[@A Lowly Wretch]

It was obvious that Kai would not hear Hayim - after all, the god was smaller than most of the bushes by this point, and the blades of grass were coming up to his body. The fire he sprayed burned deep into the wood that encompassed the forest, eliciting a cringing motion from Hayim - who knows how many people would die before he managed to take out the Spire? Hayim abandoned his mission of calling to the dragon god and instead began to race towards the spire. 

The sudden heat of the flames was quick to die down, as the fire shifted into the very familiar form of Maple leaves. Hayim, barely realizing this, continued to run deeper into the Spire's aura. Unbeknownst to him, he was leaving behind one of the villagers, who was still hanging onto conscious thought and human features. The rush that had overtaken him was driving him ever forward, forcing him to race towards the spire with constantly increasing speed and vigor. The beating of wings could be heard, and with a turn of his head, Hayim saw the distant figures of Ragnadon's horde, three of his pests.

As if there wasn't enough trouble already with Kai, Hayim turned his movements and rushed into the nearest tree, which had grown to multiple stories tall by this point.

[hr]
Jumping into the realm of Akhuz, Hayim was immediately shocked to see how it had shifted - it still retained it's meadow-style aesthetic, but the small section he had spawned in was overrun with plant matter and trees. The overflow was nowhere near as bad as the real world - hell, it couldn't even be called a forest, but the fact that the spire was now starting to dig its claws into Hayim's realm was concerning, to say the least. After several more hurried steps, Hayim immediately fell over, his leaves tangling slightly as he did so. 

His movements were clunky, unresponsive - leaves were intertwining to form stronger limbs, and he was the fastest he had ever been. But Hayim was not used to the movements in the slightest. It was like suddenly gaining the use of extra arms, or a blind man suddenly gaining sight. Hayim propped his larger body on the nearest bush and, sensing the points he could come out of it into the real world, he hobbled to a nearby tree. For one of the first times in his life, Hayim was nearly too big to teleport through it, the trunk nearly being too thin to fit his frame. Of course, with such a small tree, there was no matching vegetation nearby. Sighing as he prepared, Hayim thrust himself forwards, using the newfound strength his body granted him to launch himself near a shrub he could squeeze into.

Sensing vegetation that was very close to the spire, Hayim allowed himself to fall through the shrub, the branches and leaves taking him back within the Spire's range.

[hr]
Sprouting out of the shrub, Hayim found himself very close to the Spire, to the point where he could hobble up to it given a minute or two. He needed to figure out how to work it, what he could do to get rid of the mysterious structure. The earlier one had disappeared while Hayim wasn't watching, and he had no idea which of his siblings committed the act. Simply being as close as he was, Hayim could feel his body grow and shift into strange shapes, leaves sprouting by the second. 

If he didn't find a way to take out the spire soon, he'd have to retreat to Akhuz and make his way closer. The fear that normally dominated Hayim's life seemed to be absent at that moment - even the thought of touching the massive obelisk didn't strike him as an impossibility. Hayim rested his rapidly growing petal against the shrub he had come out of - the twisted and elongated face of a baby being seen through its branches. 

Maybe his lack of fear was because there was a lot more at stake.