Your decision made, you put on even more speed.
Your hooves meet the sword, and with all the force of your dive behind you, plunge it in up to its hilt.
Green and black ooze spills from the wound as the tree screams. You've never heard a tree scream before and you don't think you'll ever be able to forget it.
You bank around as the branches start to shrivel and wither. Vitality drains from them as though time has been sped up. You land back near the pedestal with the plaque where it first attacked you, the zombies slowly congregating there while you watch the tree die. Branches start to fall as they lose the strength to support their own weight, dropping with crashes and booms as they crush what remains of the garden that their thrashing hadn't already wrecked. Soon there's just the trunk left with the sword still poking out of the top. It continues to shrivel and wizen until—with a resounding *crack!*—the trunk breaks in half and falls over. The sword shakes loose, clattering to the ground at your hooves.
You grasp the sword and thrust it into the sky. "That. Was. Awesome!" Your zombie allies groan approvingly, gap-toothed smiles on their faces.
"And it's all thanks to you guys!" You spread your hooves wide, accidentally severing Zom Bon's head in the process. "Whoops! Are you—" She waves you off with a grunt as she picks it up and places it back on her stump, slightly crooked. "Uh, okay. At least I get a cool sword out of this!"
As if hearing your words, a crisp chime resonates through the room, accompanied by your sword shriveling into a long stick of wood. "Aw. I knew it was too good to be true." Still, it's a very nice stick. Sturdy, good for whacking. A step better than fighting things with your bare hooves.
You turn your attention back to your new zombie friends. "So are you guys going to follow me around now or—oh." They've walked away while you were focused on the sword, back towards the holes they originally climbed out of. Holes they are now climbing back in. Somehow, this saddens you more than you expected. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Wouldn't be fair if I had your help in every single room." Carrotten nods as she shimmies into the hole that was made for her and pulls a pile of dirt over her head.
Something grabs your leg and you look down. It's Zombelle, giving you a hug. She looks up with a smile before letting go and taking a running leap into her own hole like she's some kind of high diver. She too disappears. One by one the rest rebury themselves, each giving you a nod or a smile before they go. Soon you're alone and the ground looks as smooth and undisturbed as any other part.
With an odd sense of melancholy tinting your victory, you take your Stick and make for the door.