Reborn as a Demonic Sunflower - 014 (Patreon)

Memories haunted his mind as Haylock felt like he was drifting in a pool of something warm.  Weird colors and lights were all around him, and concern about a time with some friends and mushrooms made him wonder if he was back on Earth in Sydney and all this was a crazy dream fueled by shrooms.

After a while, the lights and shapes began to move faster, and Haylock started to see that it wasn’t at all like an acid trip or a magic mushroom ride.  He recognized what he saw, the warm light spinning and moving in a circle before occasionally moving along paths that formed a shape.

It’s my chi! It’s moving through me!

It took great effort, and his eyes started to open. The world looked different.  Everything now had a red tint to it.  Gone was the simple yellow glow that showed him chi in all living things.  It was still there if he focused, but it was like he wore red-tinted lenses now.  The plants in the courtyard were tinted a very slight shade of red.  Near him were long thorned vines that were moving around and…

Holy crap! Those are my vines!

Changing his vision, Haylock looked down from above and saw that he was no longer rooted in the ground.  He was outside of it.  His stem had become almost two feet wide, and he was taller, much taller.  Every dream he had experienced of playing basketball or getting a date was now possible.

I’m like fifteen feet tall! And I have a mouth!

The flower that was his head had changed. The seeds were now white, matching the white petals that looked massive and strong. His beedy yellow eyes were sunken within his seeds, and a nose was present. Haylock smiled and saw his maw open, then froze.

My god! My teeth! 

Long, sharp, needle-like teeth appeared, and in the darkness of his mouth was a tongue that appeared ready to sample anything foolish enough to come his way.

Admiring his beauty, the sounds around the place he called home were getting louder and shouting filled the air.  

He could sense chi being spent and glancing to where he knew the houses were, Haylock saw that Nini and Mimi were moving backward, forced to retreat as five men in blue colored outfits pressed toward them.  

One man with long black hair wielded a sword that looked like it was covered in ice and the others with shaven heads all sent balls of water at his friends.

Anger filled him, and Haylock wondered where that damn rabbit was.

Fufu! We need to help!

Slowly, Haylock tried to move toward where the two women were fighting for their lives.

Mimi was blocking the water attacks with a few floating red balls and trying to hold back the one who had to be the leader of the group with the sword.

Nini was tossing daggers at the other men.

It felt so slow, but Haylock noticed his roots were starting to move along the dirt.  He was moving, but it wasn’t fast.  

I could walk faster when I was a small person!

Never wanting to use that dirty word of midget, Haylock felt painstakingly slow.  Then, another thought entered his mind.

Focusing on his chi as his body moved forward, the ball of energy inside him began to spin rapidly.  Waves of it went out from him and into his roots that were deeper into the area of the property.  

The group was fighting in his domain, and it was time for him to let them know they weren’t welcome.

With effort, he directed three sets of roots through the dirt and behind the men who were slowly advancing, taking deliberate steps as they waved their arms and did some fancy kick routine.

It’s like watching that avatar show or something… man I hated the water people…

A young man on the left looked distracted, focused on helping whoever the man with the sword was, and Haylock sent as much chi as he could through the roots he had there.

They ripped through the ground, and the man seemed to sense it as they broke free from their embrace of soil.  He tried to leap into the air and away, but one of the three struck true, impaling his leg completely.

Smiling to himself, Haylock could feel barbs appear and heard the man screaming in pain as the root dragged him to the earth.  More roots began to spread through his body, sucking the blood and life from the man.

Letting the root do its own thing, Haylock turned his attention to the other three men, who were now in a panicky state.

A pink rabbit had appeared and was biting off the arm of the one on the farthest right.  Blood flowed from the wound, and it all began to drift through the air toward Nini and Mimi.  

Haylock could sense a shift in the battle as both women seemed to get stronger. The more blood that flowed, the faster and stronger they got.

A blade of ice shot out from the man with the sword, almost severing his root in half, but it clung together, chi holding it in place. The one Haylock had pierced started to have roots breaking out all over his body. They came from inside the water cultivator's mouth and ears, threading themselves into his nose and eyes. The poor man was dead and didn’t even know it.

Those roots found the core inside the man. It pulsed with a weird sensation and power.  A root dug through the man’s back as the corpse lay on the ground and secured the prize, finding a larger root in the dirt and carrying the core toward Haylock.

A scream filled the air, and Haylock saw a dagger plunged into the man closest to Fufu’s target.  Nini was doing some weird dance of her own, and the blade continued to pierce the cultivator's chest over and over.  Each attack drew more blood, and the blade grew faster and faster.

Watching the leader, Haylock let his other roots attack the last of the four weaker ones, knowing it was chasing the man who continued to try to dodge and evade their attempts at finding another meal.

The eyes of the man with the sword of ice were wide.  The composed face he had first spotted looked terrified as the young man’s mouth hung open.

Mimi was in the man’s area, attaching and dodging with a speed that Haylock never knew the woman could move with.  Her balls of blood had gotten bigger and were now spiked or hooked, spinning and coming from every direction.

The young man with the black braid of hair was fast, his sword blocking and parrying each of Mimi’s attacks.  Yet what scared the man wasn’t the old woman with a head of white hair.  It was the demonic flower that had reached the edge of the garden, its tongue licking its massive pointed teeth, all with the hunger of a meal Haylock desperately wanted.

The closer he got to the wall, the more roots were in the area, and soon, the two roots were now four, pinning down the second cultivator with ease and starting his next meal.

Walls of ice began to spring up around the younger man, and Haylock wondered what he was doing.  A protective box of ice encircled the man.  The cultivator was doing something inside, dancing or waving his arms.

“Get back!” Mimi yelled, racing toward Nini, who was focused on the fight she had just won with one of the cultivators.

Haylock could see the build up of power.  The cultivator was channeling massive amounts of chi into the box of ice and what Mimi knew was coming, he now could understand.

Roots began to emerge from the ground between the cultivator and his two favorite women.  The balls of blood turned into thin layers of blood, turning hard, and all of them surrounded one side of Nini.

As the chi within the box erupted and shards of ice exploded like an ice bomb going off, Haylock realized that Mimi had not protected herself at all.  Everything she had done was to protect Nini.

Ice riddled the entire property, chi-infused pieces tore through the stone wall, and some pierced Haylock’s stem and face.

The pain was present, but nothing like the hurt in his soul.  He could see Mimi bleeding from at least two dozen or more shards of ice, all of them up and down her backside and arms.  

Fury and rage filled Haylock, and his yellow eyes diverted to the cultivator, panting and cold breaths of air coming from his mouth.

The light inside him was less, and Haylock wasn’t sure how much chi the man had used, but he didn’t care.  Mimi was hurt, and all that mattered was killing the one responsible for it.

Focusing all of his attention and hate upon the cultivator, Haylock was surprised to see two long thorn covered vines whip toward the man from his body.  As those came, a dozen roots plunged up from the ground, each of them attacking from a different point of a circle.

The young man sensed them coming and spun, sword in hand, trying to deflect and cut down the plant life coming for him.

Pain lanced through Haylock as the sword hacked off roots, keeping him safe for a moment, each strike cutting off a wiggling piece that burrowed itself back into the ground, rejoining the roots moving below the soil.

The ball of chi in Haylock's center spun like a centrifuge, moving so fast it would probably cause an astronaut training for the g-forces of space to pass out.  His mind was locked onto one thing and it was the man with the long black hair.