Massive wooden spires, tear up through gaps in the cobblestones, tearing apart the soldiers standing above. The spires, looking like green wood, quickly grow taller than the buildings surrounding us, lashing out violently.

My magic shreds the magical trees that grows too near to us, but I don’t have the power to strike them all down.

I watch as a tall spire of wood pierces through one of the warriors before me. Lifting them into the air a moment before a thousand branches burst out through the impaled soldier, tearing him apart.

“Get to the building, now!” I order, my own feet flying over the hard cobblestone.

Rare weaves through the new obstacles, setting the newly spawned forest ablaze, but even dragon fires are quickly put out as the branches smack the fire out. She flies a little too close to one of the tall trees, and catches a branch to the face, the hit hard enough to shatter the wood and send her flying over to us.

I adjust our path, rushing to catch her from her fall. I leap up and wrap my arms around her, the weight of the small dragon enough to smack the air from my lungs, but I can’t afford to stop moving. Eshya cuts down any new branches that reach out for us, while Vii defends us with waves of wind magic of her own.

My entire army is scattered by the forest summoning, more of them dying in that single moment, than in the whole battle before now. Too many of ours are hanging from those branches, and added by the moment.

I can’t do anything to support them. I can barely defend us, most of my mana used to counter the initial wave of magic. I draw in more power from the batteries, pressing down on it to convert it as fast as I can.

The trees around us are slowly losing their strength, their limbs striking slower and with less force. The mana behind the magic couldn’t possibly maintain this sort of crazy power for long.

“Keep moving.” I whisper to myself, racing along the upset cobblestone towards the tall building that was on the edge of the attack.

Others gather to us, following close and helping to keep the lashing branches away. Many are carrying wounded, or are wounded themselves, but they don’t slow.

A few of the branches nearby blast out of the trunks, flying towards us as long wooden spears. Those struck through, scream in pain as the wood branches out further inside their bodies. A few struggle and fail to tear the spears out, others succeed and nearly die from it.

“Don’t pull out the spears!” I shout, as someone pours a potion over the struggling man.

It’s too little too late.

We leave the corpse behind.

This is what Loekan can do?

I’d like to think that he’s wasted his energy, that if we attack now while he’s weak we can win, but… Even thinking back to our own plans and the defences that we’ve built into our base, there’s always more layers to our preparations. There’s always another trap ready to snare our enemies.

Loekan would be dead long before today if he wasn’t at least equally as prepared.

We need to leave.

The building is thankfully vacant, guarded by a few of our forces who went ahead of us. Shy and Lui are among them, looking a little worn out.

It’s been only twenty or so minutes since we entered the gates, and now…

“Get in here.” I shout, to those chasing us, firing a few annihilation spells at the trees that retain a little too much of their violent liveliness. It doesn’t take long before the doorway is slick with blood, a long path trailing out in every direction.

“Thank you.” Rare says, hopping from my arms, and testing her wings, one is clearly broken, but our healing potions wouldn’t set the bone properly. She’ll have to do without.

People are taking the time to pull the spears from the wounded, forcing potions on them at the same time. The potions don’t bring them back to their peak condition, but it’s enough to close the wounds and get them to their feet.

“Not long now.” I say. “Is the rooftop secure?” I ask, following Lui up the stairs.

“It’s secure.” He replies. “But we can’t hold out against an attack like that one.”

“You can.” I reply, writing up a message for him and the rest of those here.

“Black fire can disrupt magical spells. Spread them around the rooftop and be prepared to throw them.” I send out the message while handing Lui the dark crystal that I got from Hira.

“With this we can stop another attack. Watch closely, there should be sufficient warning.”

“What about inside?” He asks, looking worriedly down at the dark crystal I’ve handed him.

“I’ll deal with the inside.” Turning to Lakesh, who’s just managed to drag himself inside with the body of the girl that we were trying to save. Hira.

“Is she…?” I ask, taking a look down at her already knowing the answer.

“She didn’t make it.” He says, lowering her down to the ground. “I… what do we do?”

He’s been through this before. Glancing down at her body, it’s clear that this time is… different, but still more of the same.

Seeing him like this just stirs the rage in me.

He shouldn’t have to get used to this.

She shouldn’t have to die.

This is wrong.

“I need someone to look for holes in the ground. Gaps in the enchanted stone.” I force the words out while letting the rage burn deep inside. “That spell didn’t smash through the cobblestone, it came out of the gaps. Either there are holes prepared for this, or the city is just worn down, either way, I need to know if there’s anything like that in here.”

“Understood.” He says, quickly taking in the situation. The nervous warriors around us are finding gaps in the defences to fill, but that one spell has unnerved them. “I’ll direct the soldiers, to your commands.”

“To the roof then, get us prepared for Red’s arrival.” I say. “We need to be ready to be picked up and get out of here. I’ve given orders to prepare the black fire bombs to counter any follow ups from the forest. I’ll be focusing on the trees inside.”

“Understood.” He nods, looking over a few invisible notes before continuing. “A scout is coming to point you to the holes in the ground.”

“Hi.” Shy says, wearing a bright smile as she steps up to me, wasting absolutely no time. “I’m here to show you around?”

“Let’s get right to it.” I reply, as she quickly walks me around the ground floor.

“Things are happening all very quickly, aren’t they?” She asks, “Oh, one right there, and another right there. They’re the only holes on the ground floor here. Seems rather strange too, like someone scraped the holes into the ground.”

“Yeah, that’s probably what we’re looking for then.” I say with a sigh. “Vii, can you see it coming again?”

“I… probably not?” She squeaks, sweating heavily as she looks all around. Still in shock. “I wasn’t expecting… it just… am I too involved?”

She mutters the last part more to herself than to any of us, her eyes are wide. Something has spooked her, I’ll have to help her through it when we have a second.

“Alright, Shy. You’re mana sight is good?” She nods firmly. “Tell me when you see the attack coming, and I’ll disrupt it.”

“I can do that.” She says, nodding cheerfully only a few trembles running down her limbs, as her hair stands perpetually on end. She’s pretending to be fine, none of us were quite prepared for this.

“Eshya, Vii, watch over us.” I order, as much for their protection as to keep them close. If one of them dies…

I’ll flay the king, layer by layer. Potions and magic to keep him alive as he suffers for perpetuity. Dying eternally but never finding the sweet release of death. I’ll twist every limb, file down every bone, and finely grate away every ounce of flesh, then when he’s healed I’ll do it again.

The image stirs a cold rage inside me. Have I always been like this? Have my thoughts always been so dark? Is this the result of trauma, or am I just becoming more twisted?

It doesn’t matter.

“I’m here.” Eshya says, glancing jealously over towards Lakesh as he gets the other soldiers back on their feet and into position.

Given time, I think she’ll be able to become a commander like him, but we all need more experience before that. I’m already relying too heavily on Red and Lakesh when it comes to command.

“It’s coming!” Shy shouts, looking down at the ground. “Both holes, three seconds.”

“Not even a chance to catch our breaths.” I groan, throwing annihilation spells down both, shredding not just the wood pushing through, but the magic within it too. The disrupted magic loses its form and direction, the mana scattering into the earth.

I run to the front door looking for the mana glow, ready to cast more of my magic in case the bombs aren’t enough.

The trees sprout all around the building, exploding upwards and reaching out for us while preparing a wave of spears. As the first fronds tickle the paint work, the black fire bombs shatter on the ground at the bases of the trunks.

A familiar magic explodes from the dark crystals that shatter on the ground, cutting through the growing trees, and trimming them down to nothing. The annihilation cuts in swirling patterns, scattering oddly shaped wood chips.

A brief moment later, the ashen void created by the annihilation is consumed by a bright blast of fiery magic. Blue flames spread from the mana-less voids made by the annihilation magic, drying and consuming the wood around it.

That part of the spell is new to me. It’s not mine, Ria has borrowed magic another person to weave it into these bombs, improving them further than I expected and better than I imagined.

The waves of heat wash violently over us, but even these flames don’t survive for long, designed to burn quick and hot, rather than encouraging further spread.

I check inside again, but the trees are clearly dead and have stopped any attempt at further growth. We’ve countered Loekan’s magic, but at considerable effort. We don’t have the bombs to do that again.

“Three minutes. The walls are in sight.” Red’s message makes me breath a sigh of relief, but I don’t even have a moment before that relief is stolen away.

“High threat enemy approaching from the front. Likely the mage casting the… the forest.” The message comes from one of the scouts on the roof.

“Do not engage, until given the order.” I send to all my forces. I stand at the front door with a powerful spell burning inside me, ready to blast at any moment.

He dares come here, after killing my people?

“You.” The voice carries through the ashen haze with a deep resonating hatred. A spite of a similar nature to the rage burning inside me.

The figure of a small gremlin strides out from the falling ash, his skin cragged and broken, his red eyes burning more intensely than the last glowing embers around him. “You beat Tkarn? Killed Paskel? I underestimated you.”

“Well, I think that goes for the both of us.” I say, waving about at the trees. “You’re quite the gardener.”

He chuckles, but there’s little humour in it.

I feel cold. The weak banter rolling from my tongue, nothing but empty words. Everything seems clear, but my ears are ringing loudly in my head.

“I defend mine. Bow now, you are strong. Better not to die, no?” He says with his staggered speech.

Chips interpretation of his manner and his words is unusual. The short sharp phrases, feel intentional, rather than caused by limited intelligence, more like he’s speaking down to us, too lazy to communicate with anything more than simple phrases.

“What are your goals Loekan?” I ask the creature while leaning casually against the side of the doorframe to try and signal my disinterest in fighting. I’m absolutely going to shove this spell I’m brewing right down his throat, but it isn’t going to be a fight. Besides, I still have to get us some more time.

“My goals?” He asks, “Grow strong. Stronger than any other.”

“Then why the city? Why the recruitment? Why not go and hunt like the Omega beasts that fight on until their eventual end?”

He pauses, his own spells brewing as he prepares for the exchange that we both know is coming. There’s no chance that either of us can stop now, but I’m certain he thinks that time is his advantage.

“True strength.” He replies. “A tall tree may fall if standing alone. A forest does not. You take the same path. You understand.”

“I do.” I reply, watching as gremlins start to show their faces from the forest. A growing swarm, a mass of flesh that’s sure to keep us locked in here while Loekan does as he wills with us.

If it makes him feel confident, then I hope the army only gets larger. So far as I can see Loekan is the only threat here.

“Any significant threats besides Loekan?” I ask Lakesh and the scouts. Looking about the same.

“My forces are gathering. There is no escape.” The king says, waving at his growing army of gremlins. “Bow to me.”

“Is that so?” I ask, “Are you sure we can’t just go right through you?”

He waves up at the bloody corpses still high up in the trees. “If you fight. You die.”

“You would die, too.” I reply, icicles running through my blood as I look upon the corpses of those who trusted me. Those who came here because of me. The corpses of those who were mine. “So why don’t you just turn around and let us walk out of here.”

“No.” He replies simply, his voice gravelly. “This ends here.”

Watching him closely I feel a shift in the air, and nearly bursting with the energy of the spell building inside me, I send the message.

“Attack.”

Loekan turns to the new threat floating in over the walls to the side of us and in that moment of distraction, I let my spell loose. The mass of mana somehow changes form once it escapes me, condensing into that linear bolt before flying out towards the man.

I reserve only enough power to keep me moving, and force myself to turn aside and bolt for the stairs. Eshya pulls me by the arm as Vii pushes me with her winds. The last few warriors defending the ground floor with me follow fast, not daring to waste time watching as everything outside explodes into violent chaos.

Loekan won’t be dead. He should be.

He will be.

But he’s not.

Through some bullshit magic, he’s going to evade death. He’s strong enough to have some trick, some defence dense enough to withstand even that attack.

I get to the roof just in time to see Bessy floating in, covered in her new armour, looking almost like the ship she once wore. It’s clear that this was a rush job, the wood hasn’t been fully worked, and there’s clear gaps in the making, but it’s enough.

Lines of infantry are practically hanging from the side of the ship, their rifles aimed down towards the front of the building where Loekan was standing. Their first salvo cuts down the trees, but they quickly grow taller again, reaching up for Bessy.

Loekan isn’t dead.

He will be. He will suffer, and be made nothing.

His magic is either born from one hell of a talent or through utilising mana storage like with our bombs. It continues to flow around us with far more power than I was ever expecting from him.

“Beneath us!” Shy shouts at my side and I realize that his magic is forcing its way through the holes that I’d been securing. I don’t have the power to do a damn thing about it right now. I send a fast message to Red and Lakesh instead.

“Two trees in the building. Request focused fire.” I send the message, not even bothering to glance down as I run towards Bessy who’s lowering herself towards us.

“Coming.” The simple message from Red precedes her by only a moment. She leaps down from the skies with a set of glowing red daggers. As the first trees start piercing the weakened stone of the ceiling, Red’s daggers flash bright, cutting clean through them.

It doesn’t immediately stop their growth, but the burst of magical power that follows, tracing down the length of the roots, contends with the magic running up them. After that they die completely.

“This King needs to learn to concentrate his power.” Red says with a chuckle. “Now let’s go.”

I glance down towards where I last saw the king of this city. Though, I can’t see him through the mass of wooden trunks curving over the place he was standing; it resembles concrete bunker, the sort from the world wars. The bullets fired at him impact the wood before carving threads of my annihilation magic into it.

Unlike my spells, the bullets activate on the spot, unable to penetrate the thick defences, only carving away at the outside of it.

“Incoming attack from the King.” Another message comes.

“Bessy, your turn.” Red says with a smirk as she looks up at the giant form of the enlarged Bessy.

A slight chirping fills the air a moment before Bessy starts charging her spell. I can’t see the mana, but the very air trembles with energy as I can feel the attack coming.

Looking down towards the king, I think I can see the moment his trees turn away from us and start folding up to reinforce his defensive bunker even further. He sees what’s coming, but I doubt it’ll be enough to kill him.

He should suffer. He must suffer.

Bessy’s magic blasts down exactly as I remember it. The sight of it is blinding. I can only barely make out the layers of wooden defences disappearing under the force of the dense power from Bessy.

When the power of the magic dies down, there’s a silence filling the air. His defences still hold, Loekan isn’t dead.

“Pick us up, Bessy.” I message the giant loveable fluff ball, while pressing the converting mana inside me. If I could cast one more time…

He’d know the pain of nonexistence.

No, the plan was never to hold out, we leave the moment everyone is on board.

We can’t exactly just board in an orderly fashion, not when everything is this chaotic, instead our means of retreat is a little more unique and much faster.

Bessy moves over us, the hull of her ship slowly unfolding to reveal the mass of purplish fluffy tentacles that make up her true body. Hundreds of tentacles fall from Bessy as she reaches down for us.

All around me my surviving soldiers are wrapped up in her tentacles and lifted up to safety. A long, fuzzy, and somewhat slimy, limb wraps around my waist and pulls me up, granting me a momentary sight of the city and what we’ve done to it.

The fallen tower didn’t fall cleanly, collapsing on its side and crushing a dozen buildings. Some gremlins wander the ruins, glancing up at us in horror.

Closer by, the forest has taken over the city, sprouting new leaves. I can see a few bloody corpses impaled on them.

I can’t see Loekan, buried in his little wooden bunker. I’d love to stick around long enough to cast again, to kill him, but I can’t risk everyone on that bet. He’s almost certainly got more tricks up his sleeve, and if we stay more of us are going to die.

I send a message to Loekan as we leave.

“Enjoy what life you have left, Loekan.” Is a threat like this immature? Will it inspire further violence? Would that even be a bad thing?

I don’t know, and right now I don’t care.

We fly out over the wall, the open lake out before us. The twins are harassing a massive form under the surface, but I can barely find the energy to care.

“I will not bow.” He replies, still hiding in his bunker. A smart move, as there are countless soldiers here still firing at him, though the bullets can’t quite penetrate.

“It wouldn’t matter if you did.” I reply, gritting my teeth as the wooden doors close underneath us.

Mana comes flooding into me, as I take a second to close my eyes and let my rage flow through me.

He gave me a chance to surrender, but I refuse to give him the same? Am I worse than him? Am I wrong?

Does it really matter? He’ll die wishing he could still scream. Good, evil, neither matters as long as he dies.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 3115 units

~Mana distribution:

Category Current Max. Defence 0% 97% Offense 70% 70% Mana Sense 0% 97% Recovery 0% 44% Gluttony 0% 34% Misc. 0% 44% Efficiency 70% 100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Chip Shredder

-Multi-mind

-Tag

-Mana surge movement

-Reactive defence

-Fire burst punch

-Annihilation magic

-Charged casting (Annihilation)

-Mana form flow fixer

-Branching magic

-Swimming

-Annihilation fire burst