An hour has passed and the two figures stand on the lush bluish tall grass.

Tensha stands with her own bulky silver armour, though not as big as Asire’s, but she carries hers with sheer body strength. Meanwhile Alistair floats by her side with a gentle smile on his face.

They’re much closer to the flower than Asire was.

“Breach in 12!” she says making sure she’s broadcasting it to Asire as well.

She breaks into a sprint pulling out her majestic silver sword out of her unorthodox shield.

Hearing what Tensha said, Alistair flies upwards as his eyes start to glow faint blue. The calm atmosphere in the area is disturbed as wind starts to gather quickly by Alistair’s side compressing into the form of an arrow.

A transparent liquid starts dripping from the hilt of Tensha’s sword only to cover the blade and set ablaze.

She plants her feet on the ground as she slows down sliding towards the flower before plunging her flaming sword into the ground.

Suddenly various vines leave the ground targeting the old lady they encircled as fire starts to spread from their roots.

Some go for a piercing attack while others try to smack her whilst they’re on fire.

She doesn’t move or try to dodge, instead she swings her shield to block one of the vines and slice into another one. The other 4 were about to land their hits before bouncing off her armour completely.

The next time around, one of the vines aims for her head.

She bends backwards avoiding it and pierces it with her flaming sword before turning ever so slightly to see another vine coming straight at her.

What a smart flower this is.

She jumps up, and with her shield stuck to her side, she spins horizontally as vines come towards her.

The hits bounce off her sturdy shield but that’s alright. With nothing to support her whilst she’s in the air spinning, a vine takes this opportunity to wrap itself around her as she’s spinning.

The vine squeezes as it slams the old knight on the ground with force. Although it squeezes with immense pressure, it has no effect on the old lady. But the moment it slammed her on the ground, she coughed up blood.

The flower didn’t even register Alistair was also included in this fight, 11 seconds have passed, enough for his arrow of wind to be dense enough to slow down light passing through it.

Wind starts to rage as the shot is made, and the bolt of wind makes its way only to hit the protective petals around the base of the flower, only for it to shatter with the wind.

The wind bolt shatters with it into thick visible patches of wind only to change direction of its scattering to fly into the glassy yellow core like a thousand sharp needles with impeccable force, breaking it into shards.

With that, the vine that kept a hold of Tensha froze mid swing. She easily forces her way out of the powerhold to fall on her feet to the ground.

“Gather yourself and report," she says without taking her eye off the giant flower.

“No movement above ground but all the vine networks below are retracting back to the source." There’s a focused look on his face but he’s very calm and collected inside.

“JUMP BACK NOW!” she shouts not to herself or Alistair who’s already far back, but to warn Asire who’s elsewhere.

She does also follow her own advice, and it’s lucky she did.

The giant petals above close up and the stem retracts into the grown pulling massive weight down that causes dust to rise.

The dust makes its way around Tensha and Alistair who’s floating above her. There’s a thin layer of air stopping dust getting through it leaving them in a pocket of clear air inside the winds of dust.

Silence does not fall as they hear the ground breaking and moving without having any visual.

“My left," Alistair says without moving as five arrows of wind form a ring around him pointing at the flower.

Tensha leaps up and swings her shield to the left, deflecting a large thorn from the dust cloud that was aiming straight for the cyan haired man.

“Change priorities, keep defence formation and settle the dust." Tensha noticed that the dust isn’t settling on its own and might need a little motivation.

“Radius? 229 VT." The ring of arrows around him dissipates as he floats down to the ground.

“As far as the vines go!” She jumps to his right and raises her shield to deflect yet another thorn. The force of the thorn is high enough to pierce into the ground besides Alistair. Blocking it entirely would take time she doesn’t have and energy she can’t spare.

“AoE fall." They both jump back as a large vine the size of a tree slams where they once stood.

“Multiple angle shots." The faint blue glow in his eyes gets stronger as Tensha defends him from the thorns above.

She hits her shield with her sword and a wave of energy leaves it forming a temporary forcefield around them.

“Mention possible counters," She says with a small smile.

Her blood is pumping, she’s in a very dangerous situation and she knows it, but she’s not panicking whatsoever. If anything, she’s proud that Alistair has improved so much since the incident.

“Leap Counter!” he says as he squats quickly, halfing his height but leaving his silky hair behind.

She jumps with force and lets her feet pass her, almost committing to a front flip, before a large vine passes under her.

“FH on you!” she hears Alistair shout before she pierces the vine, falling head first, with her large thick burning sword.

She is taken by the vine into the air. She pulls down her giant shield and puts it in front of her expecting another vine to slam into her. She was not disappointed. She held onto her planted sword as the huge vine bent around her and started recoiling back rubbing on her shield.

She twists her sword, letting fire spread through inside the vine before pulling it out and jumping off the vine.

Above the giant dust cloud, a very thin layer of dense air forms across the sky. It drops pushing the dust under it away until it reaches the ground, clearing the atmosphere for them to see.

With gleaming eyes, Alistair looks at Tensha who smiles at him with pride. They finally get a look at what they’re fighting.

There sits the giant head of a closed flower, the size of a mansion, and hundreds of vines wiggling in the air like a flailing octopus.

We’ll need to break into it.

She was about to rush for the middle of the field to where the flower sits, but before she could reach it, she noticed that the vines that are notoriously quick aren’t even attacking.

She realises that they’ve been slowly hardening, limiting their movement by proxy.

“To you!” she shouts at Alistair hoping she has enough time.

A jet of wind propelled her back as she turned with open arms aiming at the floating man.

She pins him down to the ground covering him from one side and her shield on the other.

Even though Alistair is taller than average, Tensha, considering her bigger size, can still easily cover him with her giant armour and shield without leaving him exposed to the elements.

Without a warning, the many vines that left the ground start to spin at unreal speed around the central flower, like a blender going through the ground eviscerating anything that comes on its way.

Alistair’s innocent face looks up to see a look that he never wanted to see. His guardian in silent pain with a distorted face. All he hears are rapid clashes with her armour. The metallic twangs echo through his mind, creating many emotions within him; emotions that make him uncomfortable, like a dagger dancing on his heart. Second after second after second. What is he to do? Please, tell me what to do. Anything.

Half a minute dragged like it was never gonna end. His heart was burning. He could barely raise his arms trying to touch her armour, just to get a connection between them. And then… she spoke.

This was new for her. This wave of attack was so immense that each hit pierces her outside layer and causes her direct pain. She could barely force open her eyes that were too stiff from the pain to let her. But then she felt something touch her breastplate from the front. That snapped her eyes open only to see tears flowing down her dear Alistair’s face pouring nonstop.

It took her a while before she took back control of her face to form a kind smile and speak.

“Don’t worry about Auntie, remember what I taught you, always follow your role…” there’s a large gap between each of her words. “Now, I’ll give you more time, drop Sky Breaker on it!” she tried to sound as confident as she can, hopefully it’ll revitalise him.

Seeing Tensha stay strong through the waves of never ending hits on her only makes him want to be strong for her. The blue glow in his eyes is no longer faint but now bright enough to light up a small room. He turns all his emotions into focus as he concentrates on the sky far above.

The flower may be huge, but even it doesn’t compare to the size of Alistair’s Sky Breaker; only meant to be used in dire situations. Previously only used once, ever.

“When ready... send me... to it…” she says between deep breaths.

“Wh-what?” He's not sure what she means, well, he understood what she said, but…

“Behind you…”

He turns to see that the weird parts and sigils of her shield started to turn around the weird mechanism around the hole in its centre causing it to glow slightly.

“B-but…”

“I’ll be fine…” she’s not sure if she will be.

He nods in agreement.

He puts his hand on her metal chest, and with that.

Alistair of Rih, considered to be a sorcerer of air, unaging body, mind of a child, innocent to the core, and from known past encounters, has enough destructive power to crumble a castle at will.

His attack buildup above started to have an effect on the atmosphere below. Winds start to rage and clouds unseen in the dark above the yellow aurora start to move away from the scene.

Tensha is sent flying through the sky leaving Alistair sitting in a bubble of light with her shield attached to it. Each time a vine passes through the shield of light, or Tensha herself breaks through a vine with her flaming sword, the shield of light pulses again and again. Tensha wasn’t getting hurt physically in the first place, but the pressure around her heart isn’t to be desired for anyone.

She lands on the centre of the flower where all the petals meet, blocking her path to the centre.

She slashes the air above her as her sword loses its flame. She drew a rune in the air.

She’s very old, incredibly old in fact, and she suspects that she’s near the end of her line. She’s basically a relic of the past, but that comes with an advantage. She had more than enough time to understand relics of her own from history past since gone. The rune she just drew is from a civilization long since gone, older than entire civilisations.

Suddenly, she gets pulled like a puppet following its string towards her shield. This feature is supposed to be used to bring the shield to her, but she needed a quick out.

The moment she entered the light bubble around the shield. A loud bang can be heard across the lands. A sudden explosion blew the area leaving them blinded from the shield’s light blocking all sorts of debris flying everywhere at immense speed.

The grip on Tensha’s heart starts to loosen as damage taken by the shield is greatly lessened.

Many a minutes later of silence between the two, the dust finally settles and the light shield fades away to find that they’re standing on the only patch of bluish tall grass on a pillar of dirt on a desolate crater that could house an entire prosperous city.

A small smile forms on the old knight’s face as relief washes over her. And Alistair follows, happy that Tensha is smiling.

What happened just now is a rocket-sized shell of dense O3 containing various fuel gases was dropped at immense speed at the flower, passing through an ancient rune of explosive enhancement only to hit the flower and pierce it before exploding from within it like a weapon of mass destruction.

This is what Seraph meant with one of the most efficient destructive machines.

Tensha looks at Alistair and hugs him tightly but carefully as to not hurt him with her armour.

He doesn’t quite understand the purpose of hugging but he wraps his arms… well… opens his arms as much as he can around her chest.

The fight itself was only taxing for Tensha but, it’s a small price to pay for what she considered to be ‘an unmatched bonding session’.

Tensha jumps into the crater and starts walking towards the general direction of her camp. Hopefully nothing was destroyed while she was gone.

The sky started to get brighter the more she got further from the battlefield but not quite returning to normal daylight, while the yellow streaks in the sky haven’t changed yet.

She tries to message Asire a few times but for some reason her message isn’t getting through. She can’t help but worry, although not too much. She trusts that she’ll be able to finish her end of it.

They go back to camp where they enjoy a long night of sleep.