When Matt`s knife hit the next vine, he suddenly gained a whole new appreciation for the fact that he had never taken a real direct hit from one of the Queen`s scythes. It was clear to him that if he had, he`d be dead. The knife moved through the mass of vines as if there was no resistance at all. He could survive a lot of things now, but he seriously doubted that getting cut clean in half was one of them.

　　Like all the vines Matt had cut, the strands fell to the ground, apparently neutralized once disconnected from the main mass of the plant. He immediately moved forward into the next area of vines, hacking and slashing away as he went. While the skill was more than sufficient for actually cutting the vines, it was lacking in other departments. Where the Gnawing Strike had managed to spread out the Scourge`s attention somewhat, the ant queen`s power was strong but allowed the Scourge to focus on Matt undistracted.

　　Between dealing with whatever poison was still in the air and the damage from the fires, the Scourge wasn`t moving nearly as fast as it once did. But it was still moving more than fast enough to give Matt serious trouble. With every step forward, Matt paid a price of some kind, whether it was a glancing or a direct blow. His suit went from just a single hard-to-hit gap to having several tears, and Matt`s notifications left him no illusions about the repercussions.

　　Status effect: Mana Siphon

　　You are under the effect of a mana siphon. A local environmental hazard or specialized attack is drawing on your internal mana resources. Some of your skills and stats are temporarily disabled as a result.

　　Current effects: Spring Fighter disabled. System-provided stats reduced by 40%.

　　Status effect: Mana Siphon

　　You are under the effect of a mana siphon. A local environmental hazard or specialized attack is drawing on your internal mana resources. Some of your skills and stats are temporarily disabled as a result.

　　Current effects: Survivor`s Combat disabled. System-provided stats reduced by 60%.

　　Just like that, Matt lost his movement skill, his attack skill, and the bulk of his stats. While he was still much stronger and faster than a normal human, he felt like his legs had been cut out from under him. Whatever combination of perception and dexterity that had made it seem like time was moving at a slower pace in combat situations suddenly lost most of its efficacy, leaving him barely able to fend off a mind-bendingly fast suite of attacks from the plant.

　　"Matt! The capsules!" Lucy screamed, apparently having seen him slow down from her scouting position. She wasn`t wrong. Matt quickly used his tongue to dig out a foil-wrapped package from between his lower molars and his cheek, then felt the sickening sweaty-banana taste of the monkey honey fill his mouth as the bag burst.

　　It had taken a long time for him and Lucy to realize they should probably scan the honey with the appraisal wand. They had in fact only remembered to do so after a long brainstorming session on the subject of mitigating the effects of the Scourge`s mana lance had come up empty. Finally, the lightbulb dawned on the fact that the honey was the only effective treatment they knew of for the kind of damage Matt was almost certainly going to take, and they put it through a long-overdue analysis.

　　Monkey Honey

　　Normal honey is a wonder-food, essentially consisting of condensed energy in one of the forms universally usable by most living organisms. This honey represents the tireless work of a quasi-artificial lifeform in gathering pollen from mana-dense plants and done in a manner that was motivated by avoiding the complications of living in an absurdly mana-lean environment.

　　The resulting product bridges the gap between food and alchemical potion in an effective way. The honey amounts to ultra-condensed biological mana, and while it is useless as a source of raw, atmospheric mana that a mage might use, it is incredibly effective as a treatment for various disorders related to mana deficiency.

　　It also possesses what might be described as "an acquired taste".

　　Based on the system`s appraisal and a lack of other options, Matt and Lucy had crafted several cube-bag wrapped honeycomb sections, tightly tied so as not to leak significantly until Matt chomped down on them. The honey had worked well enough before to solve his mana deficiency problems before, if a little slowly. They hoped it would be enough to make a difference here.

　　What Matt didn`t know and the appraisal wand couldn`t tell him was just how well the ape-bees liked the native Gaian flowering plants, and the quality of honey they had prepared before the Scourge wiped them out. He hoped that this particular batch of honey would work just as well as before. But those worries were unfounded. Almost immediately after biting down, Matt`s perception of time began to stretch, accompanied by improved knife-handling skills and a very welcome system ding.

　　Ding!

　　Your mana deficiency resolved due to the consumption of an exceptionally mana-dense food.

　　Effects: Stats restored to 100% efficiency. All skills restored to full working order.

　　With both Barry and the System instance out of commission, Matt was glad that he was getting notifications at all, however bare-bones and automated they might be. He was even more glad to have his power back, and put his entire will towards pushing further and further towards the taproot. As he desperately batted away vines, his increased focus on speed and whatever residual energy the honey in his mouth were putting off seemed to keep the worst of the mana siphoning effect at bay.

　　"Matt! Something`s changing! Heads up!" Matt looked up from his dodging momentarily, immediately identifying what Lucy probably meant. Where the vines had glowed a bit before, they were now positively light-bulb bright, with more brightness seeming to be packed in behind them. He was close.

　　A few more swings of his sword confirmed that, moving just enough vines out of the way that he could peer through the tangle to see stalks that came out of a central source much straighter and more orderly than the overall mess of vines he was beginning to think of as a malicious, living final boss dungeon. Better yet, they ran nearly vertical near the ground, giving him hope he had found the source of all this danger.

　　Then he realized, a moment too late, that Lucy probably couldn`t see what he was seeing. It was too packed in by vines to be visible from much farther away than he was. He craned his head around wildly trying to figure out what she was actually talking about. It was just a fraction of second too late for him to realize that some of the vines around his feet were not dead.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

　　And then he was upside-down, followed by almost immediately being bound head to foot in dozens and dozens of vines. He was immobilized, completely unable to move a single limb. He managed to hold onto his knife, but within a few moments, the knife itself started to fall apart in his hand. Apparently, the Scourge could pull apart the mana in the metal and turn it into dust.

　　Neither of those were the worst part.

　　Ding!

　　Ding!

　　Ding!

　　Ding!

　　At this range, the Scourge apparently had much less trouble getting its mana-drain attack to land. Matt might have normally wondered what shape the suit itself was in, but at that exact moment, he felt too much like his soul was getting forcibly torn out of him to contemplate it much, or to wonder why the dead vines in his very limited eyeline were disintegrating into dust as well.

　　Without even checking, he knew every skill was gone, and at least the vast majority of his stats were as well. With every aspect of his entire being in agonizing pain, he could hardly think at all, much less about how to get out of this situation alive. He instinctively closed his fist on one of the vines, hard.

　　Luckily, he had someone to think for him.

　　"Matt! Another packet! Acid Bat!"

　　Like a drowning man surging towards the surface of the water, Matt didn`t need many instructions when presented with a way out. Almost immediately, a packet was open in his mouth, and he was sending the instructions to swap out his defensive meta-trait without waiting for any confirmation that it had worked. Some part of him really hoped that it would, though.

　　And then all his clothes burned off. In a second, Matt was burning alive in a different way, essentially swimming in a pool of acid that he himself was producing. Luckily, it seemed that among the many things Gaians had tried to use to kill the Scourge, corrosive acids weren`t high on the list. The acid burned through the vines slowly, but steadily. After a few moments, Matt felt a momentary slack in their hold, and used it as an opportunity to flare every bit of strength he had to create a space and instinctively pumped as much stamina as possible into Spring Fighter.

　　Luckily, Spring Fighter had come back with his new honey packet. Assisted by the lubrication of the gooey acid, he came spurting out the Scourge`s hold like a calf from a mother cow and landed awkwardly on the ground.

　　As he impacted with the ash of dead vines, the dust spurted up into his mouth and nose. Before he could control the reaction, he coughed and sneezed, watching in horror as not one or two but all his honey capsules came out, already burst. In his panic earlier, he had gnashed down on them all. With his HP bar dropping fast, he deactivated the acid skin trait. It wasn`t doing him any good now.

　　He was out of honey potions, and with his suit gone, the mana lances were coming fast and heavy, sending scorching agony through every nerve in his body. His skills were blinking in and out as the honey he had just swallowed fought a losing battle against the now constant mana drain.

　　There was no time. His pack had survived the acid, even if it was barely hanging on by a few threads and hope. Matt drew his spear and pumped every last ounce of stamina he had into the Regal Scythe, burning the skill for a momentary boost of power. Without even getting up, he swept the spear nearly level with the ground directly at the brightest clump of vines he could see.

　　Then the world collapsed.

　　—

　　Every vine was cut. The Scourge didn`t exactly have an adaptation for all of its vines being cut at once, but it did have normal, everyday sorts of protocols that applied to the situation just fine.

　　The first was to protect itself. As fast as it grew, it couldn`t grow an entire protective hedge in a mere moment. That meant it was vulnerable. But it was vulnerable in a way that all new taproots were, when they were planted in new territories. The first priority in that situation was always protection. It would surround itself with new vines focused on extreme, short-range mana draining. Then it would, one by one, grow thicker, stronger vines that focused on attack and mobility.

　　Luckily, the vines of the plant contained much less mana than the taproot itself. They were fed power from the taproot itself, so each only contained enough power to operate for a minute or so at any given moment. So when the vines were cut, it wasn`t a huge mana loss.

　　Unluckily, the taproot itself had been having a tremendous amount of trouble establishing itself. Even though its local environment initially had plenty of mana, it had consumed much of the energy when it expanded outwards.

　　That led into the second immediately relevant instinctual protocol. It could see its attacker now, the force that had driven the mystery material into its hedge. But with all its vines cut, the foe was just slightly outside the range from which the Scourge could effectively absorb energy from it.

　　But it had another source of mana to pull from. The dead vines. The energy of un-Scourge entities resisted its pull, however feebly. But energy that came from the Scourge itself was different. It had an affinity with that mana. Mindlessly and without will, the Scourge drew on that energy. There would be a small loss, but it could grow again.

　　—

　　Matt was trapped under what felt like tons of vegetable matter, until suddenly he wasn`t anymore. No light flared and no sound was made, but suddenly he was surrounded with tons of ash. Luckily, he was very good at digging. In moments, he had made it to the surface.

　　The vines that surrounded him were gone. All of them. Where his estate had once stood, there was now just ash, covering the ground like snow. And in the center of it all was a pillar of vines, writhing, reaching towards him, and growing. Oh, shit, he thought. I guess I made it through the dungeon. Which means&

　　It was time to fight the boss.