“Form the protective layer! Ornan, Zenon and me will burn that fucking tree!” Then Antar with Karyn started hastily forming a protective layer. Karyn’s main focus was on healing and protective magic while Antar focused on brute strength but he was able to use protective magic as well.

“Layer formed!” Before the tendrils even reached the group the layer was already formed.

“Good! Now let’s destroy that tree!” Eldrich yelled out as he and his two teammates were firing their fire spells at the tree.

The tendrils were bombarding the barrier but couldn’t get through. They weren’t even able to make a dent while Karyn and Antar were maintaining the barrier.

Eldrich with Zenon and Ornan were trying to burn the tree but it seemed as if the fire wasn’t burning off anything. It seemed as if the tree was burning but no damage was done to the tree. It actually looked like the tree was absorbing the magical energy from those spells!

“Combined spell!” Eldrich and the other two then started casting a spell that had to be cast by more than 1 person. Its power was way beyond an ordinary spell but it took a big toll on their magical energy.

Eldrich then pushed at the huge fireball that formed from their unified magical energy. This time the fireball had blue color signifying that its quality was way above normal flames.

“Good, burn the fucker!” Eldrich yelled as the fireball hit the tree. The tree then let out another ear-piercing scream. This time the fire was burning off the bark of the tree. The Tendrils then started violently slamming aimlessly as if they tried to destroy everything in sight.

The burden on Antar and Karyn lessened as the tendrils were not focusing only the barrier now. Eldrich and the other two were using more combined spells to burn the tree down. It was taking toll on their magical energy but the tree was visibly damaged as it was letting out more screams.

After a few moments, the tendrils stopped slamming. They started to gather and then merge together. It turned into a one huge tendril that slammed on the barrier. After the slam, the barrier had some minor cracks on it but it still held strong.

“Shit, at this rate we will run out of magical energy before it burns down!” Eldrich said in desperate voice as he, and his teammates, were running very low on magical energy.

Suddenly, the huge tendril stopped slamming the barrier. It was frozen mid-air. The tree started flickering like crazy. The tendril fell down, completely cut off from the tree. The fire was consuming the tree. However the tree started to shrink, first it was 20m then 10m then 5m then only 3m. The tree then stopped flickering and was shining in blinding purple color. The group felt as if they were looking at a sun. The tree started cracking and something shot out from it. It looked as a big black seed around the size of a person. After the seed was ejected the tree was withering fast and the fires were ravaging it. The tree died, consumed by fire.

The whole group stood there in shock. The tree that was about to kill them just died like this. All of the members of the group were running terribly low on magical energy. Had the tree kept bombarding them, they would’ve been all dead by now.

They all saw the tree shoot out the black seed. They looked at the seed for a bit, observing whether there are any changes.

Then Eldrich decided. “Ornan, burn that seed. We don’t know what it is. We don’t need another tree that is strong enough to kill us all!”

Ornan then waved his hand and a flame engulfed the seed. It was slowly burning.

“WAIT!” The whole group looked at the source of that voice. It was Karyn. “I can see someone inside it!” The group then immediately turned at the seed and could see a back of a head with white hair. They didn’t know whether that person was alive but they were all curious as to who that was. “Stop the fire, let’s see that person.” Eldrich ordered and Ornan put out the fire.

The group moved to the seed, prepared to unleash their spells should something go wrong. But when they got to the seed there was nothing happening. It was just a person with white hair laying in the seed.

Eldrich gave the person a light kick to check whether that person is alive or dead. The person didn’t respond nor moved.

Eldrich looked at Antar. “Antar, take that person out.”

“Huh? A-Alright.” Antar then carefully grabbed the person and pulled him out of the seed. Nothing had happened.

“Oh, Leader, the person is alive, just unconscious.” The whole group was shocked since they expected the seed to have something dangerous. But it seemed to be only a person?

“We don’t know who he is, let’s take him to the barracks and ask him some questions.”

“I can’t feel any vile aura from him. He shouldn’t be a bad person.” Karyn then suddenly said.

Eldrich gave Karyn a look “Well, we will see.”

The whole group then left the village. They were in poor shape. All of them were exhausted as this kind of loss of magical energy takes a while to recover. Out of all of them Eldrich was the most tired since he had to coordinate the combined spells and control the situation to take down the tree. But he didn’t make it apparent on him.

After a while, the group returned back on the city. The journey back was especially exhausting as they were already tired from the fight.

“Antar, give me the person. I will carry him over to the barracks and lock him in the detention cell there.”

“Alright leader.” He then gave Eldrich the person and went with the rest of the group home.

When they got home they all crashed into their beds, visibly extremely exhausted from today.

After a few minutes, Eldrich arrived at the barracks.

“Wh- oh it’s you sir.”

“No time to explain, lead me to the detention cell and put at least around 20 men on 24/7 guard. He is an extremely important person and I will come in a few hours to get more information from him.

“Yes sir!” The guard respectfully saluted and then took the unconscious man to the detention cell.

After he put him in the cell, he ordered the guards to guard the cell. He believed in Eldrich’s judgment, as he was one of the Guardians. Here their word carried a heavy weight. No one disrespects the Guardians.

With that, Eldrich finally went home. But before he could take a rest, he still had to write a report for the council about what had happened.

After about an hour of writing the report, he sent it to the council and then crashed into his bed, completely exhausted. His magical energy was almost empty and mentally he was tired as well.

The next day the Guardians woke up to news. One of the guards from the barracks came to inform them that the person they brought was conscious. The Guardian to receive the news was Eldrich, despite being the most tired, he was the only one awake right now. The rest of the Guardians were still regaining their strength.

“Thank you for the information.” Eldrich nodded at the soldier. The soldier then saluted and left.

Eldrich pondered for a bit “Seems like I need to ask that person some questions. However shall something go wrong I won’t even be able to retaliate. I should regain more strength first. Others should still be fairly weak. Shit, I don’t want to leave someone like him in here but it seems like I got no other option…”

He then wanted to go back to his room when someone else entered the hall.

“Oh, if it’s not Elder Peare, what brings you here?” Eldrich was surprised as someone with the status of Elder Peare usually doesn’t personally deal with anything that’s not extremely important.

“Good morning Eldrich, I just wanted to see how you are doing.” The old man replied as he stepped inside the hall.

“We both know you aren’t here just for that. That wouldn’t make you personally visit this place. My guess is that you want to know more details about the tree. Am I right?”

The Elder then started laughing “Good! Glad we are on the same page.”

Eldrich sighed “I’m sorry but I don’t know much more than you read in the report.”

The Elder gave him a weird look. “Do you have any guesses as to who the person in the barracks could be?”

Eldrich was thinking for a while. “It could be either one of the villagers or the person controlling the tree. However the latter seems unlikely. Why would that person let himself get caught? Especially when he could just kill us had the tree not suddenly died. Maybe that person even could’ve destroyed the tree from the inside. We really don’t know… That’s why I brought the person back instead of outright disposing of him. If he actually was the person who caused that massacre, he is extremely dangerous and most likely really strong. However, if he isn’t then he could be really strong ally in the future. Especially with the Fang empire across the mountains, waiting to invade us. We need strong allies.”

Elder Peare was in thoughts and after a few moments nodded in a serious manner. “Good, your insight is very important. He really could be a strong ally. Thank you for the information.” He then silently left the hall.

Eldrich nodded and then went back to his room to get back in shape.

Near the evening all of the Guardians were awake and ready in their top condition. Eldrich still wasn’t at his peak condition but it wasn’t too far off.

“Glad to see you back in shape again, time to visit our guest. Huh? Where is Karyn?” Eldrich looked at Antar.

“Why are you looking at me, am I her father or something? I got no idea where she is.” Antar angrily responded.

“We can’t waste more time, let’s go to the barracks.” They all made their way to the barracks.

…

In the barracks, detention cell

“Ugh, what’s happening?” A man in a cell had woken up. His whole body was sore and it felt as if the body he was in wasn’t his but someone else’s.

“I don’t remember much. What the hell happened… where am I?”

One of the guards noticed that the man opened his eyes and started moving “The prisoner has woken up, call the captain and inform the Guardians!”

“The Guardians? A prisoner? Huh?” The man just now noticed that he was shackled in a cell.

“Sir, why have I been shackled and imprisoned?” asked the man one of the guards. However the guards ignored him. They didn’t want to do anything before the Guardians arrived, as they didn’t know how dangerous the man actually was.

Suddenly, a wave of pain washed over the man. “Shit, my head, what’s happening?!”

He held his head with his hands to try to ease the pain but it didn’t help. However after a short moment the pain disappeared.

“Something weird is going on here…” The man murmured to himself.

At that moment a woman entered the room he was in.

“So here you are.” The woman was standing there, looking curiously at the man.

The man frowned. “Who are you?”