From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 107: Carrier Hunt

The trail the carrier left behind wasn’t physical. No broken branches. No trampled grass. Just stillness. An unnatural quiet that moved ahead of them like a ripple through time. Even the insects they had glimpsed earlier had vanished.

Leon checked his blade’s edge out of habit, though he knew it would make no difference. What they were tracking wasn’t flesh or spirit. It was design. Purpose. Something meant to reach a destination.

The trees thinned as they approached the base of the mountains. Jagged stone jutted from the earth like broken teeth, and the moss underfoot was thicker, darker—damp with rot. The stars faded as clouds moved in, but the path ahead still glowed faintly green, illuminated by the seedlight pulsing from the carrier’s chest.

"It’s slowing," Mira whispered. "Do you feel that?"

Leon nodded. "It knows we’re behind it."

Tomas winced with every step but kept up. "Then why not stop and finish us?"

Leon pointed ahead.

A clearing.

Wide. Circular. Too symmetrical to be natural. At the centre stood a great stone, ancient and veined with cracks. But that wasn’t what drew the eye.

Above the stone, the carrier hovered.

Its limbs had unwrapped. The long, spidery arms now anchored into the rock like roots, feeding the seedlight into the monolith. And the seed in its chest no longer pulsed.

It throbbed.

Leon held Mira back as she stepped forward. "Wait."

From the cracks in the stone, a faint green mist began to rise.

Then movement.

Shapes—thin, larval forms—wriggling free from the stone’s hollow veins. Dozens of them. Each bore a hint of a face, blank eyes and mouths stitched shut.

"It’s birthing," Mira whispered, horror creeping into her voice. "Or worse... planting."

Leon reached for his pouch.

No more runes. Only two crystals left. One smoke. One burn.

"We break the root. We don’t let it finish."

Tomas steadied his bow. Mira pulled a thin, jagged blade—etched with silver.

Leon moved first.

He dashed low, avoiding the tendrils. A vine snapped at his leg, but he rolled beneath it, came up inside the ring of stone, and drove the burn crystal straight into the carrier’s side.

The reaction was instant.

The arms flailed, pulling away from the rock. The mist thickened. The larvae shrieked—mouths still closed. Tomas loosed two arrows, striking high. Mira slid beside Leon and drove her silver blade into the seed’s centre.

Crack.

The green core split.

For a moment, all was light.

And then the mountain screamed.

The forest above them rippled as branches twisted, pulled inward toward the clearing. A shockwave burst outward, sending all three flying. The stone shattered. The larvae combusted into ash mid-air.

And the carrier?

Gone.

Not fallen.

Disintegrated.

Mira coughed, rising on shaking arms. "Did we stop it?"

Leon looked at the crater.

Then up.

Where the stars should be, a green aurora had formed. Pulsing. Watching.

He didn’t answer.

Because something had just looked back.

Leon didn’t speak for a long while.

The sky churned. Not clouds—mist. Light. A weaving pattern of green that formed lines too straight, too intentional to be natural. Mira followed his gaze and stood slowly, brushing off ash from her arms.

"What is that?" she whispered.

Tomas sat hunched at the edge of the broken clearing, clutching his ribs. "It’s not just the seed anymore. Something else came through."

"No," Leon murmured. "Something woke up."

The mist didn’t dissipate. It clung to the upper branches, dripping down in strands like spider silk. As it touched bark, it began to etch—lines forming spirals, symbols, carvings not written by hand but pulled from memory.

The language wasn’t human.

Mira narrowed her eyes. "They’re marking territory."

Leon stepped closer to the nearest tree. The markings shimmered faintly. Not cut into the bark, but grown into it. Living glyphs.

"They’re not done," he said.

A rustle behind them. Fast. Light.

They spun—blades ready.

But it wasn’t a carrier.

It was a child.

Or something shaped like one.

Small. Pale. Wrapped in moss and cloth, hair matted with thorns. Its eyes were too large, too black, and its skin glistened with the same green light as the mist. It stood barefoot on the edge of the crater, staring at the broken stone.

Mira raised her blade. "Step back."

The child didn’t react. It blinked. Once. Slowly. Then turned its gaze to Leon.

"No," Tomas muttered behind them. "Not a child. A spawn."

Leon took a slow step forward. "Can you speak?"

The thing tilted its head.

Then smiled.

Too wide.

Teeth too sharp.

It opened its mouth—and instead of words, it mimicked Leon’s voice.

"Can you speak?"

The exact tone. The same cadence. Like a bird echoing sound without understanding.

Mira paled. "It’s learning."

"Or baiting," Leon said.

The child-like creature took a step forward. Then another. Its feet didn’t press into the moss. It moved too lightly, as if the forest carried it.

Leon didn’t wait.

He stepped in, swung low to disable—

—but his blade passed through the creature’s side like it was smoke.

It flickered, shimmered, and vanished.

Not teleportation.

An image.

Mira spun, eyes scanning. "It’s not here anymore."

"No," Leon muttered, looking around the trees, "it never was. It projected itself. Just like the markings. Just like the seed-light. They’re spreading faster now."

Tomas winced. "Then we go back. We tell the guilds, the capital, whoever’s left to listen."

Leon didn’t answer.

He was watching the trees.

The mist had begun to rise again—but this time, not from the mountain.

From the roots beneath them.

"Too late," he said.

A pulse ran through the earth.

Mira stumbled. Tomas grunted. Leon dropped to a knee, hand pressed to the ground. It felt... wrong. Not like movement. Like breathing. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

Below.

Deep.

Alive.

"They buried more than seeds here," Leon said quietly.

Mira crouched beside him. "What do we do?"

Leon looked north. The aurora still pulsed.

The mountain range loomed ahead.

And somewhere inside it... more waited.

"We climb."

Tomas groaned. "You’re joking."

"I wish I was."

He rose, blade still ready.

"Whatever’s coming didn’t start tonight. It started long ago. And if that was a birthing ground..."

He stared at the green sky.

"...then the real nursery is higher up."

No one argued.

The climb would be brutal.

But it was better than waiting for the forest to close.

The first hour was worse than expected. The mist grew thicker the higher they climbed, turning the forest path into a dreamlike corridor of shadows and light. Every few steps, Mira would pause to etch a ward into the moss, but it was a temporary comfort. The glyphs behind them were multiplying. Some now glowed red.

They didn’t speak much. Only when Tomas stumbled did Leon signal a stop. He caught the archer before he fell and helped him to a ledge just below a jagged outcrop.

"Rest a moment," Leon said. "Then we move again."

Tomas nodded, face pale. "My ribs are... worse. But I’ll manage."

Mira climbed a little higher, eyes scanning. "There’s a path ahead. I think... I think it’s carved. Not natural."

Leon joined her. He saw it too—stone steps, weathered and overgrown, but deliberate. And not ancient. The moss hadn’t reclaimed them fully.

"This wasn’t here before," he muttered.

"Or it wasn’t meant to be seen," Mira said.

A gust of wind rolled down the slope, carrying the scent of rot and something sweet. Sickly. Floral. Leon drew his blade.

"Up there," he said. "Whatever’s building this... left the door open."

They helped Tomas up and pressed forward. Each step echoed slightly, like stone over a hollow chest. The mist parted near the top.

And then they saw it.

A gate.

Carved into the mountain itself. Not with tools—but with roots. Living, writhing roots that had formed an arch, pulsating gently with green light. Beyond it, only darkness. But not empty.

It breathed.

Leon looked back once. The sky behind them shimmered.

Ahead, the mountain waited.

He stepped forward.

And the gate opened.

The breath from beyond the gate wasn’t wind.

It was warm. Rhythmic. Like exhale from a sleeping creature just beneath the surface. Mira stood still, shoulders tense, hand clenched around her ward knife. Beside her, Tomas grunted and leaned slightly against the mountain wall, keeping his bow ready despite the pain in his side.

Leon led the way in.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the noise behind them vanished. No wind. No chirping birds. Even the whispering leaves above went silent. Only their footsteps echoed—slow, steady—on the damp stone beneath.

Inside, the walls pulsed faintly. Not moss. Not roots. Something else. Something in-between. The surface was soft, but not yielding. A membrane of earth wrapped in life.

"Light," Tomas muttered.

But there was no need.

The mist had followed them in. Only here, it gave off a dull, bioluminescent glow. Pockets of green lined the curved walls like veins, pulsing in time with the mountain’s breath. Leon didn’t touch anything. He kept his blade low and walked with a hunter’s silence.

Deeper in, the tunnel split.

Left curved downward, narrow and tight. Right widened into a hollow chamber. From the right, they heard a sound.

Scratching.

Mira caught Leon’s arm. "We shouldn’t—"

He was already moving.

The chamber opened suddenly.

It wasn’t a room. It was a nest.

Dozens of empty shells lined the walls—egg-like husks, fibrous and torn open. Each the size of a human torso. Black fluid clung to the edges. In the centre, a large cocoon still pulsed, barely intact, green light struggling beneath the cracked layers.

And crouched beside it—

A figure.

Bipedal. Hooded. Covered in rags, its arms buried deep into the cocoon. It didn’t flinch as they entered.

Leon raised his sword. "Turn around."

The figure didn’t move.

Mira stepped beside him. "I don’t think it can hear us."

Then the figure spoke.

"You came late."

Its voice was wrong. Broken and stitched together from different tones, like a hundred whispers layered into one. It stood up slowly, dragging its arms free from the cocoon. Fingers were stretched too long, coated in thick sap. Beneath the hood, no face—just bark, hollow sockets, and a twisted jaw of bone.

"We weren’t meant to speak," it rasped. "But now we must."

Tomas aimed an arrow. "Don’t come closer."

The figure stepped back.

"I was the first," it said. "The core chose me. Before it learned to grow. Before it learned... to birth."

Leon didn’t lower his sword. "You’re not the first. You’re just the one they left behind."

It smiled. Or tried to.

"They never leave anything behind. They bury it. Let it rot. Let it fester."

The cocoon behind it split open.

Something inside moved.

Mira cursed under her breath. "It’s not done birthing."

Leon turned to her. "Can you seal it?"

"Not with what I have left."

Tomas stepped forward, arrow notched. "Then we kill it before it finishes."

The hooded figure backed into the shadows.

"You’ll try," it said. "But this time, the nursery is awake."

And the cocoon cracked wide.

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