Gardener of Eden

Chapter 191: Chapter 191: Rueben’s Death (1)

Moving through the newly purified corridor of pristine soil, Squad 07 split into a silent, lethal formation, fanning out across the cavernous expanse to weave an inescapable pincer net around the central ley-line junction.

To the far left, Barney melted into the rocky shadows, the Hammer of the Sunken Bastion held low and ready, shutting down any physical escape route with a dense wall of kinetic weight.

To the right, Caelen moved with ghostly silence, the Edge of the First Warden angled down as his silvery guardian aura hummed on the knife-edge of deployment. Above them, perched high atop a colossal petrified stalactite, Mirei drew a wind-bound arrow on her Breeze-Striker Longbow, her sharp eyes tracking every microscopic twitch in the gloom below.

Behind the vanguard, Seraphina deployed four shimmering perimeter beacons from her Crucible of Eternal Transmutation, creating a localized alchemical containment grid that locked down the spatial fabric of the cavern.

At the absolute center of the trap stood a gnarled, towering dead tree—a colossal husk of ancient petrified wood whose hollowed interior looked like a gaping, skeletal chest cavity. Black, tar-like miasma oozed continuously from its rotting bark, pooling around its massive roots in a sickening, purple-black sludge that radiated a suffocating aura of pure, absolute death.

And holed up deep within the hollow trunk, suspended by pulsating tendrils of dark necrotic magic, was Rueben ”The Rot-Weaver.”

The S-Rank dark alchemist looked like a nightmare brought to life. His left core channel was visibly shattered, leaking black, volatile mana that hissed against his own flesh. His robes were stained with dried blood and bile, his chest visibly caved in from the Imperial Vanguard’s previous counter-strikes. Every ragged breath he drew sounded like wet leather tearing apart.

Yet, despite standing on the absolute precipice of death, the aura radiating from his broken body was terrifyingly potent.

As Squad 07 closed the net, Rueben’s bloodshot eyes snapped open, glowing with a crazed, fanatic light through the black gloom. He looked at the four corners of the cavern, realizing instantly that every single line of retreat had been flawlessly sealed.

”Rowan... Vance...” Rueben rasped, a sickening, wet chuckle bubbling up from his throat as black blood trickled down his chin. ”You purged my cells... you tracked me down like a dog... but you fool... you absolute fool!”

Rueben slammed his gaunt, rotting hands directly into the heartwood of the dead tree.

THUM-THUMP!

The entire cavern trembled violently. The black tendrils connecting Rueben to the tree flared with a blinding, toxic violet radiance, plunging deep into Floor 12’s primary subterranean ley-line root beneath the soil.

”I am an S-Rank Grandmaster of the Order!” Rueben shrieked, his voice rising into a mad, shrill crescendo as his cracked mana core swelled dangerously, turning translucent and white-hot. ”My body may be broken, but my core holds enough concentrated soul-rot to melt an entire province! If I detonate my remaining core energy into this ley-line junction, a catastrophic necrotic fallout wave will cover every single inch of Floor 12 within three seconds!”

The purple miasma around the hollow tree expanded exponentially, pushing violently against Seraphina’s containment barrier. The subterranean ground groaned under the immense, unstable pressure of a dying S-Rank cultivator threatening a full-scale core self-destruction.

”Every living creature, every monster, and every ascending party on this floor will have their flesh stripped from their bones!” Rueben roared, his crazy eyes locking onto Rowan with suicidal ecstasy. ”Come on then! Strike me down! The moment my heart stops, Floor 12 becomes a mass grave!”

Barney gritted his teeth, his grip tightening around the haft of his warhammer, while Caelen shifted his footing to absorb the mounting shockwaves. Mirei’s string remained pulled taut to her ear, her aim unwavering despite the suffocating pressure rolling off the dead tree.

Rowan didn’t flinch. He didn’t take a step back, nor did his expression break into panic.

Standing at the apex of the golden path, Rowan lightly adjusted the brim of his Enchanted Straw Hat, his golden-amber eyes glowing with calm, unshakeable authority as he rested the Hoe of the World-Tiller over his shoulder.

”You really think,” Rowan said softly, his voice cutting cleanly through the roaring necrotic storm, ”that your petty poison can claim my land?”

***

”A cornered rat bites the cat,” Barney muttered through gritted teeth, holding his ground beside Caelen.

Neither of the two frontline warriors rushed forward. They were seasoned tactical veterans; jumping into immediate hand-to-hand combat against a dying S-Rank necrotic cultivator whose mana core was swelling like a volatile bomb was sheer madness. Caelen slammed the tip of the Edge of the First Warden deep into the purified earth, igniting a thirty-foot wall of shimmering, silvery guardian radiance to act as a physical and magical blast-shield for the team. Beside him, Barney raised the Hammer of the Sunken Bastion, ready to channel kinetic shock-dampening fields the instant Rueben’s unstable energy threatened to rupture the surrounding bedrock.

With the melee vanguard holding a solid defensive wall at a distance, Squad 07 unleashed a relentless, long-range bombardment.

Mirei’s fingers became a blur against the string of the Breeze-Striker Longbow. Twang-twang-twang! A volley of translucent, wind-bound shafts pierced the pitch-black gloom, streaking through the purple miasma with whistling, mathematical precision. The arrows didn’t aim for Rueben’s chest; they struck his remaining healthy meridians, severing the dark mana pathways feeding into his arms and pinning his gaunt shoulders directly to the hollow trunk of the dead tree.

Simultaneously, Seraphina thrust her hand forward. The Crucible of Eternal Transmutation spun at blinding speed, its bronze-and-crystal rings flaring with intense emerald radiance. ”Alchemical Suppression Rays!” she commanded cleanly. Beams of refined, high-heat emerald energy shot across the cavern, systematically striking the four necrotic blood-barriers surrounding Rueben. The dark barriers sizzled, cracked, and dissolved into harmless cinders under the onslaught of pure, slag-free alchemical fire.

Yet, true to his manic fanaticism, Rueben refused to go down quietly.

Driven beyond the brink of sanity by his failing core and the agony of his severed meridians, the Rot-Weaver shrieked, his voice sounding like grinding iron. ”If I go to the abyss, you’re coming with me!”

Spitting a fountain of black, acidic blood onto his own chest, Rueben forced his cracked mana core to violently implode and re-expand. A storm of crimson-and-purple necrotic needles exploded outward from his body in a three-hundred-sixty-degree wave, tearing through the air like lethal shrapnel. At the same time, three massive geysers of bubbling, soul-rotting sludge erupted from the roots beneath the tree, curving through the air like rabid, fanged serpents aimed straight for Mirei and Seraphina.

”Not on our watch!” Caelen roared.

Sweeping his broadsword in a massive upward arc, Caelen sent a rising tide of silvery guardian aura forward, intercepting the storm of necrotic needles in mid-air and grinding them into harmless dust. Barney slammed his warhammer down, creating a counter-kinetic tremor that collapsed the rising sludge geysers before they could reach peak altitude.

At the center of the crossfire, Rowan stepped forward, the Hoe of the World-Tiller held firmly in his grip.

”Your core is empty, Rueben,” Rowan said, his golden-amber eyes burning with divine authority.

Channeling a thread of [Breath of Eden - Lv. 5], Rowan tapped the forged tool against the earth. A localized wave of golden domain light surged under the roots of the dead tree, completely severing Rueben’s dark connection to Floor 12’s subterranean ley-lines.

Deprived of the floor’s environmental life force and riddled with Mirei’s wind-arrows, Rueben’s suicidal core explosion withered before it could ever go critical, leaving the wounded dark mage hanging helpless, gasping for air inside his rotting hollow tree.