And as expected, it would only take about two more minutes before the next threat revealed itself. Elise had been carefully watching the rotten fruits and other possible spots ambushes could be launched from, so she noticed it when the ground near her feet shifted slightly.

“Careful!” She shouted for Nalia's benefit and jumped away.

She had been just in time, as the earth parted beneath she had been almost immediately after she had vacated that spot, and what parted it was unmistakably some sort of root, which had forced its way to the surface, trying to attack the girl.

Nalia chanted the fireball again, and she did it notably faster than before, so Elise just barely had time to roll a short distance away and get back to her feet before she launched it.

The fireball exploded at the root, making large portions of it burn away and the main mass recoil back. However, almost immediately afterward another root came out of the ground, this time targeting the fairy.

Nalia was not flustered by the attack, however, and simply dodged by going up, already chanting another fireball, which she threw at the new enemy.

At that point, Elise had ran back close to the fairy, and she spoke with urgency:

“Give me a tailwind and hold on, we need to break through them!”

Nalia only needed a moment to understand. The root she had attacked first was still active and readying itself for another attack, and there were so many trees around it seemed likely that more and more roots would attack them. It would be dangerous to get held up in a place like that.

The fairy landed on Elise's shoulder and started chanting the spell she requested, which would give her a wind-like speed and agility boost. Another root came out of the ground before she finished, but Elise had been paying attention, and managed to avoid it by dashing forward a few steps.

That had also proved the validity of Elise's concerns, so Nalia focused her full attention on finishing her tailwind spell quickly but properly, which thankfully ended up being done before any other threats got close to the duo.

The magic was a glittering whirlwind that wrapped itself around Elise a few times before spreading around to cover her entire body and compressing itself so it became a thin layer of magical white wind.

Then the girl started to run at speeds that brought to mind ambush predators, except she did not have the same stamina problems, of course. Nalia had slightly adjusted the spell so it would count her as part of Elise's clothes, so she didn't need to worry too much about falling, and instead simply focused on keeping the magic running.

Elise actually had some experience being under that sort of magical enhancement from playing with her sisters, and the fairy's spell wasn't much worse than that, simply because Elise's body was far too fragile to withstand more than the most basic physical boosts, and there had never been a pressing reason for those transcendents to find of way of making up for that.

As such, it felt quite familiar, and Elise could keep her senses focused on trying to predict what the enemy would try next. So she heard very clearly when the presence in the forest seemed to scream in frustration, anger, and a little bit of fear.

That was enough to make the girl blink, but not to slow her down, so she simply spoke to let Nalia know what happened:

“We've gotten too close. The enemy is gonna go all out from now on.”

The fairy replied that she understood, and then started preparing herself mentally for casting new spells while still maintaining her tailwind magic.

Elise's words were proven true only a few short moments later, as the entire forest around them suddenly became hostile. Tens of roots emerged from the ground, dozens of branches extended downwards, hundreds of razor-sharp leaves shot themselves. All of those targeting the girl and the fairy.

Elise accelerated, dodging most of the ones coming from behind, then she jumped out of range of the attacks that came from the ground, successively grabbing onto and jumping off both branches and tree trunks, moving in zigzag to avoid the attacks of the leaves, while still steadily advancing.

It was at that point that Elise had truly began to use the tailwind boost to its full power. She had become so light that the smallest push was enough to send her into branch-grabbing range, and that a single hand was more than enough to support her weight without the least strain.

She had also become fast enough that even the trees and branches she was touching had enough time to attack her before she moved on. Only the leaves could potentially harm her at that point, and they were the main reason why she was zigzagging instead of moving mostly forward.

Nalia understood all that, as she was the one who had weaved the spell, but she also understood that her magic wasn't the only reason why Elise was doing so well in avoiding injury despite the situation. There were actually two other reasons, two things the girl had that the fairy doubted most people could imitate.

The first of them was her perception. Now that Nalia was mostly observing things, instead of having to move around, dodge and cast new spells, she could get a sense of the psychic presence Elise was shielding her from, something like an echo. From that, she realized that the enemy was so worked up that it was broadcasting its intentions quite openly, thus allowing the girl to more easily predict and avoid its attacks.

The second of them was Elise's unwavering mentality. Nalia didn't know how she had been raised to be like that, but Elise simply refused to flinch or hesitate, even in such a scary situation, even though she was just someone passing by who didn't have any pressing reason to help. That was actually the most important of those two reasons, and Nalia truly felt curious as to why the girl was like that.

It was natural that Nalia didn't understand her, of course. The two of them barely knew each other, though the shared experience of that adventure was quickly forming a bond much closer than any amount of time spent as casual acquaintances. Still, if one were to ask Elise the reason why she was like that, they would receive a very simple answer:

She had decided to do it, so she would do it. None of her sisters would shy away when faced with such minor hindrances, so she would not hesitate either.

One had to remember that Elise had grown up around the strongest beings in the world, she had heard about their adventures, their journeys. They had gone through such great trials that the current situation was nothing in comparison, and at the end of it all they stood unflinchingly. She felt that if she wanted to be like them, she could not afford to show the least bit of weakness.

And so they got closer and closer to the center of the malign influence in the forest. But as they got closer to it, they were also reaching the areas where that influence had the strongest control over the surroundings. There were more and more attacks coming in their direction, and the hostile flora got thicker and thicker.

Soon they got to see even strange things such as branches sprouting out from other branches in a way that seemed more like they were parasites than anything else, and those branches looked green and sickly, and they twisted around themselves, showing that they weren't rigid like wood, and almost seeming like fleshy tentacles.

Not only that, but even the tree trunks started changing as well, some of them sprouting wickedly sharp protrusions that were like wooden thorns, while others were oozing out black fluid that both Elise and Nalia could tell was bad news just from looking, fluid that the girl tried very hard to stay away from, fully (and correctly) believing that touching it would cause extreme harm.

And it wasn't easy, because the ground had changed as well. At that point it had become almost completely overtaken by multicolored roots and vines, overlay on top of each other, forming a hostile, moving bed filled with spikes and more of the deadly fluid.

Even the leaves had changed, now crumpled together into solid stone-like projectiles, and coming in a dense barrage.

With all of those together, the situation of the two worsened rapidly, but that was the reason why Nalia had been preparing herself. With a few more chanted words, she strengthened her tailwind spell even further, increasing Elise's agility so that she could get through the danger zone.

And the increase was astounding. Elise had actually become capable of using the spikes that were supposed to prevent her passage as platforms, very precisely placing her feet and hands on the non sharp parts before jumping off, and even managing to dodge in the middle of the barrages of the rock-leaves.

Further still the duo went, and Elise realized that they were less than a minute away from the very center of the enemy influence, the place they had been trying to reach, and she also noticed a shift in the intentions of the enemy presence, so she spoke for the first time in a while:

“Nalia, I'm gonna need you to make me into an arrow.”

Despite everything they had gone through, the fairy almost hesitated upon hearing that, having instantly understood what Elise meant, but in the end that did not happen, and she simply began to chant the required spell.

That was easier said than done, as she still had to keep maintaining the powered up version of her tailwind magic, but Nalia had always been the determined sort, otherwise she would not have been able to struggle against the enemy influence to the extent that she had, so even though it felt like she was trying to split herself in half, the fairy was still able to bear it.

The enemy forest seemed to go into a frenzy as they got that close, attacking with even more ferocity, though thankfully that also made its attacks less precise. Elise responded to that by going even faster than before, a burst of speed she couldn't maintain for long, but which was quite suitable for the final stretch.

Her concentration had been sharpened to a razor's edge, and she went forward with barely any deviation to the sides, dodging threats by less than a finger's distance sometimes, and tilting her body's position to squeeze through the smallest gap, while still being mindful of the fairy on her shoulder.

And then they saw it, a huge wall of black wood-like barrier that was far too tall for them to try and climb it, considering it would probably also become hostile and attempt to shake them off. Of course, Elise had already decided that climbing was not the course of action they should take.

One, two steps more and she dove to the ground, dodging a large amount of deadly plant life and landing on one of the precious few patches of normal ground that were left so deep into the enemy area. She needed a stable platform for her next maneuver.

Elise stopped there and spent almost a whole second adjusting her position, only having so much time due to her previous maneuver having delayed the enemy response (specially since she had avoided going anywhere near the ground for the last while, causing the enemy attacks to focus more on the upper part). And then she pushed off the ground with all the power she could muster.

Thankfully enough, the fairy spell wasn't one that increased her physical abilities directly, but instead one that gave a wind-based boost to her movements, so she didn't end up simply burying her legs in the earth. Instead, the result was quite an impressive leap that covered the remaining distance to the barrier so fast that Elise only barely had enough time to shift herself into doing a shoulder tackle (with the shoulder without Nalia on it).

It was enough, the duo broke through the darkened wood and emerged into the central area from where the corruption had been spreading, and so they came face to face with the entity that was responsible for it.

The abomination (for that was the only word that fit its appearance) seemed to have manifested itself by fusing four huge trees together, three of them leaning into the center one, and while the roots and trunks of those trees were similar to that of the rest of the corrupted forest, the place were they met, about three meters above the ground, was where the real horror started.

The wood was melted and fused into each other in a way that made a terrifyingly unnatural sight. The color of the wood itself was a charred black, while its consistency reminded one of mud, and bulging all around it were veiny protuberances colored a sickly white that seemed to pulse, carrying some unspeakable fluid within in lieu of blood.

And as one turned their vision upwards they would notice that its appearance only became worse as the height increased, the protuberances turning into distorted shapes and the trunk branching off into numerous tendrils that were only barely recognizable as having once been part of a tree, some were short, some were long, but all of them had taken aggressive shapes, some sharp, some blunt, and they had branches of their own.

Those branches sprouted off teardrop shaped crystals that could only vaguely be recognized as being based on leaves, as well as vines colored a pinkish red, looking more like tentacles, each one with some sort of implement on the tip, their purposes unknown.

Above even that was the real core, made up of the veiny protuberances fused together into a skull-like face, and they moved on the tree in a way that managed to actually mimic the movements of a real face. The mouth was only a sharp collection of “teeth”, from which a yellow liquid dripped down to the ground, where it sizzled like acid.

There was only a mere suggestion of a shape on the place the nose should have been, and the eyes were two orbits, the depths of them containing a light that possessed a spark of intelligence, and an inferno of aggression.

It was looking at them.

“So this is our opponent.” Elise spoke calmly, causing Nalia to snap out of the shock from seeing something so horrifying “Nalia, let’s begin by setting fire to those trees.”

The fairy started to chant, but she did not forget to keep maintaining the wind spell on Elise, even if it wasn’t to the same degree as she had been forced to push it in order to cover that last bit of distance.

She knew there was no way the enemy would simply stand there while they tried to kill it.

Elise, who was still protecting Nalia from the mental influence of the abomination, had ample warning for when it was about to use its next move, since an immense feeling of hatred slammed into her. Then a barrage of crystal leaves was released onto their position, but she was already moving towards the place beneath the fused trunks.

She outran the attack and reached her destination exactly in time for Nalia to begin to shoot fireball after fireball at the trunks that formed the lowest portion of the enemy.

However, the corrupted wood didn’t burn easily, and even though the melted sections showed that damage had been done, and small flames were left behind on the surface after every attack, it was clear to see that this wasn’t the most effective tactic.

“We’re gonna have to go up.” Elise decided “Change to a cutting spell.”

The fairy started doing so while at the same time, the abomination attacked again, this time extending a large amount of vines in the direction of the two. Elise responded by jumping up onto one of the trunks and taking advantage of her wind-boosted agility to begin running up the trunk while also twisting around it, confusing the vines and delaying them.

Nalia ceased channeling her fire magic, and in its place manifested something that looked like a silver spinning saw. She did not immediately use it, realizing that it was better to attack when they were closer to the “core” of the monster.

The tree wasn’t that tall, so even though Elise was slowed down by the need to keep doing evasive movements, it didn’t take that long to reach close enough for Nalia to cut into the ‘face’ (as her spell had a decent range).

The monster did not seem to be capable of producing sound, so his roar of pain and anger was only mental, and thus only Elise heard it. However, Nalia was definitely aware of the absolutely massive amount of vines, branches and crystal leaves that quickly approached their position.

That would bring panic to most people, who would then find it really hard to avoid the attack without retreating. Elise was different, however. Once more the influence of her sisters showed its benefits as she remained calm and managed to see the haphazard nature of the combination of attacks.

The monster’s pain and anger prevented it from properly planning its attacks, causing many of them to interfere with each other. Besides that, their timings were all over the place, so what should have been an inescapable net turned into a series of individual moves that could be avoided in turn.

And the girl did exactly as such, moving around to avoid attacks without going too far away for Nalia to attack and always considering what the move after that should be, making sure the monster couldn’t luck out and corner her.

The fairy kept cutting into the face as much as she could, slowly doing damage to the abomination, but Elise felt that it was not enough, so she spoke:

“You can add another cutting spell, can’t you?”

Nalia was about to ask if she was serious, but then realized that keeping her current cutting magic and the spell on the girl wasn’t being as strenuous as she thought. So Nalia once more put forth her full concentration and changed her magic to produce two cutting saws instead of one. The second saw was smaller and looked shakier than the first, but it was enough.

Slashing at the face with both saws quickly made the damage worse and worse, but it was at that point that the abomination became desperate.

It stopped all of the attacks it had been doing, before the entire area of the trunk around the face, along with many of the branches all around started melting. Or at least it looked like that at first. Elise moved to one of the few parts unaffected.

A moment later, it became clear that they weren’t actually melting, but that parts of them were shifting in form, absorbing their surroundings to acquire enough biomass for the transformation. And only a few moments after that, it became clear what was being created.

It was beetles, like the one they had fought earlier. Their shapes were warped and uneven, but they were still clearly recognizable as such. It almost looked like those beetles were burrowing out of the corrupted wood, a veritable swarm about to take off.

It was clear each of them could attack in a way that was comparable to that of the earlier enemy, so perhaps it would be more accurate to compare them to bullets ready to be fired from a gun. And with so many of them at once, shooting all over the place at extreme speeds, it would be absolutely impossible to dodge.

Nalia stopped for a moment, ready to try and cast whatever Elise asked to get out of the situation. But instead the girl finally played her trump card.

The abomination was still mentally connected to Elise, and while she didn’t have any psychic powers of her own, she knew enough to take advantage of its intrusion inside her mind.

She could have done that earlier, but it was something that would only work once, and now that the monster was injured and also putting so much effort into creating a deadly attack (which was clearly taking its toll on it), that’s when it would have the greatest effect.

And so, putting her utmost focus on the thought of utterly crushing the intruding presence, Elise snapped her mind shut.

Once again, there was no roar from the abomination. Instead it was the opposite, which could be considered even more impactful. All of the noise simply stopped. The sound of the branches and vines moving through the air below, the low but all-encompassing fleshy noise of the recent transformation… The area suddenly became quiet enough one could hear their own heartbeat.

That was because the monster had gone completely still, even the latest transformation stopping midway through. That was the greatest chance they’d get.

Elise jumped straight towards the ‘face’ and shouted “Pierce it!”

Nalia waited until they had almost hit the tree and then pushed both saws forward with every scrap of energy she could muster, piercing right through the ‘eyes’.

One second passed, and then another. And there was a sound of crumbling as cracks quickly spread through every single inch of the entity.

Elise jumped down and Nalia canceled her attack magic to focus as everything began to collapse, the girl moving from foothold to foothold which were barely solid enough to serve that function.

Above, a massive amount of pieces of the monster’s body were falling right behind them, and Elise’s movements were only just enough to outrun them thanks to repeated boosts from Nalia.

The fall didn’t take long at that speed, but the two were so incredibly focused that it felt like time had slowed down and they had spent minutes before reaching close to the ground. At the last moment, Elise jumped off the three with full strength, moving away from the collapse area.

She hit the ground and rolled, Nalia manipulating the spell to make the impact as soft as possible, which also meant her roll was more like a front flip, and yet it still felt like being tackled by the world’s fastest bear.

The fairy had to leave her shoulder at the last moment as Elise rolled on the ground three times before stopping. She took a moment to get her bearings before shakily standing up and seeing that the remains had spread so much she was only a few steps away from them.

“Are you okay?” Nalia asked, worried.

“Yeah, I think-”

There was a movement in the remains close to them.

Without thinking, Elise jumped forward and put herself in front of the fairy. Right before some sort of liquid shot right at her, hitting the girl on the side.

“Aaahhh!!” She screamed, feeling like her flesh was burning.

“Elise!” Nalia shouted.

“Kill it!” She forced out despite the pain.

Turning towards the source of the attack, Nalia saw that some of the pieces of the monster were apparently fusing themselves together into a single mass.

She did not care. Shouting for the thing to die, Nalia threw fireball after fireball at it, her anger making the spells burn with extra violence.

Taking a risk, she also focused her magical senses to the maximum, hoping the abomination was no longer able to attack her mind.

It paid off, and so Nalia was able to feel as their enemy finally fully died, thereupon she stopped her attacks.

Going back to Elise, she looked at her injuries and saw that the thing that hit her was some sort of acid that was literally corroding her flesh. The fairy scraped away the rest of it with a spell and began applying first aid.

“How are you feeling?” She asked.

“I’m gonna be fine.” Was Elise’s answer “Heh, we won.”

Her voice was so calm and level Nalia almost couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t like the girl wasn’t suffering from the pain, but she knew that her sisters had gone through much worse things, so Elise felt that she would never be able to reach their level if she couldn’t even endure something like that.

So she forced herself to resist, to endure the pain and remain calm. Her willingness to compare herself with the most powerful beings in the world and try to match them in any small way she could was truly abnormal, but it could also be said to be her greatest weapon in the journey towards transcendence.

“Ah,” She suddenly remembered “Can’t you contact the other fairies now?”

“Oh yeah, they can help!” Nalia quickly started sending message spells without ceasing with her first aid.

Looking at the fairy, Elise smiled.