The forest began to burn once again; the teams were making their way in the search of the objectives while the forest was trying to defend itself, lunging sharp branches and roots to lure away the invaders, but to no avail, since every branch and root ended turning into charcoal due to a special device that induced wooden elements to wither and catch in a fire almost instantly, a powerful bacteria worked as a withering agent, and a trigger sent a signal to said bacteria to cause the combustion. “I wonder if we would be helplessly torn apart by these branches if we didn’t have the device with us.” –One of the Heroes in Lawrence’s team asked while kicking the ashes of withered roots.

“Didn’t you see the news before getting called by the military? A group of heroes were brutally quartered by the roots and branches of this forest and exposed as a taunt; it clearly was a war declaration of the elves to the kingdom.” –A veteran soldier from the same team answered while sticking closer to the device, trying getting closer to Lawrence who was operating the device as well.

After 15 minutes of wandering through and the forest engulfed in flames, Lawrence’s team heard loud noises coming from the supposed positions of 3 other teams, it seemed like screams and explosions that started simultaneously. “Everyone, make sure to stay alert! The Elf began to move and it seems the devices are not stopping him” –Lawrence shouted to make sure everyone heard him while under the device, many roots rose up to pierce through it and kill two veterans, as well as reaching Lawrence’s neck, breaking the electronic collar and cutting his neck superficially since he dodged the sharp end out of instinct. After noticing his collar was neutralized, Lawrence slowly raised his hand to check his neck while a sinister smile and vicious eyes distorted his face.

On Elvira’s side, traps were also activated, destroying the device and killing 3 of the members including one of the women in the married couple, the next one simply held her in her arms and tried to carry her now-deceased wife on her back, with tears on her face reflecting grief and hatred, she continuously gazed towards Elvira, who was doing her best to avoid getting impaled like the 3 heroes. However, the other half-breed who was in their team began to mutate, turning into a larger mix of a canine and simian being, killing a hero and a veteran soldier, then using them as a sort of meat shield to avoid getting impaled while slowly approaching Elvira. The leader of the team was trying to address the situation and act accordingly quickly before Archival suddenly appeared behind him and two roots with concave shapes captured the leader, just to disappear as fast as he appeared, along with the roots sinking in the ground.

A loud roar was heard coming from the mutated half-breed since it started to throw the corpses in his hands; Elvira reacted and dodged before being struck by the sacks of bones and meat left by the two corpses drenched in blood. The remaining members of the team tried to escape to avoid being killed by the mutated half-breed; they were also trying to communicate the situation to the control room in the capital facility but the control room wasn’t responding since the virus Gree implanted began to act up jamming their communications. The engineers and technicians desperately tried to neutralize it before it kept spreading across the military server; on the other side of the border Gree received a notification of the virus being cleansed, she sighed and went back to sleep in the inn Nat, Phill and she were staying at.

As Lawrence’s and Elvira’s teams were having trouble, the holder of the whip had exceptional control over the situation, using the whip and infusing the flames of the trees into it to then quickly search for traps with it since one of their members was impaled as well due to a sudden root. The device they had was still functional but an earthquake shook the forest, alerting every team of what was about to happen, giving them time to prepare themselves for the main objective, the earth dragon.

Sinns was wandering through the forest alone, attempting to find Archival on her own and after he took at least 35 out of the 50 people in total, he finally managed to meet her. The fight instantly started, Archival began to cast several roots with thorns to hinder Sinns movement; however, she broke through after damaging herself as scales rapidly grew from the wounds and shed off several seconds later, making Archival flinch before she jumped and smoothly wavered her battle-ax downwards, gaining momentum and directing a focused hit on Archival’s head. Archival didn’t stay still as Sinns’ strike was about to land; he was instinctively pulled backward by some roots, denoting the forest was also aiding him. Sinns had left a crater that had pushed the ground to the sides and slowly attempted the raise the battle-ax once again but several roots pierced through the ground to impale her. “You would’ve split me in two if it wasn’t for this place protecting me, I didn’t expect you to be so strong and agile, and you will serve as good nourishment for the forest” –Archival said with respect as there was a drop of sweat falling from his forehead after noticing the crater left by the strike.

Another earthquake shook the forest, revealing the massive dragon which took by surprise the whip user’s team. “Everyone back off, you will be killed if otherwise!” –the whip holder commanded as he began to waver the long weapon around before hitting a single strike that was heard in the whole forest, the explosive strike made the dragon backed off in pain since the contact spot broke the rock-like scales covering its head. Every other member looked in awe as the dragon roared loudly as its neck began to shine bright red, preparing to spit magma towards the group.

Archival looked towards the direction where the roar came from, sighing and turning to see what was happening there. “It seems like they are going to be showered by its wrath” –he said while a loud explosion was triggered next to him, he attempted to turn around horrified, as a large bullet pierced through the earth risen by the crater which blew Archival’s right side and arm, throwing him a couple of meters forward, the forest quickly rose roots to stop the bleeding but such hit left Archival near death. He spat some blood and tried to breathe but one of his lungs wasn’t there anymore, so he knew that was his end, his muscles relaxed as he was losing his air and before he passed he closed his eyes without any regrets. Sinns was walking towards Archival’s corpse to check if it was dead while the forest slowly tried to bury him using many roots to carry him underground. As she saw it, she attempted to decapitate the corpse to carry the head as a trophy back to the headquarters, but before she did, a large spear made out of ashes cut her path, instantly making her jump back into a defensive stance.

Chronos suddenly landed in front of the corpse, as the forest gently wrapped it with roots to then pull it underground. Chronos placed his hand on top of it as he looked back to Sinns who noticed who he is. “I remember you; you were traveling with Miss Grace, because of you they also had a hard time, so I will now take you back along with the descendant.” –Sinns mentioned while swinging the battle-ax slowly to then point towards Chronos.

Before Chronos said anything, Sinns accelerated at the same time she prepared a strike to cut him in half horizontally. However, before entering in contact with his body, a loud metal clang was heard as sparks flew, Sinns smile faded away while noticing her Battle-ax was deflected by a spear she didn’t know anything off. Last time this helpless guy was only using the scales as daggers, what is this? Was he actually a mage? –Sinns thought while backing up using her weapon as a lever to impulse herself away. Several spears surrounded Sinns closing any escape route and accelerated to pierce her limbs, immobilizing and making her drop the battle-ax.

I’m sorry Archival, I can’t properly grieve you in this situation, I will repel the ones who entered the forest and free the dragon for your sake –Chronos thought while turning to check Archival being pulled underground.

Not long after Sinns was defeated, loud stomps were approaching Chronos as a Tall woman with animal ears was running towards his direction escaping from the source of the stomps, a massive abomination. “Run! This is something we can’t kill; we need the other two Custom weapon users or…Sinns.” –Elvira shouted while slowing down as she noticed Sinns’ limbs restrained by several spears and her weapon on the ground.

The Abomination that once was a Half-breed on Elvira’s team was holding in both of its hands and mouth the corpses of the last three members left before Elvira, She tried to escape by running to where she thought she would find help but instead, the anomaly that awoke the interest of the Government was standing right in front of her. The beast that was now around 3 times bigger than originally began to swallow the corpse in its mouth and charged towards Chronos before its head and arm was impaled to the ground by another spear. Elvira was shocked by what she just witnessed; a force above Sinns and an Abomination was right in front of her and she had no idea if she had the opportunity to even escape. “I didn’t come here unprepared to die; we were supposed to capture a dragon after all.” –She joked while asserting a defensive stance and focusing on the trump card she was hiding from everyone.

Elvira besides being a half-breed also has a certain affinity with the world, flora, fauna, and many of those who can sense it knew that. She was also a second-stage mage, but this magic of hers was what the government wanted, the ability to enhance her senses while hunting, allowing her to perceive reality as a whole, making her an apex predator while hunting. With her diligent nature and outstanding combat skills, the government didn’t wait long before recruiting her and enlisted her for the custom weapon program. After meeting Gree, she was given a certain weapon that was not meant to enhance her skill but to be able to wield every other custom weapon created, Gree named it Midas’ touch due to the amount of golden-looking components it has.

As she clearly seemed to have invaded the forest along with the others, so Chronos didn’t think too much about what to do, so several spears appeared around her, just like with Sinns, however, Elvira reacted even before the spears appeared, quickly making her way towards Sinns’ battle-ax, dodging as many spears as she could, showcasing a high grade of flexibility and precision when it came to knowing where the next spears would appear from. Once Elvira made her way towards the weapon, her gloves began to shine as they adapted and reproduced a similar genetic print as Sinns, allowing Elvira to lift the battle-ax with ease since the built-in magnetic field that kept it together was resonating with the gloves; now that she managed to lift the weapon, she began to move accordingly to avoid as many spears as possible, as if it was a sort of dance to survive. A minute later, she landed the first hit on Chronos, who tried to defend himself with one of the spears but was still thrown away by the momentum that Elvira was building while dodging.

Before he could compose himself, a large ammunition shell struck the ground next to Chronos, almost blowing his head up. Startled, he tried to quickly move from there as Elvira seemed to not have much experience aiming the cannon barrel from the battle-ax. Several spears started to surround Elvira but she used the weapon to move around easier as if she was copying Sinns. Chronos tried to keep his distance since there was very little chance of him winning in close combat against what seemed to be a trained soldier, but Elvira still tried to find openings in order to strike Chronos once again.

A few hundred meters away from them, a slender figure with blood splattered all around him was making his way towards the team subjugating the dragon. Lawrence was licking the blood on his hand while resting the scythe on his shoulder as he dragged the limbless corpse of one of his teammates along with him.