SSSSS-Rank: Negative Leveling

Rebecca ran through the forest, blood covering her face that wasn't her own, crying hard enough that she could barely breathe.

"He's dead! Luthra's dead!"

Behind her, roots thick as her waist tore through the earth, twisting and reaching with purpose. Black-and-red energy burst from her hands without control, the power coming from pure terror.

'I have to get out, have to tell someone.'

Two hours ago they'd walked into the hollow of that massive tree, and the entrance sealed behind them like a mouth closing. No monster waited inside, no enemy to fight. The tree itself was alive, its voice whispering through rustling leaves in their minds, telling them to rest, to stay, that everything would be peaceful if they just stopped moving.

Luthra had said no.

The floor opened under him and he dropped through, gone before he could even reach for his chain, the wood closing over him with a wet sound that splashed blood up through the seam. Then the roots came after her, bursting through the walls, and she ran.

She looked back. The roots were gaining, one thin as a whip lashing forward to wrap around her ankle. She screamed as it yanked her down hard.

---

Luthra floated in something warm and thick that felt like tree sap and smelled like dirt that had been underground for centuries. His arms and legs wouldn't move, held in place by the liquid that had hardened around him like amber, trapping him at the center of the tree.

The thing had swallowed him whole, bypassing his strength and speed and chain by simply opening the ground and taking him.

Through the tree's senses he could see the forest outside, the dead Shriekers scattered around, their cart sitting empty. He saw Rebecca running, small and terrified, the roots chasing her growing from the same entity that held him.

'Shit, it got me. Now it's going after the kid.'

The tree's voice whispered in his mind, calm and satisfied.

"You are a delightful paradox. Your energy is unique. I will savor you over centuries. The child is merely an appetizer."

"Yeah, not happening."

He tried to struggle but the sap absorbed every movement like punching water. His chain coiled uselessly around his arm. Void Step needed something solid to push off from, but here he was just floating.

'Can't punch my way out when my arms won't move. But I'm not just my arms anymore.'

He turned his focus inward to the two cores floating in his soul's void. The sphere of absolute blackness, his own negative power, and the captured light from the rabbit's core, positive energy waiting to explode. They pushed against each other in constant conflict.

'What if I stop keeping them separate?'

[Luthra, that is a catastrophically bad idea. The resulting energy release would be uncontrollable.]

Lilith's voice came through faint, distorted by the tree's psychic pressure.

"Exactly. Uncontrollable is what I need right now."

He had a plan. The stupidest plan he'd ever had.

'I'll use one to ignite the other.'

---

Rebecca hit a dead end, a solid wall of woven branches and thorns blocking the path. The roots behind her rose from the ground, converging into a cage of grasping wood.

'No more running.'

She turned to face them, her small face set with hatred that looked wrong on a child. She threw her hands forward and the black-and-red energy shot out, forming into a dozen sharp black spikes hanging in the air.

"Get away from me!"

The spikes launched at the roots, tearing through wood and sending splinters flying. But every root she destroyed grew back double, thicker and faster than before.

She was losing and she knew it, but she kept fighting anyway, throwing everything she had at the advancing wall of roots.

---

Luthra took the rabbit's captured light and slammed it directly into his own absolute darkness.

The explosion wasn't sound or light but reality tearing itself apart, two opposing forces annihilating each other in pure power that had no purpose except to exist.

The tree's whisper became a shriek.

"What have you done?!"

Energy erupted from his body, a shockwave that turned the sap into superheated steam instantly.

---

A massive root shot from the tangled mass, sharp as a spear and aimed at Rebecca's face. She was out of energy, her arms shaking as she tried to form another spike.

The giant tree behind her exploded outward.

Splinters and raw power blasted the roots to pieces, the psychic pressure over the forest vanishing instantly.

Luthra stood in the splintered remains of the tree's heartwood, covered in sap and blood but standing. The serpent tattoo on his arm glowed with faint black light. His eyes had turned solid white.

He saw the root spear inches from Rebecca's face and moved, not with Void Step but simply being there, his hand catching the spearhead before it could connect. The wood splintered in his grip.

He looked at what was left of the tree.

"You touched my kid."

A notification appeared in front of him.

[Core Absorption Activated]

[Host has Leveled Down!]

[Level: -14]

[Converting positive energy to negative alignment...]

The white light from the rabbit's core started breaking apart inside him. Instead of fighting his darkness, it was getting pulled into it and changed. The unstable bomb he'd been carrying around was finally being defused.

'Wait, that skill activated on its own?'

[Correct. The energy burst from your cores colliding triggered an automatic defensive response. Core Absorption has been forcefully activated to prevent total annihilation.]

'So blowing myself up actually fixed the problem. That's the dumbest luck I've ever had.'

The tree creature wasn't dead yet. Its remaining roots started pulling back into the ground, trying to escape. The thing's voice came from everywhere at once, weaker but still there.

"You cannot kill me. I am the forest itself. Every tree, every root system feeds me. I will regrow, and when I do—"

"Yeah, I don't care."

He walked toward the biggest concentration of roots. The black energy was still flowing through him from the conversion process. He grabbed one thick root with both hands.

"Hey tree, you ever wonder what happens when something that eats life force meets something that's basically anti-life?"

The tree's psychic presence recoiled.

"No. You wouldn't dare."

"I ate a cosmic rabbit yesterday. You think I won't eat a tree?"

He activated Core Absorption manually this time. The black energy flowed out through his hands into the root system. The tree's shriek turned into something worse than pain. It was the sound of existence being erased.

Every root connected to the main body started turning gray, then black, then crumbling to ash. The psychic illusions holding the forest in loops shattered completely. Paths that had been hidden became visible. The constant pressure that made everyone's head hurt disappeared.

[Warning: Excessive absorption detected. Host is consuming a B- 2 rank entity's life force.]

'Good. Keep going.'

The tree tried to sever connections, cutting off infected roots before the corruption could spread. But Luthra kept his grip tight, pumping more negative energy into the system. The entity was too big, too spread out. It couldn't cut itself apart fast enough.

"Please! I surrender! I will serve you!"

"Fuck that shit."