripped down the big Rotted's body. It seeped into the ground around him, vanishing from sight. He could make out the irises of the tree staring at him in its eyes, and it was here he realized, the Rotted did not have irises.

"I see...you're not dead..." Liki said sadly, "You're a living factory..." He stared into the eyes of the big tree, who nodded slowly.

"Yes." It repeated, "Before I even...sprouted my first leaf...Lord Salvis placed a curse on me...My body...produces the toxin...known as Rot." He said the last bit with great disgust. "I hate what...I have been made to be...the suffering...I have caused my people."

One-Eye stood beside Liki now, "Your body produces it, and it seeps into the ground...which it then travels through...and spreads out and infects anything that is a plant..."

Liki understood it all now, "I had believed it to be a mental illness, like regular zombies." He sighed sadly, "To think you've been aware that you've been doing this your whole life."

"Salvis..." The Rotted King took another deep breath, "Told me...when I was old enough to understand...the goal was to infect...Heartwood...to take out...the city...taking down one of the major powers of...the Beast Alliance...once I took Heartwood...my suffering would end..."

"The Beast Alliance?" Liki asked, "Why does he want to weaken the Alliance."

"Lord Salvis...plans..." The tree coughed again, hacking up another large black ball of Rot, which One-Eye had to jump away from to avoid being splashed by.

"He plans..." The king continued afterward, "The Destruction...of the world...in the name...of the Doomed One..."

"The unspeakable..." One-Eye hissed, baring his teeth.

"The Doomed One..." Liki mumbled. He had never before uttered this name before. It was the title given to Gaia's alter ego, Ragnora, a god who only wished for destruction and chaos and was held responsible for the calamities and deaths that preceded the human's extinction.

"The first step...is in removing...the seat of power...that which holds...civilization together..."

"Destroying the foundations of peoples lives." One-Eye said, "People will start to defend themselves...kill others for no reason..."

Liki stayed silent closing his eyes, as he remembered. Blackpaw's father Steve...who had killed his own parents during a riot attack on birthvillage when he was barely even half a year old. The rival pack of his village had looted and destroyed it to make their own stronger.

He thought for a long moment, his paw suddenly clenching tightly onto the dagger he held as he bared his teeth, "I won't let that kind of thing happen to more Beasts..."

"Then please..." The Rotted King started, "End me...kill me...then purge the forest of the corruption I have sown upon it."

"Very well..." Liki nodded, and he began to walk towards the tree briskly, "I honor your memory...great Borian...may you find a better peace in your afterlife..."

There was a sudden snapping noise, and Liki stopped in midstep, staring up at the tree that had bid him to bring him to death, but the trees eyes peered off to the right for some reason now.

"L-Lor...Sal..."

"Hmm hmm hmm..." A dark and slightly echoing voice whispered from behind the tree, "I think the 'honor' belongs to me really. You'd think I'd give someone else the satisfaction of killing you Rotted King? You were bound to ME."

"I..." The great tree said slowly, and there was another snapping noise. Large pieces of bark and branches flew about in many directions from behind the Rotted King. The black ooze that flowed from his body suddenly stopped, his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he let out a final wheezing breath. The great tree slowly tilted, his legs stumbling and they too snapped as he fell to the side.

Liki and One-Eye stayed still, both with their weapons ready.

The Fangren Shadow stared at the robed figure that now stood before them, the body of the king between them. A single katana in his paws that he wiped clean of the black ooze with his robe, flicking it clean as well as he sighed.

"You outlived your usefulness anyway. It seems I have to resort to an alternate plan." The hood of the robe pointed towards Liki and One-Eye, and Liki narrowed his eyes as he took a defensive stance.

The hooded figure stepped up onto the body of the Borian, and stared down at Liki and One-Eye. Red eyes glowed in the darkness of the hood as he lifted his arms up to his sides, paws out with one holding his katana.

"So...oh chosen of Gaia. Shall we get to know each other?" A bright gleaming smile flashed from the Beasts muzzle and Liki growled lowly, locked into a stare down with the mysterious hooded one.