When the ships arrived at the city-seed, the vanguard's members could only stare down at the devastated terrain below in shock.

"It looks like a bomb went off," Ida muttered bitterly. "Goodness."

"Looks like it was hit by a tsunami," Zhou Wang corrected.

Khalid rolled his eyes at both of them, but didn't say anything verbally.

"It's safe to land, right...?" Priscilla asked.

"Yeah, it'll be fine," Lisa said dismissively. "Whatever happened, it's over now."

Eyrin gave her a curious look. "Does this have something to do with your suspicion from before?" he asked.

Lisa shrugged. "Maybe?"

Suddenly, everyone was staring in her direction.

"Lisa," Zhou said. "Theory?"

"Heh," she said, leaning against the glass of the ship. "Don't look at me; ask Eyrin."

Eyrin adjusted his veil. "The swampland is all connected."

"In what way?" Zhou asked calmly.

"Everything you see below is part of the same organism."

Zhou shook his head and sighed. "I can't even begin to understand what that implies. Anyways, for now, I agree that it's probably safe to land, so let's get going." He gave them all a level look, his eyes finally returning to fix on Eyrin. "If this really is one giant plant..."

Lisa leaned in her head. He's taking a long pause, she thought.

Finally, Zhou nodded his head once. "Well, that's pretty cool."

---

"Wow!" a group of the five remaining jerboas exclaimed, peering out the windows at the city-seed below. Virigard was the most vocal of the bunch and was currently pumping up and down on her hind legs.

"Knight!" she whined. "How dare you leave me out of the fun!"

"Yeah, how come we didn't get any fun?" another one of the jerboas moaned, eyes downcast.

"Can you guys shut up?" Clarissa shouted from the other side of the control room, glowering in their general direction.

A few quasi-horses snorted from the other side of the room. Neither Virigard nor Clarissa knew what the gesture meant, so they ignored it.

The ten-or-so remaining squirrels were busy preening each other's hair or something in the arc's designated sleeping area, right next to the exit hatch.

At least they're gone, Clarissa thought. The jerboas are tame compared to the squirrels...

For some reason, whenever the squirrels encountered Clarissa alone, they took it upon themselves to try and style her hair. They always seemed to be extremely confused when they succeeded in completely pulling parts of her mane out.

"They're extensions!" Clarissa would always growl. Thankfully, her mane was full and lustrous enough that it could successfully weather the squirrels' tugging. But seriously, what was up with their upper arm strength!? Eyrin frequently held onto her for dear life (especially when she indulged his danger sense), and yet the verdora had never even once pulled out her extensions.

"Clarissa," Virigard said. "You should see this!"

"Ugh," the devilbat groaned. "What?"

"A giant battle happened!"

This seized Clarissa's attention. "A battle?" She trod over to the window, sitting down behind the jerboas.

"Huh."

"See?" the jerboas chorused.

Clarissa shook out her mane. "Alright, I can see why you guys were making a fuss."

"The Knight did that!" Virigard stated proudly.

"I'd believe it," Clarissa replied. "It's kind of...terrifying, actually."

Virigard stood up tall, her tail swishing behind her. She closed her eyes and stuck up her nose. "That's the Knight, alright!"

"That's the Knight, alright!" the other jerboas repeated.

I've never seen him get serious, Clarissa thought, concealing her surprise at the destruction below. He's a legitimate monster. She suppressed a shudder.

---

"What kind of monster could do that?" Erzey asked, her eye crests elevating in horror. "Are the Knight and Fartuun alright?" She tugged the arm of her cousin.

"I'm sure they're fine," Juselin said, though he didn't sound very confident.

Thaddeus nudged his way in between them. "They're both fine."

The two Delelens looked at each other, then at Thaddeus. The other chattering verdora also turned around to see what Thaddeus had to say about the situation.

"It's clear that this damage was caused by none other than the Knight himself," Thaddeus reasoned. "If you look at the pools of water in the soil, you'll see that their impressions follow a tube-like pattern. The Knight clearly busied himself uprooting a significant number of the trees we've seen covering the surface of this planet."

The verdora looked at Thaddeus with expressions of total reverence. How he had figured this out within the span of ten seconds was anyone's guess, but nobody doubted the veracity of his words: Thaddeus had never been wrong before.

But it all sounded too incredulous. The area within a one-broad radius of the new city-seed looked as though it had been whipped by a real-life manifestation of Djalet's line. The depth of even the smallest impression in the ground appeared to be rods deep, with the deepest few impressions rivaled the many-storied buildings in height.

That the peaceable Knight had supposedly inflicted such violence on the forest came as a surprise to all of them. Many of them began to darken in color, revealing their distress at such a revelation.

"The Knight has strength to spare," Thaddeus said. "And he's only been training for a few months." Thaddeus finally turned away from the window to face everyone. If it hadn't been hidden by a veil, they would've seen the predatory grin stretching across his face. "It's no surprise why Juserin surrendered to COTD, is it?"

---

"You made quite a mess out there," Bath said, manifesting an avatar in the bathhouse.

Dean jumped. "Jesus," he cursed. "What's wrong?" I'm just trying to get clean in peace.

"I'm just coming to congratulate you," he said.

Dean narrowed his eyes as he scrubbed himself clean of dirt.

"On what?"

Bath chuckled. "Don't sound so suspicious. I'm pleased with the impression you've given everyone today."

Dean sighed. "What impression?"

Suddenly, Bath's expression grew serious and his head manifest itself directly in front of Dean. Since the bathhouse was filled with a cloudy steam, his head's sudden appearance nearly made Dean fall over.

"Lisa says that they're all intimidated by you," he said calmly. "Before, they thought you a smart, genial, organized young man. Now, they think you're a monster."

Dean flinched as Bath's head appeared in the steam from a different angle.

"What do you think of that?"

Dean turned away. "I've been called that before," he said. "Besides, I think you're exaggerating. I was looking up kursi abilities and they only provide information on emotions. There's no such thing as a 'monster' emotion."

Bath's head came closer until it was uncomfortably within Dean's personal space. However, instead of moving back, he decided to stand his ground.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

Suddenly, the head disappeared.

"I wanted to see how you'd react," Bath replied from afar. "Your behavior fascinates me."

Dean clenched his fists, but expelled his anger with a deep exhale. "I really hate it when you do psychological bullshit like that."

"When did people call you a monster?" Bath asked.

Dean snorted. "Back in the Middle East, when I spent my free time rescuing civilians."

"Mm, I heard about your activities."

"Yeah, well, some of the people I encountered were real pieces of shit." Dean sighed and grew quiet.

To Dean's surprise, Bath backed off. "I apologize for testing you," the Devourer said. "But what I said is, technically true: the devastation outside has frightened everyone."

"I already said I don't care," Dean replied.

"I know you're lying," Bath said.

Dean took in a steadying breath. "Well, I'm not exactly sure what you want me to do."

"Get video footage from Fartuun," Bath suggested. "Then show them what happened."

---

"Dean, I'm still a little...worn out," Fartuun said from the inside of her room.

"Um, uh..."

"You're just going to keep standing out there, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

The door opened inward to reveal a wet Fartuun, her hair done up in a towel. "What's up? You could've just asked by thought-to-text."

"Look, I just want to say--"

"Save it," Fartuun said, giving him a small smile. "Thanks for rescuing me from the plant fungus."

Dean rolled his eyes, but smiled back. "Told you so."

"What?"

"All giant fungi are bad news," Dean observed, shaking his head. "Bad, bad news."

Fartuun cocked an eyebrow. "We'll see about that. Well, if that was all..."

Dean coughed. "Actually, I was wondering if you could export your, um, memories of what happened and send them to me."

Fartuun blinked. "Why?" she hissed.

Dean knew this wouldn't turn out well. "Nevermind."

Fartuun grabbed onto his shoulder as he turned to leave. "Why?" She studied his face, eyes searching.

"Well, I've apparently freaked out a good portion of the vanguard with the destruction outside. They think I went crazy or something on the swamp."

Fartuun's brow furrowed. "That's so stupid."

Dean rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know."

"...But you're serious."

"Yeah."

"Fine," she said. "I'll give you all the relevant parts."

"No, it's fine--"

"Too late! Already sent."

Dean's eyes widened. "That was fast."

Fartuun shrugged. "V-Tap."

He tapped his chip reader, verifying that he received the video in a compatible format. He projected it for a second, then turned the chip reader off.

"Thanks," he said.

Fartuun tilted her head. "No problem, Knight."

---

Lisa had to admit, the video was a bit...extraordinary.

It showed Dean and Fartuun--thought mostly Dean--fending off a veritable army of giant, green whips. Lisa could hardly believe that the immobile, tightly-coiled swampland that had once covered the area had the potential to so rapidly shift gears.

A good deal of the damage to the ground, Lisa realized, had actually been caused by the "trees" smashing into it in an attempt to squish the humans, rather than Dean--

Lisa held a hand over her mouth. Nope. Turns out Dean really had been responsible for most of the damage outside. The only way to kill the tree whips was to yank them out of the ground. Dean quickly turned tree-yanking into an art. First, he grabbed onto a tree whip. Then, he ran with it gripped firmly in his hands. After stretching it out, he yanked forward and swished the stalk out of the ground and over his head.

Then, he smashed the green tree whip down onto the other tree whips. Toward the end, he began using whips to carve up the ground and even managed to uproot a bunch of the tree whips by scooping them up.

But Lisa understood why Dean decided to show the video explaining what had happened. While it clearly made a show of Dean's peerless physical prowess and battle instincts, it also presented Dean's control. Not a single one of Dean's movements were sloppy; every single one fed into the next as though he were performing a bizarre ribbon dance (with the uprooted tree whips standing in for ribbons). If anyone had the misconception that Dean had gone on a rampage, or that he was dangerous, the video put these fears to rest.

The Dean of the video was the kind of person they all wanted on their side: a concentrated storm of destruction. If these green whips came after the city-seed, Dean would protect them, and people found comfort in that unspoken promise.

Lisa smiled knowingly to himself. He is the Knight, after all.