Dryads: Kill them.

The four lesser gods moved as ordered. The vines wrapping them began growing and after wrapping around both arms long blades appeared. Lilian, Rachet, Ares and Me quickly ran forwards just as the enemy did. We each clashed with one of them. To our surprise they were weaker than we believed but a sudden shine from the crystals on their chest their forms changed.

Ares: Seems they are serious now. Let’s not wait.

In a moment all four of us were in our true form. In my hand were dual sickles. Lilian held here twin fang daggers. Ares held his huge two handed blade on his shoulder and Rachet in his Royal Imp for was opening and closing his hands as if stretching them.

Baal: You guys don’t fight them directly. Look for an opening and then attack. Use magic and arrows.

Without giving time for any retorts we all run forwards and confront an opponent. Mine was a skinny man with long messy black hair.

The speed we fought at was no joke. It was easy to say that this was a fight no mortal (mortal world resident) would be able to fight in. It's easy to understand why the Upper and underworlds are considered superior worlds. Humans need to spend their who lives to try and reach this level.

After clashing in a flurry of slashes we jump back and I see his swords be coated in mana then miasma coats that and completely changes the metal plant blade into a long holy blade.

Soul: Master I suggest you do the same. The power of the blades have by great amount.

Baal: Ya I noticed.

I coat Soul in mana then let my miasma run along the blade and mix with the mana. All the miasma was suddenly absorbed and what was left was a menacing black sickle that gave off a cold feeling of dread.

We clashed again but this time I pushed him back.

Soul: Master I noticed the crystal on their chest is controlling them. I would suggest you kill the dryad or remove the crystal.

Baal: Let's get rid of this crystal then.

As we clash I activate ghost step and get behind him and returning to normal I slash his leg.

Besides injuring his leg I cut the vine that was wrapped around there and now his body was dragging the leg and had much less mobility.

I ghost stepped behind him again and cut the other leg though I almost got cut. With him on his back I quickly chop the vines connecting the arm and then grab the crystal with my hand and rip it out of his body.

The vines disappear as grey smoke leaving the lesser god injured. My eyes fly towards the others. Lilian wasn’t having much trouble so I went and helped Ares. Appearing behind his opponent who was a female with exceptional strength I chopped the vines and with the sudden lost in mobility Ares grabbed the orb and removed it from her body which dropped like a sack of potatoes.

The two gods we beat were tied up and then healed. The other two were in the process so I sent Ares to fight it and turned to the dryad. She had a scowl on her face.

Baal: What want to say something.

Dryad: GRRR!!! DIE!

She ran out but even at her very high level it wasn’t enough and I easily dodged her and with a punch in the gut I stunned her and while she tried to breath in some air I got behind her and crossing the sickles around her neck they just barely touched it.

Baal: Learn from this in your next life.

I pulled the sickles and her head fell with a lot of green blood rushing out.

I didn't stop because of the possibility that she could regenerate. I hooked both sickle in her body and with a spin I sent her flying up and changed to my guns and fired three spell circles at her body making a bigram.

[Hells Holy Flames of Gluttony]

The red circle created a dome of blue flame around the body. It rapidly burnt and ate the body leaving nothing behind.

My stomach turned a bit but thankfully it doesn't get worse then a small stir. The gluttony flames have always been the easiest to summon and now that I hold Soul I've been learning to call on things from hell. Hikura told me that when I am ready and the spirit of life thinks I'm ready he will appear.

Unlike the Nightmare Inferno this just destroys the body killing it. Nothing is left behind and I cut her head so there wouldn't be screaming. I grab the head that still hadn't vanished and throw it into the fire finally killing her.

The gods that were still fighting felt a drastic change and slowed down tremendously and in moments were beaten.

With all the gods beaten we put them next to each other and heal them up. It was strange to see them with so little life needed to restore them but it was explained easily.

Ares: These guys have no followers. They remained Lesser gods but lost their power. From now on they will need to have a patron god of their own type for them to regain their power.

Baal: So how strong would they be without these crystals controlling them?

Meil: About as strong as a human adult that never trained in combat.

Lilian: Wow that’s weak.

Lily: Master what do we do with them.

Rook: I’ll carry them.

We placed them on the large furry back and choose to move ahead. Nothing else to do anyway.

Just like when we arrived there was nothing attacking so I took the chance to examine the crystals the gods had in there chest.

Corrupt Mana Crystal

A mana crystal of nature alignment that is used for mind control. It acts like a parasite and takes complete control of the body.

This Crystal was used on a lesser god of darkness. It absorbed all his power leaving him a little more than a shell.

Purifying this crystal will remove its parasitic nature and can return the mana to the god safely.

Baal: So this is something similar to the gods crystallized mana pool.

I activate my mana foresight and look at each defeated god and see they only have a tiny drop of mana within them.

Baal: Lilian can you purify these.

Lilian: Hmm sure.

She purifies all four and hands them back. I get up and glide over onto Rook and flip over the man I fought and push the crystal back into his chest. It begins glowing and with the passive mode of my mana foresight I can see the mana has begun to return to his body and started flowing in the proper spots and soon it reached the spot his mana pool gathered.

I returned it to the other three and the same happened.

Kumi: What happened?

Baal: The crystals was there mana crystallized and corrupted to control their mind. Lilian purified it and I'm just returning it to them. Maybe then we can find out what happened here.

Hikura: It will take a long time before all their mana returns to its normal flow. The body is weak and there mana has been corrupt for a long time.

Baal: That doesn't matter. It makes things easier since they won't have the power to fight back. They lived during the war so when they wake up they will still think it's the war period.

Plum: So these guys date back longer than Valeria. Wow. I wonder what they are like a full power during that time period.

Ares: Trust me you don't want to know. No god now a day wants to. They will regain some power but it won't be much compared to what it once was.

I looked at the face if the four god. The scowl or frown they had now softened and they were sleeping better now.

As I return next to Lilian at the front we enter a mediums sized room. At the end is a large branch the curves upwards.

Lily: This must be the last room.

He look to all sides including up to see if no surprise attacks are coming.

Not seeing anything a few humans calm down a bit but only them. I activated my mana foresight and finally find it. A large mass of man near the center of the room.

Turning Soul into my guns I pull on out and make a dense mana bullet and aim it at the creature and shot.

The bullet dug through the dense tree bark and its inside and landed on its target. It caused a huge tremor and vines closed the way in and out.

Breaking furiously through the floor a large wooden arm raised a huge body.

I was already charging a some fire spells and shot at the giant. It was blocked by vines. As the creature stood the room expanded to fit its size making it a huge dome with a 70 m radius.

As he looked at us he let out a loud roar before swing his arm at us.

Baal: DISPERSE!!!

All the demons and angels flew away unharmed. The highest level humans also got away unscathed but those too slow got caught. 10 died while the rest lost from 30-70% of their life.

Baal: Lilian mass heal the injured. Angels with bows and long range demons provide support fire and healing. Close range angles, gods and Demons hit it close range. Humans provide support with the angels. Those who are warriors advance from behind.

Hearing my orders everyone started moving. Lilian jumped into the middle of the injured group and with her weapon in staff form she activated her healing spell. Three layered white circles appeared above her and an aura of light spread with the chamber.

The angels and demons that were support units flew into the air and started firing magic and magic arrows at the tree.

This one was an annoying one for sure. Boss ranked elder treant level 570

Being from the corrupt world tree it was mortal world monster but it had demon mana within which amplified its capabilities.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that this would be a strong enemy and one big pain in the ass.

Ideo moved swiftly through all the vines that sprang out in his way and punched through a few. Behind him like a shadow was Kia. Flying just behind him was Aiden. They both ran and flew in close and planted dozens of traps and to finish Ideo landed a series of punches all of which made large explosions. From above several Tengu were performing a chorus spell with Lily.

Controlling the ground below the treant was flow and Ro along with several demons and humans.

If I had to compare it to anything it would be a war zone.

From above I spotted Kitsu clawing his way up the ceiling and with claws covered in black flames he jumped down and crashed onto the. Creature.

All of this resulted in only 30% of the treants life falling.

Just then the pissed off treant reacted. Wrapping several vines around Kitsu who was above him the treant showed its massive strength by spinning the behemoth fox and hitting many of the airborne angels and demons.

That lasted only a few devastating seconds before the vines let go as they began burning. Just as Kitsu got up breathing fire with bloodshot eyes a rain of fire spells hit the giant walking tree from behind shaving 10% of his life.

He roared in pain and turned towards the humans who had themselves covered in several layers of barriers.

The treant completely ignored the much more dangerous Fox that had its tails spread wide and three black flames at the rip of three tails, three white flames on three of the other side and in the middle tail was a bright blue flame. They all released a stream of fire and gathered in a ball in front of Kitsu's mouth.

Everyone felt the power behind this attack and cleared the area around the treant. We made barriers around the treant blocking its view of us and making it claw at the walls.

With a huge ball of black, white and blue fire in front of him Kitsu exerted a huge amount of force and the massive ball of flame was compacted. The colors completely mixed and left a mass of compressed purple fire.

Kitsu: Vanish into the netherworld!!

His yell attracted the attention of the treant.

By the Wrath of the Seven tailed fox. The Holy Blue flames of hell, the Black flames of Tartarus and the holy flame of heaven. Bow to my might and scorch the earth. [Holy Bomb of the Tailed Fox]

Closing his jaws the mass of magic shot forward with tremendous force. A mass of thick branches grew out in front of the treant but they were all crushed. In an effort to protect himself the treant crossed its arms and coated them in thick vines. When the bomb made contact he was instantly pushed back onto the barriers made by us and completely crushed them.

It continued to push him back and he hit the back wall with the branch that head up. The whole wall broke as the bomb pushed him and it kept pushing until the tree broke under stress and the treant was launched into the air outside. Flying 200 meters out the bomb suddenly grew bright and exposed. If I had something to compare it to I would say so. The explosion almost reached the tree we were in. It ate into the ground and left a crater where it was able to reach.

As fires from the blast subsisted all that was left was a single large black crystal falling. I flew out and grabbed it with air magic because it was releasing heat and then returned to the tree.

As I landed I let the crystal drop. The foreigners were in an uproar.

???: DID YOU SEE THAT!!

???: WHO DIDN’T! ITS AN ANIME COME TO LIFE!!

Dalton: ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!!

They stopped yelling but continued chatting. I walked up to Kitsu who looked happy.

Baal: What's with that grin. YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US WITH THAT?

Kitsu: If I thought it would kill us you think I would have used it. That thing only activates after travelling a certain distance from me and having hit something.

Baal: *sigh* Any side effects?

Kitsu: If you consider half of my mana needed to do that a side effect then yes.

Everyone’s mouth dropped. If that was half of his mana how terrifyingly strong is he now.

Rachet: BAHAHAHAHA I never thought I would see you do that much for something like that!!

Kitsu: Shut it Imp. Or do you want to turn into my chew toy.

Rachet: Come on pup let me teach you who is still stronger.

The two stared each other down while I face palmed. From behind I started hear the humans talk.

???: I wonder if we are actually needed here. These guys are beyond monsters.

???: Well they are in the god realm so of course they are beyond monsters.

I looked out the hole that Kitsu made. The fire that the bomb felt scorching the area just from the presence was still burning. Bright blue flames was spread around the whole area. It was then that I noticed that the whole wasn’t closing. I looked with my mana foresight and figured out while. The flames purified the area they touched. It was also eating away at the corruption in the wood deeper down. I started to smile seeing that.

I walked over and with fire magic I picked up and controlled a bit of the fire. It was extremely difficult. The flames were probably holy hell flames. It’s not a mix of light magic with demon fires. It’s a special kind of fire in hell. The final flame a soul goes through which cleanses it of its sins. It’s a holy flame that will remove all corruption.

I place the fire in the center of the room and carefully spread it around a few meters where I could control.

Lily: Master, what are you doing?

Baal: These flames are purifying the corruption in the tree. I’m going to burn this room with this fire so we have a safe place out of the trees control.

I concentrated hard and began to move the fire in that circle around slowly.

My fire mastery quickly leveled up because of the difficulty. I also gained a bit of fire affinity for my careful handling of holy flames.

Through the process of burning the room many vines appeared but were blocked by humans who were guarding me. They wanted to be useful so I let them do so.

The vines didn’t appear from the burn ground. When I burnt all the ground it had passed an hour and everyone was already setting up came while a group fended off the vines. I started burning the walls and with a group of demons and angels it went off for nearly 3 hours before the last spot was burnt off.

With the room safe from any shifting or attacks we set up shifts and took a well-deserved sleep. Night had come as we could see from the opening Kitsu made. Gathering stones from outside and returning to the safety of the room after being attacked by the vines outside we set up some camp fires on the flat rocks and cooked some food before going to sleep.

I spotted a few angels feeding the weakened gods we beat. They had made a soup for them.

After eating a bit I went to sleep but activated mana foresight. The blue world quickly formed around me with the mana of everyone appearing around me. I felt my body relax much more and soon it was asleep but my mind was awake. The reason why it's better to explore while asleep is because the mind is at its most relaxed and open and it can capture more space around us.

I found Hikura sitting next to the fire sharpening her sword. She was here only to observe on behalf of Thanatos. She wasn’t to do anything more than talk. Even in her normal body she can sense me and looked around before looking straight at me and smiling.

Hikura: Hey Baal.

Baal: As good as always. So what do you think of today?

Hikura: I don’t know. I feel like something is wrong.

Baal: Like?

Hikura: You know this tree is supposed to be stronger than lesser gods right?

Baal: Ya and?

Hikura: Why hasn’t it been able to kill or capture a single royal demon or lesser god we brought. Not to mention a foreigner who are far weaker.

Baal: ...I see...it is weird now that you mention it. But it's been stuck in this area that is the wasteland right. If that's true then it hasn’t been able to gather energy since he captured the lesser gods and was sealed. It was cut off from the world so it can’t replenish its mana without farming the gods and since they don’t have followers anymore they have what they have.

Hikura: ...I was thinking the same thing but if it was like that then just send all the gods at us. We don’t have enough lesser god ranks to match them.

Baal: I think it can’t, it needs the mana to survive probably. The low activity is probably because of that. It saw we could fight the gods. When Meil said he was laughing at us it must have been because it thought it would kill us and farm us for mana like it does with the gods.

Hikura: Can you see where it is.

Baal: The main mana body is at the top. I can see a few tiny dots here and there above us but it doesn’t move, must be the next opponents.

Hikura: Get some real sleep Baal. You will need it.

Baal: If you say so.

I return to my body as she instructed and headed to a full sleep for tonight.

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