Leon stared at his party, bloodied and broken, as they bravely put up what looked to be a last stand.

And he was in the depths of the research facility, unable to do anything about it.

“These are your people?” Apati asked apprehensively.

“Yes,” Leon answered through clenched teeth. “I need to get to them, what’s the fastest way out of here? Tell me on the way!”

As he spoke, he turned around and leaped into the air, using his magic to catch him, and began flying back toward the entrance of the control room.

“Wait!” Apati shouted. “Wait, wait, wait!”

Leon paused in the air and glared at the emerald in his hand.

“Leave me here,” Apati said. “I can get you there quickly and re-enable the defenses!”

Leon still didn’t quite trust the man, but with his people in such a dire situation and little chance of him getting to them in time to do anything about it, he decided to roll the dice.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“Down there, northern console bank,” Apati directed, and Leon shot back down to the control consoles. Following Apati’s directions, he found one a few seconds later with a few slots for gems. “These are emergency battery terminals,” Apati explained as Leon plugged the emerald into one. It was a little small, but the console lit up with power as soon as Apati made contact. “This isn’t quite what they were designed for, but from here, I can control what remains of the facility’s enchantment array, and that means I should be able to get a few teleportation enchantments back up and running with bypasses and rearrangements…”

“Really?” Leon asked, glancing up at the massive sphere speckled with millions of runes. There were certainly quite a few light, lightning, and darkness runes, but he wondered just how moving them around to create new enchantments might affect the enchantment scheme as a whole—and how it would work.

“It might compromise a few defenses, but yes, it’s possible,” Apati replied. “Just do me one favor, if you could, my Lord: this is obviously the work of the tree sprite that escaped from this facility and killed everyone here. Please, kill it in my stead. Once it’s done, I’ll do everything within my power to salvage what can be taken from this place…”

Leon’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

[This guy…] Nestor whispered from within his soul realm, [I know I’ve heard his voice before…]

[Is he trustworthy?] Leon asked.

[No,] Nestor and Xaphan said in unison.

Leon grimaced lightly, knowing that he should’ve expected that answer. Still, it was one he agreed with, so he noncommittally responded to Apati, “My retinue is my priority, but I’ll do what I can.”

“I suppose that’s all I can hope for, isn’t it?” Apati replied.

Throughout this exchange, Leon noticed the slow movement of many runes speed up, forming a complex new enchantment on the roof of the sphere.

[Yes, this guy knows far more than he’s letting on,] Nestor said as the enchantment neared completion. [No way this is just a security guard left behind to supervise the facility after the researchers abandoned the place. He’s too good at this.]

[If you figure out who he is, do be sure to let me know,] Leon growled as he glanced back at the screens that he’d left on his people. They were getting broken even further, and only a few were left fighting.

“Hurry up,” Leon impatiently demanded.

“Just… about…” Apati said, “… done! This thing is very ad-hoc and my accuracy is going to be a little spotty, so prepare to move quickly!”

“Quick, I can do,” Leon replied.

“Good. See you when this is all over.”

With that, darkness gathered around Leon, and in but a moment, a sphere had formed around him, like a shell of darkness. He felt hot pressure all around him, very reminiscent of the teleportation tunnels he’d been through in the Serpentine Isles. However, unlike then, he wasn’t dropped into a spatial tunnel, but instead, felt like he was suddenly squeezed by some titan of incomprehensible strength. He thought for a moment that he was about to die, but then suddenly, he was surrounded by light. He barely had time to realize that he was now outside before the teleportation sphere fully dissipated and he started falling.

In an instant, Leon projected his magic senses and got his bearings—Apati had gotten most of the coordinates right, but instead of appearing right by his people, he instead appeared more than half a mile above them.

He plummeted like a meteor, but instead of terror at the sudden fall, Leon madly grinned, feeling right in his element. In an instant, his armor vanished into his soul realm, and his transformation enchantment was activated. He’d not even fallen five hundred feet before he was doing so with the wind in his feathers, his eagle eyes locked on the battle below him.

Things were dire for the expedition. Most of his retinue was down, as was the Evergolden squad with them. Only Valeria and Cassandra remained upright, with even Maia lying on the ground, battered and bloody. As he watched, he saw a plant giant suddenly hit Valeria with a full-bodied punch, and she went down hard and ceased to move.

In that moment, all of his pent-up rage exploded out from him in the form of his magic power. Behind him streamed black storm clouds, spreading across the sky within the upper limits of the warded zone, and before Leon had fallen halfway, lightning was already raining down upon the battlefield.

What eagles remained in the sky were blasted to pieces, and goat men fell by the score. Plant giants were sturdier, but they, too, broke under Leon’s power. At the same time, Cassandra, the one remaining member of the expedition—himself excluded—struck back with all that she could, with great beams of light that sliced and cleaved through all they touched, but she’d attracted the attention of at least three bulbous vines and had to keep diverting her attention to prevent their vines from wrapping around her and dragging her underground.

Despite Leon’s arrival, the army facing them was still massive. But his anger was terrible, and as he plummeted, he changed his strategy. In the space of less than five seconds, a hundred lightning bolts had rained down upon his foes, but he suddenly switched back to human form, his armor and sword appearing almost instantly as soon as the transformation was complete. In the last second before he hit the ground, he called his fire magic without thought, simply letting his instincts and emotions guide him.

He hit the ground just between where the expedition members had fallen and the grove of massive trees in the center of the warded zone, and as soon as he touched the earth, he exploded in black flame. A wave of opaque black fire washed out over his surroundings, not even singing the clothes of the expedition members on the ground, but causing all else it touched to burn to ash.

Unlike many times he’d used this power, he was conscious of what he was doing, but not thinking too hard about it. He realized immediately that it was black flame coming from him, but his desperate rage had so thoroughly peaked that he’d practically stopped noticing it, and maintaining the black flame was almost distressingly easy. Right then, Leon realized that he wasn’t exerting any magical control over his fire magic at all, simply letting his blood and magic flow as it would, directed by him but otherwise unrestrained. This fire simply did what he wanted it to do without him having to squeeze and force it to do so, just like his lightning.

He couldn’t hold on forever, but his fiery conflagration lasted about five seconds—a significantly longer time than it had anytime before now. As the flames disappeared, half of the remaining army arrayed against the expedition had been rendered naught but ash, and the ground stripped bare of vegetation for two hundred feet around him.

Cassandra, who’d barely managed to remain on her feet, croaked, “It’s about time, Leon Raime!”

Leon just gave her a quick nod before turning his attention back to the situation at hand. They were still standing against thousands of goat men, hundreds of plant giants, and the trees at the tree line were shaking with such purpose that he could only assume more tree sprites were involved.

Except, all that changed a second later. As the last black embers of his power dissipated in the wind, the goat men slipped into the earth like it was water, the plant giants rooted themselves and froze, and the tree sprites behind them settled down.

Cassandra fell to her knees, her injuries and fatigue clearly weighing down her down too much, while Leon made the choice not to question what was happening and leaped back into the middle of the battlefield.

He landed right next to Maia, and when his power whispered to the tau pearl, it practically jumped at his query. The purest light emanated from him, and Maia’s wounds healed in a flash, though she remained unconscious. Still, from what Leon had been able to sense as the tau pearl’s magic went to work, her injuries had been extreme.

Likewise, as he went to Valeria, he found her approaching death’s door, with internal bleeding, bruised organs, broken bones, and not nearly enough magic power in her body for her natural sixth-tier healing abilities to keep up with everything. But the tau pearl healed her worst wounds in short order.

“See to everyone!” Leon shouted at Cassandra, who’d simply numbly watched as he rushed to his lovers. His voice shook her out of whatever fugue state she was in, and she immediately closed her eyes and channeled her magic. Leon watched as her wounds were covered with white light, and when the light vanished, the wounds had been closed, though not erased.

Leon might’ve been a little aggrieved that she was healing herself before tending to anyone else, but he knew it was the best move—if she were to heal anyone else, then she needed to do get herself back in good condition, otherwise she might not get to everyone before keeling over.

That she didn’t take the time to fully heal herself was a credit to her, he thought as she sprang to her feet and, though still a little unbalanced, she rushed back to join Leon. She waved her hand and a number of healing spells appeared over everyone who still breathed, who were all covered in potent healing magic.

At the same time, Cassandra conjured a healing potion and began pouring it onto the healing wounds of the last of the sixth-tier Evergolden mages, a woman that Leon knew to be another light mage.

Taking his cue from her, Leon, as soon as he judged Valeria to no longer be in mortal danger, sprinted as fast as his lightning magic could take him to Anna’s side, and once more called upon the tau pearl.

This time, however, he didn’t stop as soon as Anna was no longer in danger of death, and pushed until she started stirring. Then, he went to Anshu and did the same. Only then did he start going to each of his own people in order of what he judged to be need. Alcander was first, with a massive hole in his midsection that had only been hastily closed with a healing spell, and reopened sometime during the battle. The man was barely clinging to life, but the tau pearl still brought him back.

However, now that he’d healed five people of grievous wounds, he felt the tau pearl starting to strain. It was a thing of extremely potent power, but it had its limits…

Leon didn’t want to test those limits too much, but his people needed aid, and fortunately, the tau pearl seemed to agree. Leon managed to go around to all of his people at least once and used the tau pearl to drag them back from the edge of death—though not much further. With that, he let the pearl rest, and went about applying additional healing spells and potions to his people as needed now that they weren’t in danger of imminent death.

As he worked, Anna started to stir, and when she opened her eyes, Leon shouted to her, “Meds! Now!”

It took her a moment to realize what was going on, but once she did, she sprang to her feet as quickly and steadily as she could and joined Leon in healing the rest of the retinue. When Anshu awoke, Leon repeated his order, and the Indradian did the same.

In the span of five minutes, what had been a terribly dire situation had completely turned itself around, though several more Evergolden mages had died in the fighting. Only four remained alive, and Cassandra herself, as the only one of the Evergolden contingent with them to remain conscious, looked completely shell-shocked once her remaining subordinates were largely healed, though still covered in healing spells that would finish her work.

As Leon leaned back, exhausted after using his power so intensely in such a short period of time, Anna, just as tired, wondered aloud, “What… in the Ashen… hell… is going on? Why aren’t they pressing us…?”

As if on cue, the twelve massive ethereal trees that surrounded and seemed to be supporting the titanic ethereal tree nearly blinded Leon’s magic senses as their auras exploded out from them. This didn’t affect their physical surroundings too much, but Leon sprang to his feet and armed himself, just in case.

At the point of their trunks that were closest to the titanic tree in the center, a welling of magic appeared, drawing Leon’s attention as the rest of the trees’ auras disappeared. From these twelve trees stepped twelve tree sprites, one from each tree. Their body shapes were all a little different, with some appearing vaguely masculine and some feminine, but all were exceedingly tall, taller than Leon by at least half. Their bark-like skin glittered in the light of the sun, and in contrast to all the other tree sprites he’d seen, had leaves growing out of their heads like hair.

And all of them radiated eighth-tier power.

Twelve eighth-tier equivalent beings had appeared, and Leon’s blood ran cold.

“Get ready to run!” he said, though in these circumstances, he couldn’t possibly envision them escaping, not with most of their people still unconscious.

He sensed a brief surge of magic power in the canopy of the central tree, and when he glanced up, he saw many large branches waving like fingers plucking at a harp. He knew that the ancient runes creating the wards of this region were up there, and from what he knew of ancient runes, it seemed like the central tree was doing something…

He immediately realized what as all twelve tree sprites appeared about fifty feet in front of him. Leon almost attacked without thought, but his reason kicked in just as his muscles tensed.

He couldn’t sense any killing intent, and all twelve tree sprites had appeared directly in front of him, between him and the cluster of gigantic trees. They hadn’t surrounded the expedition, and after appearing, remained standing right where they were, their power obvious, but not overtly displayed.

Cassandra, a little slower than Leon had reacted, pushed herself to her feet and appeared at his side in a flash of light, Sunlight in her hand and aglow with magic power.

“Looks like this is it, Leon Raime,” she said, and Leon felt her power surge. At the same time, the power among some of the tree sprites rose to match.

Just before she charged, Leon grabbed her arm and held her back.

“What?!” she shouted as she turned to face him.

“Hold just one moment,” he said as he stared at the tree sprites, who still stood unmoving, staring back at them.

As he held the Princess back, those among their number whose power had spiked calmed down, and Cassandra, with such a deep frown on her face that Leon could see it through her helmet’s visor, paused.

At the same time, an emerald light appeared not far behind Leon, and from it came Apati’s voice. “My Lord! These thing are dangerous! Destroy them! Before they attack first!”

“What is that thing?!” Cassandra shouted as she spun around to face the glowing ball of light no bigger than her fist.

Leon, not questioning too much at this point, shrugged and said, “Something I found.” To Apati, he shouted, “Hold on, there! Let’s not jump the bow just yet!”

“My Lord, these are monsters in need of purging!” Apati insisted.

Leon glared back at the orb. “That is my call to make!” His statement was punctuated by a fierce remnant of his anger, powered by the adrenaline still coursing through his system after that fight.

“Yes, yes, of course, my Lord,” Apati obsequiously replied. “I only urge caution…”

Leon turned back to the tree sprites, who still hadn’t moved, and, still not wanting to get too close, asked, “Can either of you get everyone out of here?”

Cassandra, through gritted teeth, replied, “I can see about organizing an evacuation…”

“Apati!” Leon shouted.

“My Lord?” the glowing orb responded.

“Lead Princess Cassandra and the others back to the facility!”

Apati seemed to hesitate in replying, but he eventually said, “Yes, my Lord…”

Just before she went back to take charge of those who were now starting to stir, Cassandra said to Leon, “You’d better know what you’re doing…”

Leon took a deep breath but decided against responding. He simply wasn’t sure what to say at this moment.

But, as Cassandra rallied everyone to double down on the healing enchantments to get those who were unconscious up and moving as soon as possible, Leon started taking slow, hesitant steps toward the tree sprites.

They stood like a wall, watching him like a hawk as he approached, not taking a single step back and remaining firm in the face of his approach.

When he got to within ten feet of the two tree sprites in the center, he glanced up and down their line, noting that they’d watched him the entire time, not sparing the rest of the expedition a single glance.

“All right,” he loudly said. “I think you’ve made your point. Let’s talk: what do you want?”