Aria's eyes widened in shock as she watched Alaric's body begin to change before her very eyes.
It wasn't a violent transformation, not something grotesque or horrifying, but rather an eerie, almost seamless shift. The wooden tendrils from the ground slowly coiled around his legs, crawling upward like living vines, wrapping around his body until he was fully encased in wood.
He looked less like a man now and more like some ancient, monstrous entity born from the very forest itself.
Except for his head.
There, atop his head, a wooden crown formed, its twisted branches curling upward like the gnarled roots of an ancient tree. It sat on him like a symbol of power, as if he were some kind of forest king, a ruler of nature itself.
"What the hell is this…" Aria muttered under her breath, her brows furrowing.
