The stench of death, rot, and stale rain clung to Zohrab Varshan’s tattered cloak. He pressed himself into the gnarled roots of a dead Thul-oak, its skeletal branches clawing at the perpetually overcast sky of the Umbralands. Before him, the tusked behemoth, a mass of tumorous flesh and jagged bone plates, snuffled at the churned soil. Its single, milky eye, the size of a man’s fist, twitched, searching. Zohrab held his rasping breath. The monster's tusks, stained with dried gore, gleamed dully in the grey twilight. A faint, distant chime, faint over the brute's guttural rumblings, scraped at his hearing. Wardens. A patrol, nearer than anticipated. He had perhaps two minutes before mounted Skymarshals picked up the beast's foul scent, and by extension, his own. His F-rank [Suture] ability was useless in a direct confrontation. But Zohrab was no frontline brawler. He had outrun squads of pursuers since the Judgment fractured Karth, relying on instincts honed by years of enforcing a minor clan’s will before his fall. He studied the beast's leathery hide, pockmarked with the bioluminescent growths that marked abyssal corruption. One growth, just behind its left foreleg, pulsed with a rhythm slightly off from the others. A weak point, or so his studies had indicated for this particular variant. His hand, calloused and scarred, slipped to the hilt of his scavenged bone-knife. The hilt was wrapped in dried vine, offering a precarious grip. He waited. The creature shifted, scraping a tusk against stone, its milky eye sweeping the ruined landscape. It lumbered toward the Thul-oak. Now. Zohrab launched himself from cover, a blur of motion. He moved low beneath the arc of the swinging head, aiming for the pulsing growth. The beast bellowed, shaking the loam. Its snout snapped down, tusks whistling through the space his neck had occupied a second prior. He ignored the stench, the overwhelming presence of the creature. His knife plunged into the glowing growth, twisting with all the desperate strength he possessed. The brute shrieked in agony as its leg buckled. Before Zohrab could disengage, a massive foreleg smashed across his ribs. Ribs cracked under the impact, hurling him backward into the dirt, his bone-knife left lodged in the creature's side. He gasped, a froth of blood rising to his lips. The beast thrashed, its eye rolling back before it collapsed into the dirt. Its spasms subsided into stillness, leaving only Zohrab’s ragged breathing. `[Chthonic Beast Defeated: Blight-Tusk Gorger]` The System’s cold pronouncement did little to soothe the inferno in his side. He tried to push himself up, but his left arm screamed in protest. He dragged himself toward the fallen carcass, his vision blurring. Blood pulsed from his torn flank, warm and slick against his fingers. He needed to move. The Wardens. He could hear rhythmic hoofbeats approaching. The search party would arrive within minutes. He couldn’t afford to be found, not with his face plastered on every 'Remnant' bounty scroll from here to the Citadel of Rostok. With a grunt of effort, Zohrab activated his skill. `[Suture] – Rank F` A network of pale filaments, thin as spider silk, emerged from his skin to bridge the gaping laceration. They knit together sluggishly, pinching flesh and torn muscle. The line pulled taut, struggling to keep the edges bound. The blood flow slowed to a trickle, but the pain remained, a constant, throbbing reminder of his vulnerability. He dropped forward, his hand slipping into the torn chest cavity of the carcass. His fingers curled around the dark, throbbing mass of its exposed heart, resting against the contaminated loam. As his fingers brushed the raw, alien flesh, a never-before-seen System prompt flared before his eyes, its runic text glowing with an unexpected intensity. `[Suture] target acquired: Chthonic Heart. Substrate: Blighted Soil. Proceed?` Zohrab stared, his mind reeling. [Suture] was meant for flesh, for closing wounds, for repairing *himself*. Not… not this. Not a monster's organ, not the dirt beneath him. But desperation was a potent catalyst for recklessness. What did he have to lose? His life was already forfeit. If this was a new way to hide, a new way to build something from nothing, then he would take it. “Proceed,” he rasped against the dirt. Filaments surged from his palm and fingertips. They whipped outward, coiling tight around the Chthonic Heart. Then, defying design, they plunged down, burrowing into the earth. The strands contracted, stitching the throbbing muscle directly into the loam. Flesh merged with decay, power with corruption. A dull violet glow emanated from the spot where the organ vanished into the mud. Then, darkness. The pain, the exhaustion, the blood loss – it all converged, dragging Zohrab into oblivion. He woke to a throbbing ache that was both familiar and duller than he remembered. Hours had passed. The sky above had shifted from perpetual twilight to a slightly less oppressive grey. The air was still, save for the distant cry of a carrion-hawk. The patrol was gone. He was alone. Pushing up with his good arm, Zohrab squinted at the patch of soil. The carcass lay picked apart by carrion insects, but the stitched organ had dissolved entirely. In its place, rising from the dark earth, hung a single pulsating fruit. It was the size of his fist, its surface a mottled green and black, veins of purple light rippling beneath its skin. It vibrated with a faint, resonant hum. Above it, a new System notification shimmered, cold and unambiguous. `[Root-Fruit of the Stone-Hide Boar] is ready for harvest.`

The First Seed