As night was falling, Lenore and I separated, just as Sigmir and Ylva did. A part of me wanted to simply close my eyes, tune out the world, but there were things I had to deal with. While my memories of the time spent in Avatar-mode were blurry and fragmented as always, I was quite certain that Lenore and I had flown into the sky, which meant the thicket of brambles we had taken refuge in was gone. Destroyed by Lenore and me, if the blurry fragments didn’t lie to me, though there were very few of those regarding that action, maybe because Death-Magic was mostly one of Lenore’s abilities, not one of mine.

Forcing myself to move, I brushed against Sigmir, feeling a shiver run down her body. Both, Ylva and Sigmir, were dealing with the backlash of the Avatar-state for the first time, leaving them slightly overloaded and very sensitive, both to their surroundings and to the connection between them, maybe even to Lenore and me. Sadly, there was little I could do to help, it was just something they had to deal with, while I protected them in their state of vulnerability.

Standing on slightly unsteady legs, I looked around, my jaw dropping at the devastation. Where before, there had been a thicket of brambles, easily three meters high and higher at some places, teeming with life and vitality, now, the mountainside was almost bare, covered in dead leaves, some withered vines and a lot of dust. I could regnoise the residue of Death-Magic on vegetation, though I had never seen it on this scale.

It was blown away around Sigmir and me, with another empty circle nearby. I wasn’t quite sure where that came from, but Olivia was standing in the middle, looking at me with a strange gaze. Looking further, I realised just how devastating the battle had been, as Manticore-bodies were littering the mountainside, some of them obviously killed by sharp objects, while the cause of death for others wasn’t as easily discernible. Adra and Rai were moving amongst them, likely taking trophies and harvesting the useful materials.

But the amount of bodies made me take a look at my combat-log, causing my jaw to drop. There was a list of about two dozen entries regarding the killing of a Manticore or a Young Manticore, all giving a nice chunk of EXP, followed by three level-up notifications, bringing my level to 107, and a smile to my face. Those were followed by skill-increase notifications, pushing my Ice-Magic to eighty-three, my Blood-Magic to seventy-eight and my Death-Magic to a mighty eighteen.

“Love, we have to move. I know, you probably want to do nothing but close your eyes and shut out the world, but we need to move. There might be more Manticores coming.” I told Sigmir, gently taking her hand to give her some strength and guidance. She nodded, her eyes continuously staring into space, as if she wasn’t quite there. Similarly, Ylva twitched at my words and for a moment, I thought about the best way to move a massive canine, one almost as large as myself. Luckily, as I pulled Sigmir to her feet, Ylva got up herself, moving along with me.

“Are you alright?” Olivia had stepped up, the fact that I hadn’t noticed showing me that my focus wasn’t all there either.

“Somewhat. But we really should get moving, I don’t think either Sigmir or I will be of much use, if there’s another Manticore coming.” I told her, pausing for a second, “Hell, I don’t think we’d be of much use if a bunny decided to attack us.” I admitted, shaking my still hurting head.

“Not sure if there’ll be more coming, you did quite the number on them. Your magic is seriously scary.” she admitted, looking uncomfortable. “I had to shield Adra, Rai and myself from it. I’m not sure what your magic would have done to us.”

I could only nod in acceptance at her statement, I simply didn’t know what had happened, what Lenore and I had done. I knew that, no matter what state we were in, we’d make sure to keep Sigmir safe and I was reasonably certain that I wouldn’t actively try to hurt the others, but collateral damage was certainly possible. Just looking at the state of the mountainside spoke of the power we had evoked, the death we had wrought.

“Do you remember the magical dress we found in the swamp? And the ability contained within?” Lenore asked, speaking in my voice. When I nodded, she continued, “I just gained a trait called Death Singer, increasing the effect of my Death-Magic when I use my voice to project it. The only thing I’ve been working on that uses such an effect is the skill I’ve been working on, the one I based on the ability from that dress.” she explained, not solving the riddle of what we’d been doing, for that, I would have to take a look at the recording later.

“Mhm, your song certainly brought a lot of death, as you can see.” Olivia said, gesturing at our surroundings.

“We can debate that, but later. For now, what is done is done and I’m not sure there was another way to solve the situation.” I cut in, gently guiding Sigmir and Ylva forward. The two of them simply were in no condition to deal with the world at the moment, so I wasn’t about to get into a discussion with anyone, certainly not while there might be more Manticores coming.

“Adra, Rai, quickly get the important parts and we’ll get going.” I ordered, raising my voice even as I noticed Ylva shuddering at the additional noise. I had no idea how exactly the after-effects of the Avatar-state hit those two, only estimates based on my own experience but her reaction made me take a mental note to avoid loud noises. The other two looked over and their movement sped up, even as I decided that they could catch up, it wasn’t like Sigmir or I were about to set any land-speed records.

Not even ten minutes later, as Lenore and I were looking at the border, between withered, destroyed vegetation and living forest, the others caught up. It was curious, just how precise the border was. It was quite obvious that the effect had worked on a certain range, but some branches that had stuck into that range had withered, too, the effect reaching a short distance outside of the original range. Yet, while the branches that had only been partially inside the effect had been harmed, they hadn’t been completely destroyed, as if the part outside had absorbed some of the damage, or provided extra vitality. It made me curious about the mechanisms, as my grasp on biology, especially magical biology, was a little shaky. If I wanted to learn more Alchemy in the future, to build on the paltry points I had gained thus far, more understanding was needed.

“Let me take the lead.” Adra suggested, getting a grateful nod in return. Just guiding and helping Sigmir, with Ylva padding after us, took most of my attention, leaving little to actually pay attention to our surroundings.

“I’ll bring up the rear. Don’t worry, teacher, nobody will sneak up on us.” Rai assured me.

“I agree, you did plenty. Thank you, I’m not sure we could have dealt with those Manticores otherwise.” Adra added to him, giving the four of us a look of gratitude. Again, I could only nod. While it was true that it had only been the use of the combined effort of Sigmir, Ylva, Lenore and me that we had been able to defeat the Manticores, at the same time, I was the leader of the group and had made the decision to cross the White Mountains even after knowing about the Manticores. Looking at it with that in mind, I had almost killed us all with a bad judgement. Or maybe not a bad judgement, but one that was made with too little information, which, if I was honest with myself, was a bad judgement. I would have to do better in the future, without letting the responsibility bog me down, though I had no idea how to actually do that.

Maybe the real answer to that problem of leadership was to be powerful enough to break any obstacle, as impossible as that was. For me, I made a promise to myself to improve on my concealment-magic, to the point that I could shield and conceal the group, even during the daytime, so that, if we were unable to defeat a foe, we could at least run away safely.

With that determination made in my mind, I focused back on our surroundings, deciding to stretch out the vines of my Eisblumen, so that I had additional hands to guide the dazed Sigmir and Ylva through the forest.