I Can Only Cultivate In A Game-Chapter 412: Equivalent Exchange

Victor held his breath as long as he could and behind them, the hypnotic sound grew louder.

They rounded another corner and nearly collided with the creature.

It stood there again with its arm extended, offering the flower.

Victor skidded to a halt while Aria pulled him back just as more vines began sprouting from the walls around them, creeping inward like tightening fingers.

They turned right around and began fleeing once more.

Victor and Aria sprinted through the twisting corridors as the labyrinth reacted violently around them. What had once been still tree walls now writhed like living flesh. The moss beneath their boots ruptured in patches as clusters of bioluminescent flowers burst from the ground in violent blooms.

The moment the petals opened... they fired.

Glowing thorns shot outward in volleys, slicing through the air with piercing whistles.

"Down!" Victor shouted.

They dropped as a spray of luminous spikes tore across the corridor above them, embedding into bark with sizzling sounds.

Where the thorns struck, wood blackened instantly, hissing like acid had been poured over it.

They rolled to their feet and ran again.

Behind them, the vine-wrapped humanoid pursued at an unhurried pace.

It did not sprint and yet no matter how much distance Victor and Aria gained, it was always there—rounding corners they had just turned, appearing at junctions before they reached them.

Pinned to them.

The flowers on its body throbbed rhythmically, scattering glowing petals into the air. When the petals touched the ground, they detonated in muffled bursts, sending razor-like fragments outward.

"Left!" Aria yelled.

They veered just as another patch of earth exploded beneath them.

Victor thrust the spear into the ground to vault over a sudden growth of spiky roots that erupted like spears from below. He grabbed Aria’s wrist midair and pulled her through with him.

The terrain had suddenly become ten times more dangerous and through it all, the creature’s arm remained extended, offering the flower.

They rounded another corner and nearly skidded off a sudden drop. The corridor ahead collapsed into a pit of writhing thorn-vines, their tips dripping with luminous sap that melted stone.

They jerked back but behind them was the creature... still holding the flower.

The walls to their left and right sealed shut with groaning wood.

They were trapped.

Behind them: death.

Before them: the offering.

Aria’s breathing had turned heavy now and her injuries reopened from the relentless movement. She stepped forward with her blades raised.

"If it’s blocking the way, we cut through."

She shot forward but Victor grabbed both her wrists mid-swing.

"Wait."

"Victor, move!"

He shook his head sharply. "I’m not sure that’s the answer."

The creature did not react to whatever was going on before it... It did not flinch at the raised blades...

It simply stood there with the flower still held out.

"Do you notice," Victor said urgently with his eyes locked on the being, "how it hasn’t actually attacked us?"

Aria frowned. "The entire forest is trying to kill us!"

"Yes—but not it."

The creature tilted its head slightly.

Victor continued with a lower tone. "Every time it catches up, it doesn’t strike. It doesn’t lunge. It doesn’t use those vines. It just... offers."

The hypnotic sound softened slightly.

Aria hesitated.

The glowing thorns behind them crept closer, tightening the corner.

...

...

"If she had attacked it," a distant melodic voice observed, "that would have been the end for them."

High above, in the woven pavilion of living wood, the Sylrith watched.

Their ashen skin seemed almost luminous under the emerald glow of the floating screen. From the sides of their necks sprouted delicate, translucent wings that fluttered subtly when they spoke, like emotional tells.

"Truly it would have," another Sylrith replied, folding slender fingers together. "You do not anger a Root Child. Especially when you possess no power."

The screen zoomed in on Victor’s grip stopping Aria’s strike.

A third Sylrith’s lips curved faintly. "It does not matter. They will die regardless. Even if they accept the flower."

Soft chuckles rippled through the gathering.

"It is not as though they can keep up with its gaming rules of equivalent exchange..."

Their glowing eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Lord Seirath stood slightly apart from the others, gaze unblinking.

...

...

Below, in the labyrinth—

Aria slowly lowered her blades.

"You really think it just wants us to take it?" she asked quietly.

"I think," Victor said carefully, "that attacking it is definitely wrong."

The creature extended the flower closer.

The petals shimmered in soft violet light.

It didn’t have thorns or dripping venom... It was just a flower.

The thorns behind them were now inches away.

Aria exhaled slowly.

"If this goes wrong," she murmured, "I’m blaming you."

"Fair."

She stepped forward and the hypnotic dronning grew louder... Almost... excited.

Aria reached out cautiously and took the flower from its grasp.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the creature clapped its vine-wrapped hands together.

The sound it made was strange—like bark striking bark—but the tone was unmistakably joyful.

The flowers across its body bloomed brightly, releasing a shower of harmless glowing pollen that drifted gently to the ground.

The violent terrain stilled instantly.

The thorned pit behind them receded into harmless moss... the glowing spikes dissolved... the labyrinth walls relaxed, returning to their previous stillness.

Aria examined the flower in her hand, confirming that it wasn’t harmful.

She turned it over.

"Completely harmless."

Victor blinked.

"...That was pretty anticlimactic."

The creature rocked slightly on its heels, as if pleased.

Aria gave a small, awkward nod toward it. "Uh... thanks?"

The Root Child clapped again softly.

Victor let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. "Okay. See? Not everything in this place is trying to murder us."

They turned to leave but as soon as Aria took two steps... she stopped.

"...Huh?"

Victor glanced at her. "What?"

She lifted a hand slowly toward her face.

"There’s... something weird..."

Her voice faltered.

The left side of her vision had gone dark...

She blinked repeatedly, trying to confirm...

The right side remained normal while the left was nothing but black.

"...Victor?"

He turned fully toward her and froze.

His expression changed instantly into one of shock as she slowly lowered her hand.

"Aria..."

She swallowed. "What?"

"...Your left eye."

Her stomach dropped.

"What about it?"

"It’s gone."

Her hand trembled as she pressed her palm over the left side of her face.

There was no pain or blood running down her cheek... but beneath her fingers, there was only empty socket where her eye should have been.

Her breath hitched.

"...No."

Victor’s gaze slowly shifted past her shoulder, towards where the Root Child stood.

In its vine-wrapped hand, rested a perfect, unblemished eye.

It was Aria’s eye.

It blinked once in its grasp as though it was alive.

Aria staggered back a step in confoundment.

"What—"

The moment Aria saw her eye blinking in the vine-wrapped hand of the Root Child, something inside her snapped.

Rage drowned reason.

Her breath came out in a sharp, animalistic sound as she shot forward.

"Aria—!" Victor reached for her wrist again, but this time he was too slow.

She tore free and lunged.

Both blades flashed.

She struck at the creature multiple times.

Shorrrkkk~ Krryyychhh~ Slash~

Her weapons carved through the dark vines that formed the creature’s torso. Segments of its body split open causing petals to scatter as sap-like fluid sprayed outward.

The eyeball dropped from its grasp and rolled across the mossy ground.

For a split second, Victor thought she might actually have done damage.

Then the severed vines writhed.

The sliced sections of the Root Child’s body slithered back together, knitting seamlessly as if the cuts had never existed.

The flowers along its body throbbed violently and then it let out a piercing and shrill scream that rattled the labyrinth walls.

The ground trembled.

"Aria!" Victor yelled while charging forward but he was too late.

The Root Child’s arm lashed out.

A vine-covered limb slapped Aria across the torso with brutal force.

She was lifted off her feet instantly, hurled into the air. One of her blades flew from her hand, clattering uselessly against the tree wall.

Swwhwiii~

A single petal detached from one of the glowing flowers on the creature’s shoulder.

It shot forward like a bullet and exploded against her face mid-air.

A flash of violet light burst outward.

The concussive force sent her spinning violently through the air, causing her to let out a cry of agony.

More vines erupted from the labyrinth walls themselves and shot upward like spears.

Several pierced into her midsection, arms, and thigh before she could land.

Blood sprayed into the air as the vines yanked her back toward the ground and then slammed her down twice before dragging her across the moss like a ragdoll.

"Enough!" Victor roared while sprinting forward.

He couldn’t let this continue or she would die.

However, he didn’t think rushing headlong into the fight without a clear line of solution would help matters either... approaching the situation headlessly would lead to both their ends.

He dove toward the ground and grabbed the eyeball where it had rolled to a stop.