CHAPTER 435: ARC 6, CHAPTER 51: THE BRIAR PRINCE

One step into the newly exposed entrance and everyone felt the floor rumble-

"FWSH! DUFF! BUFF! BASH!" The entire floor plunged down, trapping them in a spacious cube of ashlar stone. All of them rose up in the air and crashed down on the floor.

The cubic room then thrusted to the side, sending them all flying into the side of the wall and dust to smoke up the space. The room then jetted to another side, throwing them against the other wall.

"AH!"

"Woah-oh!"

"GHck!"

A series of yelps, thuds, clangs followed each time the room rapidly blasted off in some random direction, throwing them around like ragdolls in a box.

"Ga-CHUNK! BFF! Shff..."

A gust of trapped air ejected as the room finally slid open one wall. They all came tumbling out and sliding out whilst Ben’s armoured form clanged out onto the stonework.

Ben slammed his gauntlet onto the ground, "I knew it was a trap, we shouldn’t’a gone in!"

"Thock."

Colwyn hit him on the back of the head with her staff.

"Tad late for the vote," Clyde ruffled his own hair while standing back up.

Groaning and wincing, they got up one by one and dusted themselves off. "Everyone alright?" Hotaru smoothed out her tail.

"I think I have a concussion nurse Kinoshita," Asobi wobbled, talking to the wall they were spewed out of.

"Doubly so," Tiffany realigned her eyepatch and pointed to Colwyn who’s gaze was drifting off towards the ceiling while swaying from side to side.

The redhead gathered the two elves and examined their heads with her hands glowing a faint blue. Ben, Tiffany and Clyde glanced around their new surroundings.

A twisting network of woody vines laced with jagged white thorns swarmed the chamber from top to bottom; merely the space they were thrown onto was free of it.

It smelled of floral decay, sour with a tinge of sweetness, like a vegetable left to rot. The exposed bits of the walls and floors were all a brighter shade of grey than anything they had seen in the labyrinth prior.

Wherever they were, it was deep underground. Yet darkness was staved away by a pale green light. That light loomed from one source—the immense sinewy mass of plant matter that hung in the middle of the ceiling.

It, pulsed. The dark green muscle-like vegetation pulsed twice then rested. All the thorny vines were connected to it and felt that same pulse and green pigmentation travelled through the brown wood and pierced into the wall before disappearing from sight.

Clyde held his temple and struggled to stay up, only for Ben to reach a hand out and allow Clyde to catch onto his armoured forearm. "Hey man," Ben said in concern.

"I hate it here," Clyde grunted and gripped his bow.

Asobi scrunched up her eyes and hugged herself, "It’s colder."

"Akin to mosquitoes on every part of your skin," Colwyn agreed.

Hotaru felt her healing spell fade without her even dispelling it. She examined the palm of her hand with a furrow of her brows.

"One such as I hath determined, tis the heart of the labyrinth. Mine eye discerns further of a revulsion much loftier," Tiffany alluded to what hung from the hanging mass of plant matter.

A skeleton choked by briars dangled, with only the bony toes touching the ground. It was leaned against the thorny vines that webbed down onto the floor.

The briars had burrowed into the sockets of its eyes and coiled through the ribs, the forearms, whatever open gaps of the bones—all but the jaw and teeth.

Slender, cracked and with a slight sparkle in the remaining bones. The skull itself was intriguing, as it had two tiny protrusions on the side where the ears would be.

"Is that the elf?" Ben queried. "Looks elven. You got a hard bone in your ears?"

Clyde pressed a finger to the side of the opening of his ear, "Suppose so; it’s tiny. You lot don’t have them?"

Ben glanced back while feeling his own ear, "No, not really. Unless?" he looked to Hotaru.

Her crimson ears flickered down and up while her eyes waned into a slight leer. Asobi knocked on the side of the wolf-girl’s head a couple of times, only to feel hair and her skull where a human’s ear would be. "Nope," the magician deduced.

"Is this important?" Hotaru blinked a few times. She looked over to the skeleton, "Whatever that thing is, it’s feeding off of our mana. I can feel myself being drained by the second. I think destroying it is our best course of action."

"I would assume that is the body of the voice that was calling us, but where has it gone?" Colwyn surveyed around without stepping into the vines.

"Pray tell, how does one go about abolishing an entity that feasts upon magic with magic itself?" Tiffany queried.

"I got it," Ben grabbed the sword off of his back.

"Tis discourteous as well for the host to grant invitation simply to vanish upon their venerated invitees’ ingress," Tiffany talked to the chamber aloud.

"Allow oneself to correct it then," the nasally and croaky voice emanated from the skeleton. It’s jaw shifted as a woody vine acted as its tongue.

Everyone straightened up and turned their attention to it. Clyde nocked an arrow and Ben readied his blade; the others however simply watched, wary of their depleting magic.

"Tell me," the voice slithered and the skull tilted to the side like it was looking at them. "Am I beautiful...?"

They all paused and looked at each other quizzically. Ben shrugged, "Sure dude, you’re... you’re real pretty."

A low chuckle hummed as the head righted itself. "Beauregard would be envious..."

"I don’t like this," Asobi shivered while grasping her wand in both hands.

"Oh. Does my visage not please you elf? It pleased none of them either," the skull sulked. "I eat and eat and eat, and no meat grows upon my bones and yet my bones grow larger and larger. Can one not be beautiful without flesh?"

While the others glanced around and observed the skeleton, Ben squinted. His sword was ready to burst into flames and engage, but he held off for a moment and replied, "Wait, back up a sec. Who’s them?"

"Ones souls thou hath sent into the void?" Tiffany added to the question.

The skeleton’s arm was hoisted by briar vines, to point a finger at Asobi.

"I’m them? Then who’s the they them? Or am I the them of whoever they were?" the magician scratched her head with her wand.

Hotaru’s ears folded down, "I think he means elves Sobi."

"Who even are you? Are you a part of the cult?" Clyde waved his aimed bow and arrow around.

In a flash, the thorny vines whipped, slashed and scraped at the floor before them violently. The thrashing came to a halt and the vines retracted, leaving white scratches that spelled out ’Elzaphrael’.

"You behold now, a new God," there was a smile in his voice. "The Briar Prince," the skeleton stood upright on its feet and tipped its head.

Asobi instinctively stood slightly in front of Hotaru.

"A new god?" Colwyn shrunk into her form.

"Are you taking the piss?" there was a panic in Clyde’s voice; his comment was directed more towards the others than the skeleton.

"We can take him, who cares about his stats, we got the action economy," Ben eased.

"We didn’t see you in the warehouse in Dolpool," Hotaru stated.

"Dolpool? Ha...ha, haHaHAHAHahaHAHAA," the voice began to laugh uproariously, all the thorns seemed to grow in elation. His voice squeaked, cracked and screeched till the laughter died down. "Does one’s visage appear healthy?

To journey so far in my former life would be no hassle. How dare you prod at my memories? Does one look powerless? Does one look WeAk!?" all the vines stood up like snakes about to strike.

Ben practically cowered behind his sword for defence, "Oh so you’re like undead. Guess that’s obvious."

"On the contrary, one is very much alive and can never find true death. Such is the curse of my love who bound me in thorns-"

"AHHHHHHHH!"

The scream shrieked the room as transparent silverish-white echoes reverberated towards the skeleton, only to- "Hhhbfffwsh..."

In an instant, thorned vines grappled around Tiffany’s throat and pricked into her skin as it lifted her into the air by the neck. Her echoes were turned into purplish-white powder-like mist that was vacuumed into the skull’s jaw.

"Mmh, satiation..." the voice cooed before the thorns wrapped around the pale blonde’s throat tighter and drew blood. "You DaRe!? How dare you, how dare you, HOW DARE YOU!?"

The vines jerked and shook her around with every whiny screech he made. Her hands grappled the thorns, injuring her palms and fingers as she tried to break free of the briars choking her.

"TSSS!"

"FLWOOSH!"

A butterfly of white light seared through the connecting vines and a roiling scarlet flame burned through any adjacent or incoming plant matter. Asobi caught Tiffany on the way down while Ben stood ahead with cinders diminishing from the twin blades.

"Let me," Hotaru quickly took Tiffany and cared not for the thorns as she clawed her fingers into the vines around her neck and freed her throat.

Tiffany gasped for breath with widened eyes while the redhead began to heal the puncture wounds immediately.

"Shck! Fngngng..." An arrow fired off into the ribcage of the skeleton and got stuck in the bone. Just as Clyde readied the next shot, he was grappled by the briars.

"Slam! CLANg!" Everyone grunted or yelped as the vines and thorns wrapped and wrenched them all by the waist, the arms, the legs, the neck, and pinned them against the wall.

The thorns pierced into what skin they could find and it drained a purple mist-like substance from their skin as if a needle drew blood.

Some of the thorns grinded and grated against some of their enchanted attire, shredding through them insistently till it hooked into skin.

"Your untimely demise would leave oneself to starve," the voice hushed around their ears. "Do not forsake me; do cLiNg to your meagre LiVeS as long as you can so that I may feast... Ha, hahaha, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"