The moment Axehand threw off his cloak, grunted, and buried his axe-hand in the tree all the way to the forearm, many different things happened at once.

The surrounding guards froze at his white, skeletal bulk; then, two of them screamed and ran away, while others grabbed their weapons, roared, and attacked. Boney also took off his cloak and grabbed the sword hanging from his waist. Taking up position behind Axehand, he pointed it at the incoming guards—he used to be a bandit too, after all, and one familiar with swordplay.

“Come,” he said coldly, “if you want to die.” They hesitated.

Jerry, knowing that Boney wasn’t too good with the sword, led his two remaining undead to charge. With a bone-chilling bellow, Headless grabbed a spear and jumped on top of Boboar. The two of them unleashed themselves at the battlefield.

Jerry himself approached much more silently, trying to remain unnoticeable—unlike his undead, he was very easily killable!—while severing the soul of any guard unfortunate enough to enter his attack range. When facing humans, three meters was the maximum range he needed for the weakest of wills, while particularly determined humans could resist his magic even at point-blank.

Boney, Boboar, and Headless got entangled with the eight remaining guards in a shower of blood and flesh and gore. Bodies went flying left and right, people were screaming at Headless’s severed head—especially terrifying at night—while Jerry assisted from the shadows.

As for Axehand himself, he kept hacking away at the tree, causing it to shake so violently that a shower of leaves soon cascaded from above. He grunted between swings, and if one listened carefully, they’d be able to make out a jolly tune in rhythm with his swings. He was, after all, the world’s greatest lumberjack.

He had also grossly underestimated the number of swings he would need to fell the tree; he was already at five, and the poor thing held well still.

The screams and sounds of battle naturally reached the treehouses, but the people there were equally busy.

Eight terrifying forms had descended from the branches above, moving with the ease of monkeys despite their considerable bulk; they bore wounds grievous to any human, yet fought with wild abandon. Even the slowest of bandits could understand what they facing: zombies. A necromancer. A living nightmare.

The bandits screamed as they were assaulted by the gorilla-like Billies, and a few handfuls of them fell in the very first skirmish. The more authoritative bandits then stepped up, organizing their people; the complex network of wooden platforms and hanging bridges soon turned into an intricate battlefield, with a bald, sizable bandit leading one side and Captain Reymond leading the other.

The Billy squad was vastly outnumbered but held every other advantage. They were not surprised, unarmed, undressed, or just awoken; they moved through the wildly rocking hanging bridges with the grace of monkeys; they had time to prepare a plan beforehand; and they possessed leadership an entire tier above their enemies. Captain Reymond, after all, used to be a Captain of the Milarisian Royal Guard.

Moreover, the Billies’ morale was infallible, much unlike their enemies, a good number of which screamed and fled in blind panic.

“Fight, my men!” shouted the Captain, standing in the middle of their occupied area and scrutinizing this unorthodox battlefield. “Show them the might of the Billies!” He had, reluctantly, accepted the name.

***

Foxy, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the ruckus to stealthily approach the long hanging bridge connecting Jericho’s treehouse to the rest of the network. She stuck out a claw—

And an arrow whistled through the air, tearing apart one of the ropes that supported the bridge. The entire thing turned on its side, hanging by a single long rope. Foxy peered down, snorted, then cut the remaining rope; the wooden bridge tumbled to the far-off ground, landing in a cloud of dust and splinters.

Then, turning around, she swagged over to help the Billies. Unseen from behind, she could claim quite a few lives.

***

Billy One—formerly named Rudolf—swayed with the bridge below him as he hacked and slashed at the unfortunate people facing him. He barely knew how to use the sword, of course, but they didn’t know that.

A terrified bandit fell to his blade, cleaved cleanly in two; Billy One pushed his weight onto the bridge, causing it to move like a swing, before using the next bandit’s loss of momentum to strike against—

A blade met Billy One’s, sending it away in a shower of sparks. Under their illumination, the zombie’s gaze found a bandit in a black bandana, gazing coldly back. The zombie roared, thirsty for battle.

There, on a wildly swinging bridge fifty feet off the ground, Billy One and his black-bandana opponent exchanged blows. None backed down; the battle went on.

All eight of the Billies, some fighting alone and some in pairs, had met resistance in the form of black-bandana bandits. These were better armed, better trained, and vastly more experienced than their peers; they were Jericho’s elites. Against the terrifying Billies, they held their ground, and slowly, the Billies did not look that terrifying after all.

Finding a moment of respite, the rest of the bandits calmed down enough to realize they had crossbows. One bolt after another was fired, most missing but some finding purchase, and the Billies roared with each hit; since they were undead, a few crossbow bolts weren’t a problem, but many of them would be.

Captain Reymond hid behind his shield as he took in the battle; things were turning grim, but that wasn’t a surprise. They never hoped to win in the first place; all they wanted was to last long enough for Jericho to fall. Then… Then, they might have hope.

Of the several black-bandana bandits, a few had fallen already, but the Billies weren’t invincible either.

The bandit leader commanding the men, that bald giant of a man, stepped onto a bridge. A black bandana had just fallen and the bald man met Billy Three; in merely three exchanges, the zombie was disarmed, beheaded, and flung off the bridge. He landed with a sickening thud.

The bald bandit crossed eyes with Reymond, then pointed his greatsword at him. The Captain felt his tension melt into energy. Years of experience came back, reminding him of the hot-blooded young warrior he once was. Under his mustache, Reymond couldn’t help but smile, a sort of savage, wild grin, unflinchingly meeting his enemy’s death stare.

Both leaders had deployed their troops. Now, it was time to fight.

With a bloodthirsty roar, Captain Reymond stepped onto the hanging bridge, crossing the bald man’s blade. His blood boiled, and his mind was empty, save for one thing: The will to fight!

***

Headless swung his brutal spear around, smashing through the guards right as Boboar, below him, did. The two were unstoppable, and the remaining guards were already teetering on the verge of collapse. Headless suddenly saw a guard glance at where his master hid. In panic, the zombie tossed his head at the guard; it smacked against his throat and bit away an important piece of flesh.

The guard screamed, his attention returning to the unstoppable duo. Headless had fulfilled his purpose; but he was now left completely headless. The head lay fallen a bit farther away, gazing at the battle in a slanted angle; from then on, Headless did his best to keep fighting, but he was far weaker than before.

Behind Axehand’s happily chopping form, Boney was defending against two guards by himself. One was the loyal Loretta, and the other, the refined-looking man who served as her pair.

The two of them repeatedly clashed against Boney, who, despite his previous bravado, was getting his ass handed to him. It was only his natural durability as a skeleton that kept him alive—or at least undead—but even that wouldn’t last forever.

Suddenly, he was disarmed, his sword flying away.

I’m sorry, master… he thought, watching the blades approach him. I did my best… Live a good life.

Then, all of a sudden, they halted. The old man simply fell dead on the spot, while Loretta clutched her head and screamed, dropping her weapon. A smiling figure walked up from behind them, his calmness gentle.

“Good job, Boney. Thank you for holding them back.”

“Master…” Boney lacked the ability to shed tears, but if he could, he could have cried a river. “You saved me!”

“Of course I did. I couldn’t let my butler die, could I?”

He then turned towards the screaming woman. One of his hands was still directed her way, palm ebbing thick black light, but even at only a couple of feet away, she refused to die.

“Strong will!” noted Jerry, decreasing his attack’s power by a bit. “Hey, girl. If you promise not to attack us, I’ll let you go.”

Her screaming stopped. She turned her red eyes at him, mentally spewing all forms of curses before gritting her teeth and nodding.

“Ah, good!” exclaimed Jerry, and the black light disappeared. Even Loretta herself was stunned. “Off with you now.”

“You really aren’t going to kill me?” she asked in puzzlement.

“Why would I? You seem like a good person, and I’m actually a pretty good guy myself!”

She frowned at him. Right then, with a final happy grunt, Axehand’s jolly humming reached its crescendo, and the tree moaned.

It wasn’t a simple sound. It filled everyone’s being and rocked their souls, making even their thoughts silent. Then, with a second, even more otherworldly moan, the tree tipped over.

***

These all take time to describe, but from the moment Axehand landed the first chop to when the bald bandit leader clashed with Reymond, to when the tree began to fall, only half a minute had gone by.

On Jericho’s treehouse, the door suddenly flew off its hinges and a half-dressed, wild-haired giant walked out. Someone had dared attack him, and moreover, someone was assaulting the large tree, his brother, at this very moment. This was unacceptable—Jericho’s rage seethed and bubbled, making his long hair hover and his entire body glow green.

For a single second, his eyes glazed over as he took in the battle, then the destroyed wooden bridge; the closest platform was at least twenty feet away. He could jump that far, of course, and that’s exactly what he prepared to do, but not before announcing his presence. Taking a deep breath, he roared:

“WHO DARE—”

And then the moan came. The all-encompassing death throe of his brother, the tree. He was an earth spirit, after all; this sound was almost painful, reaching all the way to his soul and paralyzing him. It took him a moment to recover, and then came the second moan.

“NO!” he screamed in despair, voice echoing for miles away, but it was too late. The tree tipped, the ground slanted under his bare feet, and he turned around only to see his treehouse topple towards him. From where the door used to be, books and paper rained out, and his entire desk began to slide downward. He didn’t care about those, of course, they were merely material possessions, but his tree brother was falling!

“NO!” he bellowed again, utterly despairing. In his panic, he chose to stand his ground, putting his gigantic palms against the walls and pushing with all his superhuman strength. He wanted to right his fallen brother, save it.

Which was, of course, impossible. Jericho was standing on the tree he was trying to push.

The fall continued unhindered, the wooden platform turning more and more vertical below Jericho’s feet until they were falling, and the massive tree trunk loomed above him. He could not fly, could not right himself.

“ARGH!” he bellowed one final, despair-filled time.

Then, with a massive, earth-shaking thud, the entire behemoth of a tree landed on the ground, raising a miniature earthquake.

Or, to be more precise, it all landed right on Jericho’s head.