Kynos backed off a fair bit as he watched all the creatures stagger back upright.

The fight had suddenly become a lot more difficult. The vine creature was on waving flaming tentacles around, and the thorn bush was shooting burning spikes. The stunted tree was billowing smoke and staggering towards him while the giant apple, now roasted, had split its front in wide open to reveal a grotesque maw lined by rows of sharp teeth.

Eliza put her arms on her hips and made a triumphant pose.

“You see how my girl is now?”

Kynos fought desperately with his shadows, weakened by the afternoon sun, as Elise tugged on her mother's blouse to make her stop talking.

“She the only one in the whole world! And she can even mutate things after they die, like all of those flowers in the pond. She's my pride and joy, definitely gonna succeed my seat!”

Kynos slipped past the smoking stunted tree, jumped over the roasted man-eating apple, dodged a set of burning thorns, and slashed at the vine creature, which was starting to lose steam. He was being given very little leeway by the undead plants.

Eliza called out, “so, this is the first lesson! Everything is made out of smaller parts, and all of those parts are made of even smaller things!”

Kynos gathered his energy to make a large shadow zweihander to finish off the vine creature. As he swung towards it, the vines split into two halves, dodging his sword and slamming his shadow armor with a cluster, sending him flying towards the apple. Eliza was still lecturing.

“How I made them grow from just seeds and how my girl made them live again is because we manipulate things so small, they can't even be seen. That girl Mithandra, she should've taught you the basics of all of that.”

Kynos remembered that particular lesson. Mith had taught him that all living things were made of cells, and all things, including cells, are made of smaller bits called molecules. As the man-eating apple crunched down, he made a small explosion to send himself away from it.

Kynos landed on the ground, dislocating his shoulder, and rolled to a stop, barely avoiding another set of thorns. Luckily for him, the vine plant had just about burned up and was now just mostly a pile of ashes on the ground. He shot a volley of small firebolts towards the thorn bush to hurry it along to the same end.

“Think! Do you know why even small knives can be sharp?”

Kynos panted for breath as he dodged yet another set of thorns. The thorn bush was burning out as well, but the apple had proven more resilient to fire. There was also the stunted tree, which had stopped moving since a while ago.

He felt his mana draining as he shot a fireball to end the thorn bush. Kynos was thinking about how to re-kill the apple as spiky roots suddenly sprang up all around him.

Elise looked concerned as she whispered that they should stop to her mother, but the council life mage only grinned and told her that men were forged through challenge and hardship.

As the roots closed around him, the image of Roland's sword sweeping away his shadow made things click for Kynos. He was having trouble cutting the creatures, but larger didn't mean sharper. There was no need to pretend he was some knight.

As Elise was about to call off her undead, a single razor-thin wire flew out from inside the roots, shredding them completely. Following that, the shadow wire flailed wildly and cut the apple into several mismatched pieces, then bisected the stunted tree with a wide curve, lopping off half of its body. Both creatures stopped moving.

Kynos had fundamentally changed how he approached his ability.