Mash was in the middle of a raging storm of black fire and lightning, Priscilla’s hastily constructed barrier and the dragon scales of his form being the only thing protecting him. Without those, his soul would’ve long been destroyed. However, he could resist this attack, the real problem was figuring out how to follow up.

The demon was definitely one of those that had been fighting someone at level 150, and despite Mash’s above-average class, he couldn’t handle the demon. The problem was no one could. If another fight had ended and a human had won, they would either already be on their way or had something else to deal with. His best bet would be to attack after the fire dissipated, to at least try and rip the demon’s head off. Assassination tactics worked against most enemies regardless of levels or stats.

Mash only had two ways of winning a fight like this. His abnormally high physical stats letting him catch the enemy off guard or enduring long enough for the enemy to run out of mana. He rarely got into a fight of attrition but was confident in winning those. His scales were still undamaged and figured that he could outlast his opponent. He would still try to kill the demon now though, as it might have exhausted itself with this attack.

At the edges of his draconic domain, he felt the vortex of black fire slowly diminishing. It was being drawn to the center, and Mash guessed that the attack was ending. He prepared his sneak attack, and as the fires slowly drew together, Mash leaped towards the demon. Only after he had jumped forward, did he realize the demon’s magic hadn’t ended. He assumed it had been vanishing, instead, his movement had been stopped by pure force. In an instant, he vaguely felt something collide with him. Mash slammed his mouth closed and his eyes shut, bracing for the impact.

Then he heard the sound of something breaking and distantly felt like his body was sent flying somewhere. Nothing made sense, and he tried to figure out what was happening. He felt another impact, this one caused pain to flood his body. Slowly his vision returned to him, the bleariness passing and letting him see what had happened. He felt something against his back and imagined it was the wall. He shook his head violently, clearing his mind so he could properly understand what had happened.

His back was against a wall, but it was the wall of a building. A quick glance showed him a large section of the city wall was missing, and even a portion of the city was just gone. Even further away from the walls, the buildings were turned to rubble. The attack had destroyed almost a quarter of the city. Mash’s concern went to his sister, and he tried rising to his feet. He barely managed to move his arms, the broken bones retaliating violently. His eyebrows rose as he looked at his body and saw that sections of his scales were broken, blood pouring out of the cracks and breaks.

Needing to move, Mash tried to stand again. Only for the pain in his arms and legs to keep him seated. However, he needed to do something. No one else could survive an attack like that. Even with all of Jill’s power, she wouldn’t be able to stand near the flames. He worried about his friends but couldn’t keep sitting idly.

“Tree beast! Turn into the tree beast.”

Priscilla was screaming at him, but he had been ignoring her. His focus was entirely on the devastation before him, and he only just managed to listen to her. He didn’t hesitate, dropping the dragon form, and turning into the treant form. Slowly the pain diminished as his body changed, and he was pleasantly surprised to realize that he could fix some of the damage. His broken limbs and muscles healed easily, though the lingering damage in his soul remained. He could restore his wooden body, with his magic.

That should have been obvious to him. Quickly he tried turning back into his dragon form, only to feel pain shooting through his body as he attempted to do so. He stopped changing and remained in the treant form. It seemed like whatever fixes he had managed in his treant form, would fall apart when changing from it. It was more like he was holding his body together with his magic, and it would fall apart as soon as it returned to flesh and bone. This was the consequence of not having a true healing skill.

From his understanding of this form, there would be a single point of vulnerability on his body, and so long as he kept the enemy's attacks away from that he would be able to live. Thinking about the strength of the form, he decided to take advantage of the improved affinity with his creation magic.

“Priscilla, any ideas?”

Images flashed through his mind at the request, showing him different forms of tree beasts, she had seen. While they weren’t bad, he didn’t want to try and adapt to a new body shape. Instead, he just went with a humanoid visage and enlarged it significantly. The demon took notice, but he had had enough time to make it as tall as a building. His speed improved a lot with the form. Not to mention, he could feel the wood absorbing mana from its surroundings. Mash continued to grow as he rushed toward the demon.

“Give me some imitations.”

Priscilla had calmed down significantly, and Mash started letting imitations pour out of him as he ran. From the edges of his domain, he could see the imitations scurrying through the city, though he paid them little mind. She wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want her to, and he would need to trust her.

As the demon got close to him, Mash tried kicking it like a kid would with a ball. That was only a part of what he did, as some of the imitations of Priscilla threw small bolts of lightning at the thing and roots rose from the ground grabbing hold of the demon’s feet. The demon bowled over them, the lightning dissipating against the thing’s anti-magic. However, Priscilla had expected that and instead aimed her lightning to blind the creature.

It seemed to have worked, as his foot crashed into the creature sending it flying back towards the broken wall. Mash ran at the demon, even as he sent it flying. Mash didn’t think he could beat the demon anymore, but he needed to make sure that any more attacks like that large one would be directed towards the other demons, rather than the city. He believed he could manage that much. Even though Mash’s lightning magic wasn’t as good as Priscilla's, he could manage something. Rather than focus the lightning on any type of attack, he merely had it constantly surging from his body. Hopefully, it would add some power when he struck.

As the demon regained its footing, Mash was almost twice as big as before. He threw his fist at the creature, the demon holding up a hand in defense. The wooden fist of his armor collided with an invisible force. He could vaguely make out the shape of an enlarged palm with his domain. The wood broke under the force of the collision, but Mash quickly repaired it as he attempted to strike with his other hand. Although, Mash didn’t think that would be enough, and followed the punch, with another. Even as his punches failed, he managed to turn himself towards the broken wall, and away from the city.

Exerting a significant amount of effort, Mash continued to grow as he kept punching against the invisible hands. Mash then grew spears from his hand, having them snake around the invisible barrier. He could feel its shape clearly with his domain, and the demon hadn’t been prepared for the attack. The blades interrupted its concentration, as they managed to cut the demon. This let Mash grab the creature. Without any hesitation, Mash threw the demon past the broken wall, continuing to run towards it. Having grown significantly during the last exchange, he needed to straighten his body as he ran. He was as tall as the walls themselves now.

Mash saw the black flames generating above the demon’s head. It was the same attack, and, in a panic, Mash jumped to the right. With where he was standing now, the attack would do more damage to the demons than the city. Even still, Mash didn’t want to let the thing do as it wanted. He jumped the demon, planning on interrupting the spell. The demon dodged Mash’s lunge but didn’t throw the orb at him. Instead, it tossed the thing towards the city.

Reaching desperately, Mash grew his arms out to become abnormally long, as he reached for the fire. His wooden hand collided with it, and he prepared to take the brunt of the explosion. He kept growing his body, moving to envelop the expanding flame. The fires burned his soul as the orb grew bigger and bigger. He dug his wood into the ground and grew his body out. Even if he couldn’t stop the explosion, he could try and restrain it.

When the explosion came, Mash was able to better understand what was happening. The black flames condensed to a single point, all the mana and power reaching a maximum before exploding violently.

The heat and force turned his wood to ashes and broke everything. Mash didn’t get the opportunity to shut his eyes fully and everything went black for a moment, but his vision returned quickly. As he looked around, he saw that his wooden creation had all but been destroyed. Large chunks of it had turned to ashes, and several pieces scattered about. His own body wasn’t much better, though his treant form had managed to keep him alive. He was healing, though a quick look told him that he would need to regrow almost half of his body. One of his arms and the lower half of his body was completely missing, but he didn’t feel any pain. This form seemed to remove that, and he was able to focus on restoring himself. He could fix his body, but again it was just a temporary fix, like holding his body together.

Mash felt something moving within his draconic domain and looked up to see the demon staring down at him. Its eyes were entirely black, and its purple skin seemed paler now. The demon didn’t attack, it just stood there, looking at him oddly. The demon opened its mouth, but Mash couldn’t understand what it was saying. Its voice came out as a series of incoherent noises. It sounded like dozens of people were screaming all at once.

He checked with Priscilla, but she didn’t seem to know either. Even still Mash tried to speak to the creature. Anything to stall for time, the longer the demon was here the better.

“What do you want?”

The demon tried again, though this time all Mash could hear was the screeching again. It sounded odd, noticeably different from before, but it was still not something he could understand. The demon looked like it was about to continue, but then its head snapped towards the castle. Mash’s own eyes followed the movement, and he was glad that his body had regrown completely by now. Considering his next attack, Mash watched as the light seemed to cascade over the area. That didn’t make sense. Even though Mash had been fighting for a while, the sunrise should still be hours away. Turning his head Mash saw a figure who was shining golden in the distance. Mash felt something shift in his domain, and the demon’s own head snapped towards Mash. It quickly struck out with a fist, but Mash was already gone. Even without looking, Mash knew that only Jill would be able to react that quickly.

“Run, get me to Luna or Luke. I need to heal before I can fight the demon again.”

Mash spoke quickly, his voice sounding odd in the form. It sounded more like echoing winds than a proper voice. He hadn’t noticed it with the demon standing so close to him. Jill teleported them into the city, and Mash saw her eyes glow a strange mix of colors as she looked around frantically. He wanted to ask what she was doing but instead chose to start healing himself, while he could. Even if his meditation wouldn’t be that effective while in this form, he hoped that it would do something.

That only lasted for a moment, as he felt the temperature rise drastically. It was followed up by the wails and screeches of creatures. They seemed to be coming from everywhere, and it was quickly followed by a person’s voice.

“Your king has returned victorious. Recover, as he eliminates the remaining monsters.”

It was the prince again, his voice seeming to cover the entire kingdom. Mash’s first thought upon hearing this wasn’t relief though. If the fight was over, his skill would stop working. The rush of power that came with a level up suffused his body. As if on cue, his treant form started dwindling, and he could feel the pull of unconsciousness. Mash was horrified as his body experienced the pain of all of his broken bones and muscles, while also taking the backlash from his hunt skill. He didn’t have the strength to stay focused, and the pain quickly overwhelmed him. The last thing he remembered seeing, was Jill turning to see him, as blood started pouring from cuts in his hastily stuck together skin.