Gardener of Eden

Chapter 160: Chapter 160: Target - Rowan

”BOOM”

”BOOM”

Heavy reverberations shook the cobblestones as Rowan, Seraphina, and Princess Lyra breached the final avenue leading into the central district. Over fifty mutated zealots of the Order of Humanity were swarm-assaulting the fortified inner walls, using monstrous, mana-warped limbs and unstable kinetic bursts to hammer relentlessly against the iron-reinforced gates.

Above on the ramparts, mages and archers from several 10th-floor guilds fired a desperate rain of spellfire, bolts, and elemental arrows down into the bloodthirsty horde.

”They’re trying to breach the inner sanctuary before the main guard garrisons can regroup,” Princess Lyra declared, her eyes flashing with resolve as her Bracers of the Sun burst into a blinding golden radiance.

”Then we hit them from the rear and shatter their momentum,” Rowan said, adjusting the brim of his Enchanted Straw Hat.

With practiced coordination, the trio charged straight into the back flank of the massive cultist wave. Rowan slammed the iron edge of the Hoe of the World-Tiller directly into the stone plaza. Concentrated terra-mana pulsed through the ground, forcing jagged earth pillars to erupt beneath the back lines of the swarm. Over a dozen mutated attackers were launched into the air, their charge instantly broken as the ground beneath them fractured.

Capitalizing on the chaos, Seraphina unlatched a pair of glowing, crimson Explosive Flasks from her waist satchel and hurled them over Rowan’s stone barrier. The vials shattered against the densely packed mass of mutants, igniting the corrupted magic in a roaring, violent cascade of alchemical fire that tore through the zealots’ ranks.

Princess Lyra swept through the lingering smoke like a golden comet. Her runic sword transformed into a blazing arc of solar light, executing swift, lethal strikes that cleaved through the hardened carapaces of the mutated monstrosities.

Up on the battlements, the guild defenders took immediate notice of the sudden collapse of the cult’s rear lines. ”Look! Ranged support, refocus your fire on the vanguard!” a guild officer bellowed from above. ”An elite squad has caught them in a pincer!”

With guild mages raining destructive elemental spells from above and Rowan’s group carving through their flanks from below, the fifty-man-strong horde of Order of Humanity zealots found themselves hopelessly trapped, their assault on the city center rapidly turning into total annihilation.

***

As Rowan, Seraphina, and Princess Lyra unleashed their flank attack, a sudden, horrifying shift rippled through the mutated zealots. The massive horde abruptly stopped battering the city center gates. Dozens of bloodshot, warped eyes snapped in unison away from the battlements, fixing their entire collective gaze directly onto Rowan.

”The anomaly...” a high-ranking zealot rasped, his throat bulging with dark, pulsing veins as he raised a twisted blade toward Rowan. ”The one distributing primordial life energy! Kill him! Sever the catalyst!”

Rowan had been their true objective all along. The Order of Humanity operated under a radical doctrine: they believed mana was a corruption and sought to sever the Tower’s leylines to force the world back to the era before magic, stats, and awakeners existed. To achieve this, they used synthetic poisons and mutated blights to induce decay in mana pathways and break humanity’s infrastructure.

However, Rowan’s high-purity mana fruits—grown within his pristine Eden domain—were directly sabotaging their ultimate crusade. Nectar from fruits like the Amethyst-Gold Peach didn’t just heal physical wounds; it cleansed spiritual impurities, restored damaged mana pathways, and completely neutralized the synthetic rot the cult spent months preparing. By distributing his uncorrupted harvests to the fallen city guards, Rowan was single-handedly dismantling their terror campaign street by street.

Abandoning the inner walls entirely, all fifty mutated zealots turned as one and roared, sprinting toward Rowan in a desperate, frantic wave.

”Rowan! They’re changing targets—the entire horde is coming for you!” Seraphina warned, her hands already flying to her alchemy satchel to pull a fresh batch of explosive vials.

Princess Lyra stepped shoulder-to-shoulder with Rowan, her Bracers of the Sun blazing with incandescent golden light as she readied her runic blade. ”They realize your divine harvests are neutralizing their corruption! You are the greatest threat to their vision!”

Rowan adjusted the brim of his Enchanted Straw Hat, his expression remaining completely calm as he tightened his grip on the Hoe of the World-Tiller.

”They want to strip the world of mana and force everyone back into the dark,” Rowan said smoothly, channeling dense golden terra-mana through his hands. ”Too bad for them—my domain is just getting started.”

Slamming the iron edge of his hoe into the stone plaza, Rowan triggered a massive pulse of pure vitality mana. Dense roots of petrified earth and emerald energy erupted from the ground, creating a wall of primordial terra-magic to meet the charging cultists head-on.

The massive terra-wall erupted from the plaza, catching the front line of charging Order of Humanity zealots with devastating force. Mutated bodies collided violently against the hardened earth, thrown into the air by the sudden upheaval.

Princess Lyra rushed into the breach with blazing solar slashes, her Bracers of the Sun gleaming as she cut down three mutated attackers at once, while Seraphina hurled precise Incendiary Elixirs into the dense pack behind them. Guild mages and archers on the city center battlements seized the momentum, raining down elemental spellfire to devastate the immobilized horde.

Yet, as the cultists fell dead onto the plaza, Rowan immediately noticed something deeply unsettling about the battle.

The deep purple, almost blackish blood pooling from the zealots’ corpses didn’t simply stain the stones. The moment the foul fluid hit the ground, it began to sizzle and hiss with a dark, oily sheen.

The cobblestones fractured under an unnatural chemical scorch, the surrounding vegetation withered into ash instantly, and a rapid, dark decay spread across the soil. The ambient mana in the immediate air died out completely, replaced by a concentrated, synthetic mana-nullifying rot.

”Rowan, look at the ground!” Seraphina called out, her sharp eyes catching the sudden discoloration. ”Their blood isn’t normal—it’s saturated with the same synthetic pollutant we sampled on the lower floors! They turned their own bodies into living bio-weapons!”

”So that’s their failsafe,” Rowan said, tipping the brim of his Enchanted Straw Hat as his sharp eyes tracked the spreading dark veins in the earth.

The zealots weren’t just trying to breach the inner sanctuary through raw force. Their true objective was to bleed out and die directly over the city center’s primary soil and leyline junction, using their corrupted, blood-borne synthetic rot to force the land into rapid decay and permanently sever the city’s mana infrastructure.

”They aren’t just trying to kill us,” Lyra realized, her runic sword flashing golden light to keep the remaining zealots at bay. ”Their very deaths are designed to corrupt the land and return it to a state before magic existed!”

”Not while I’m standing here,” Rowan declared, adjusting his grip on the Hoe of the World-Tiller. Driving the iron edge deep into the stone plaza, he channeled a massive surge of pure, golden vitality mana directly through the underlying earth.

The radiant light spread beneath the surface, driving back the encroaching purple-black corruption and purifying the soil before the toxic blood could reach the central leylines.

Rowan, flanked by Princess Lyra and Seraphina, made his way straight to the central command post situated at the base of Keystone Citadel’s inner ramparts. The city commander was frantically barking orders to reserve garrisons, his face grim as thick smoke billowed over the central plaza.

Displaying the fallen officer’s brass badge alongside Princess Lyra’s royal authority, Rowan cut straight to the point. ”Commander, the front lines are holding, but the real threat is beneath your feet.

The Order of Humanity zealots bled a synthetic, mana-nullifying poison directly into the plaza’s topsoil. If that dark fluid seeps down to the city’s primary leyline junction, it will rot Keystone Citadel’s protective dome and mana infrastructure from the inside out.”

The commander stared in alarm at the sizzling, purple-black sludge scorching the cobblestones. ”We don’t have the alchemical counter-agents on hand to neutralize that volume of synthetic rot!”

”You don’t need counter-agents,” Rowan replied smoothly, tipping the brim of his Enchanted Straw Hat. ”Deploy your spare manpower to immediately dig out every inch of contaminated stone and dirt where the cultists fell. Load the toxic earth onto supply carts, haul it outside the city gates, and dump it in the outer basin. I will personally treat and purify the contaminated soil out there.”

Backed by Lyra’s sharp nod, the commander didn’t hesitate. ”Work details, move! Pickaxes and shovels! Scrape every drop of that corrupted earth off the plaza and get it past the main gates!”

Within thirty minutes, dozens of off-duty guards and guild volunteers had excavated tons of scorch-marked stone and tainted earth. Heavy transport wagons wheeled the foul load out through Keystone Citadel’s outer gates, dumping the massive, steaming mound of dark sludge into a clear patch along the rift basin.

Standing before the mountain of oozing corruption, Rowan stepped forward and gripped the smooth wooden handle of the Hoe of the World-Tiller. Channeling his Gardener of Eden authority, he slammed the iron edge deep into the heart of the foul pile.

[Skill Activated: Breath of Eden]

A blinding wave of emerald and golden vitality mana surged from Rowan’s core, cascading through the toxic mound. The dark, oily sludge hissed furiously as the primordial life energy dismantled the synthetic magic-nullifying compound down to its molecular bonds.

The foul stench vanished, replaced instantly by the crisp aroma of fresh rain and rich earth. Before the eyes of the stunned guard detail, the mountain of black poison transformed into a pile of dark, nutrient-dense topsoil—completely cleansed, revitalized, and safe