As our arrows rained down upon the fairies, a multitude of [Mana Walls] were deployed, defending against our first barrage. Fairies are fragile creatures, and a good hit from even one arrow would be very deadly for them, however, to make up for their fragility, the fairies have a very high magic stat, allowing them to cast powerful spells and granting them high magic defenses. The only way to take down a fairy quickly is the use of physical attacks from range.

"Keep firing! Do not let up!"

Knowing the particularities of fairies, Cecilia had the Archers press on with their barrages, keeping the fairies on the defensive so that they do not get a change to hit us with their own barrage of spells. An elemental ward could be cast to further our defensive capabilities against the fairies' spells, though only two wards can be active on a person at a time, as wards of opposing elements will cancel each other out and fairies are capable of using spells of all elements, making them terribly difficult to defend against, even more so when there's a large number of them.

Behind us, another battle is occurring, one against the [Demons] that we had managed to break through thanks to Toto's reckless use of the [Meteor] spell to cut a path for us. For now, the troops are keeping them at bay, trying to buy us time to deal with the demonic flower that I hope is the one fueling the forest's rapid growth.

A sudden explosion set off beside me, it was a spell cast by one of the fairies hiding behind the [Mana Walls]. It did not come close to hitting me as I was maintaining a [Mana Wall] of my own, trying to cover as many of our own men as I can, but the explosion was close enough that I was hit by the blast and got knocked off balance and my ears were made to ring like crazy by the loud sound. As I try to get back up form the ground, by my side, I see charred corpses with their parts strewn about, I've seen such a scene a number of times already, whether it be of my allies or my enemies, but I can never get used to it.

As my ears continue to ring from the explosion, I feel my mind drawing away from the battle, from myself, or rather, from my avatar. Suddenly, it becomes as if I'm seeing all of this in a third person perspective. I can feel a nagging at the back of my mind, that all along, we might have been far too reckless, that somehow, we're still in a gaming mood, that we're doing this as if we're playing a game, as if even if we fail, all we have to do is to wait for the countdown to our respawn. Should I be surprised? In the end, we're just gamers, that's all we are. Even if we force ourselves to fight, trying to ignore the fact that we may all too easily die, we're just going to fall back onto our old habits, onto the only way we know how to do this, the way we do it in-game, doing everything with the greatest efficiency, trying to clear a dungeon the fastest, trying to slay the raid boss in record time. We're all so used to pushing it, that before we realized it, we have become reckless, and while back in Elysium Online, the consequences are negligible, heck, it may even drive us to improve. But here, here is a different story, if we die, it's all over. There's no respawn, no second chance. We can't do it like this anymore.

Though, in spite of all that's said and done, this world, at least the way we perceive it, still feels too much like a game. The Hp bars, the Levels, the menus, it all invokes the feeling of a game. Even our avatars, like Cecilia had said, just doesn't feel like us, and though I could feel and see through this very bodies, sometimes, it really feels more of an avatar and less me. I think perhaps that subconsciously, we all still think that this is a game, and who knows, perhaps we even want to believe that this is still a game, that the friends we lost may come back once the play session is over.

"Aurelius! Focus!"

Cecilia tackled me to the ground while a fire ball flew past. The impact calls me back to reality, this reality. I've no time to space out, do I? I should save those kinds of things for later. Right now, all that matters is surviving this fight. Certainly, I wished that we could have avoided this whole situation, with [Demons] at my back and [Demons] at my front, just [Demons] everywhere, but since we're here, we have no choice but to push through. One way or another, we have to get through this.

"Sorry about that."

"Don't you 'sorry about that' with me! What was that!? I thought I told you to say something if you're not feeling well!"

"Now's not really the time for that is it?"

With the help of Cecilia, I rise back up to my feet. Calming myself against the backdrop of magical explosion, I begin to observe the situation. Soon, the Archers will run out of arrows, and the fairies will be the ones going on the offensive in just a few more moments. As of now, we're already being hit hard with magic left and right and what magic users we do have are at their limit with defending against them, but if we don't break through the fairies' [Mana Walls] soon, we'll be in for a very, very rough ride.

Should I summon another creature? But that one specializes in defense, forcing it to go on the offensive won't do any good. Then, should I go forward? No, that won't do any good either, I've trained to wield a sword and fight close up, but I'm nowhere near being good with it. I'd say I'm at the level of a Level 5 Warrior. If I go out in front, I'd be dead in the matter of seconds. In the end, is there nothing more I can do? Am I stuck? Did I make a mistake somewhere?

"Aurelius, we're going to need a refresh on that [Frost Ward] pretty soon."

"Yeah, I got it."

But what is [Frost Ward] going to do? It won't help us out of this predicament... Wait, [Frost Ward]?

"Hey, Aurelius, you live around the city, right?"

"Now's hardly the time, Cecilia."

There was a big grin on Cecilia's face, a wide, wicked grin.

"I used live closer to the country side, and there's a hill close to my house you see, it used lush and green."

As Cecilia speaks, I come to realize it, that the scenery all around me had been dyed in the color of red.

"Have you any idea, Aurelius, how quickly a fire can spread in the forest given the right condition."

I've heard it from Cecilia before, that she used to live around the countryside before moving to the city. She moved because her house caught on fire and burned down. Remembering that little piece of information, I've come to understand what she was talking about.

The [Demons] coming at us from behind, they weren't coming after us, they were running, running away from the fire ranging behind them, a fire caused by the [Meteor] spell. By the time I turned around and check, the fighting behind us has already settled down, as the [Demons] have either been cut down by our troops, or was consumed by the fire.

Soon, we used up the last of our arrows, but deviating from my predictions, the faries are not counter attacking. Instead, the fairies are now busy with the raging fire around them, trying to douse the fire with water and frost spells with only a few are trying to hold us at bay.

Is it just me, or is this the second time we have used a man-made disaster against our enemies? First it was me with the avalanche, and now it's Toto and Cecilia with their forest fire. How many more times will we have to do this, I wonder. If we keep this up, how much of the world would be left by the time we're done?

At this moment, with the fairies visibly shaken and in disarray, from their rear, Six and Timothy emerge from a burning bush. Being protected by the [Frost Ward] and Michaela's healing, they were largely unharmed by the flames, though Timothy may be in some discomfort due to the heat. From behind the fairy lines, they start wrecking havoc, cutting and tearing away at one fairy after another within their reach. When the other fairies realize this, they ascend further into the air, trying to avoid being cut down, and by doing so, they now leave the demonic flower exposed.

Somehow, it seems that Timothy is much better at working with people other than me, and knowing that makes me feel a little lonely. I suppose he just works well with those with the Assassin's class, since he's a predator himself, and predators prefer attacking from stealth.

Now that the [Demonic] flower has been exposed, I turn towards Cecilia, who in turn nods back to me, giving me the go-ahead. And so, I reach towards my grimoire and from within, I draw out a [contract], the one that Cecilia had returned to me just the other day. Right now is not exactly the most optimal situation to bring this one out, but her abilities will be the one last push we need to win this fight. Like I mentioned before, this is a creature specializing in defense and isn't quite effective when it comes to charging enemies up front. That is because while its defensive prowess is strong, it does have a few structural weaknesses here and there. However, in this situation, that should not be a problem.

"Come forth, Frederica!"

From above the heavens, several lights begin to fall to the earth, parting the clouds, casting away the thick smoke rising into the sky, and eventually landing all around me, surrounding me, as if the lights had come to greet me. Then, the lights fall into formation, forming a vague shape as seen in the night sky, and upon that shape, a silhouette traces over, and with a burst of light, a creature takes form. Standing before me now is a giant crab roughly two meters tall and about twice as wide, a giant crab with fur growing on its shell, a furry, fluffy crab. This is the [Celestial Crab], one of the creatures encountered during the [Heaven's Trials] quest line. I named her, Frederica.

"Frederica, charge!"

By my command, the large furry crab charges forward, and though the fairies fire off magic from above, they can hardly do any damage to Frederica's shell, and though if all of the fairies present concentrated their fire on her, even she would stand no chance, most of the fairies here are fortunately occupied by the raging fire closing in on them and the flower they protect. Another weakness of Frederica's are her legs, more specifically, the joints of her legs, and since she's a crab and is therefore only able to proceed properly sideways, her joints would be exposed to the enemy. This wasn't a problem in game, as there's no such thing as weak spots in Elysium Online, an MMORPG, but here, weak spots are very, very real, and so I was reluctant to deploy Frederica while the enemies are close to the ground. However, now that they've taken off into the air, Frederica's legs aren't as easy to hit.

Not even slowing down as she tanks the magical blasts from above, Federica swiftly arrives in front of the giant flower with hardly a third of her Hp bar depleted, and now that she's so close to what they are trying to protect, the fairies all turn towards the crab, neglecting the fire in favor of a much more immediate threat. However, they're too late, the plant's already in range.

Frederica activates her skill, [Scissor Rush], and with her pincers, she rapidly slice and dices the fat stock of the flower and shred it into ribbons in an instant. Red blood and transparent green sap mix together as the elves fused to the flower are cut down along with it, and as the flower fall, there a great wailing from the fairies reaches my ears, and though I can't tell what they were saying, I can certainly feel that they were in incredible distraught by what had just happened.

"Target eliminated! Fallback! Fallback, now!"

With Cecilia's order's we begin to retreat into the fire we have caused, not minding it so much now that we know that we're protected against it. With their high magic defense, it's possible that the fairies may come after us, but I doubt they'll come out of it unscathed as these are the flames of Toto's [Meteor], the highest tier of [Heat] damage spells and combined with Toto's magic boosting passive skills, it's not something one gets to just walk though. Even with my [Frost Ward], boosted by the effects of [Greater Magic Boost], those it had been applied too still take damage from the fire and it was only by Michaela's equally powerful healing that we were able to move through the fire mostly untouched, mostly.

The fairies are at the highest, Level 90. They won't survive the fire, at the very least, I highly doubt it. In the end, Cecilia's and Toto's plan worked out perfectly, serving to both cut a path through the [Demons] and eventually destroying them, as well as the brining about the downfall of the fairies. Still, I can't shake off the feeling that so much could have gone wrong. What if my ward and Michaela's healing aren't strong enough to withstand the flames? What if we were actually nowhere near where we need to be? What if the giant flower ended up not being the power source? It may have worked out this time, but it's still too reckless. One way or another, I'm going to have to have a word with them later.

Our return is uneventful, with the [Demon] presence completely absent on our way back. Perhaps they left due to the destruction of the power source, or perhaps they're fleeing the fire. Either way, our journey back to base was rather peaceful compared to when we were delving into the forest.

With that, our first expedition into the [World Devourer Woods] came to a close.

***

End of Chapter 23