Luckily, I prepared eleven Subtle Scapegoats spread across tapestries of three distinct orders. Since Wolf came to test the waters, he ensured he could stay long enough to probe this unfamiliar Demonic Converter.

He frowned. Hesitation had cost him. Four root soldiers were still rushing over, and the rest had already formed a defensive line. They even went on the offensive. Fourteen toothed whips tore through the air, aiming to dismember Wolf, while nine others blocked his escape routes. In his dilated flow of time, the young True-Namer immediately found the net’s weakness.

Still in a dead run, Wolf changed the angle of his foot as he kicked off the ground. He slid while jumping leftwards. The route to his original target was impenetrable. However, several root soldiers committing themselves to protect one meant they had weakened their own defenses.

Wolf watched as all twenty-three whips kept their initial course, smashing towards where the Demonic Converter expected him to be, not where he was. These whips are fast. It’s safe to assume Twelfth Order Demonic Converters manipulate them better than the Eleventh Order ones. However, changing the direction of such powerful strikes should be impossible.

Wolf’s chosen path had only three barbed roots. Two trained at Wolf’s chest, while the third one would pass half a meter above his head. I could duck, but those whips have a slightly downward trajectory. It could, in theory, twist them down and smack my back. However, if I leap over them, I should be safe, despite losing the ability to change direction for a short while.

Wolf quickly reached a decision. He jumped. His tiny body twisted mid-air, moving like a pole vaulter, letting two barbed roots whizz below him. Book flashed, severing the third spiked vine. Just as he had planned, the thorny tendrils whizzed by close enough to ruffle Wolf’s hair, but failed to swerve and strike him.

Wolf tried to stash the severed limb into his Ring of Holding. However, he failed.

Dammit. It still has too much life. Or could it be the Internal Energy? Wolf didn’t know why, but Rings of Holding couldn’t immediately store his kills. He guessed the device registered them as living, but couldn’t know for sure. From time to time he cursed this inconvenience, otherwise he would use Archibald’s Ring of Holding as his ultimate shield.

Wolf watched with regret as the root flew off into the forest, smashing a swath of trees. Even though he failed to retrieve the tendril, a way opened before Wolf.

The Demonic Converter understood his intention. It shook its branch, sending a hundred apples tumbling towards his new target.

I’m not falling for that again. Wolf didn’t hesitate. He charged straight at the root soldier and reached it before the black fruit fell halfway down.

Sunder the Mountains! Book flashed with rich earthen light and slashed through the root soldier like butter. Wolf then kicked the severed part before the deep-brown aura faded. He was afraid the Demonic Converter would regenerate the wound once the surging Internal Energy subsided.

He chased after the lump of wood, ignoring the black apples which were some five meters away. Seeing Wolf flee from its fruit, the Demonic Converter activated its trump.

Wolf’s skin crawled from a sudden sensation of danger. The apples behind his back exploded, unleashing clusters of black light. Radius of those explosions was four times smaller than Fireball’s, but with a hundred of them clumped together, they fused into one giant sphere.

Wolf steeled himself for a burning pain. Instead, extreme frost stung his back. Split instant later, the shockwave Wolf expected would blast him away didn’t happen. His blood ran cold from fear and his clothes rotted while still on his back. The deathly black light sucked in the fabric, making him realize it was even more sinister.

This is an implosion. It doesn’t damage through heat; instead, it draws out the target’s warmth and vitality, decaying everything within reach. A part of Wolf’s mind remained rational, analyzing the phenomenon. A more practical portion of Wolf’s consciousness willed three vials of Greater grade healing potions into his hand.

He didn’t bother drinking them. Rather, he smashed the bottles against his back. While not really impervious, Wolf’s skin protected him from mundane tempered glass.

Wolf raced away as quickly as possible. He originally planned to attack another root soldier. But upon discovering that the sky above his head was full of decay inducing bombs, Wolf bolted.

He paid attention to energies clashing in his back. His flesh withered and restored itself as two conflicting forces eradicated each other. Another healing potion appeared in Wolf’s hand and as he opened the stopper, the youth stored the severed root soldier.

Suddenly, the branches high above shook. Apples clashed, producing intimidating noises of colliding rocks.

‘Leave it or else.’ Wolf caught the Demonic Converter’s threat in that clatter.

However, he grinned. His face was pale, and sweat soaked his hair, but he still smiled. The Demonic Converter forced him to waste eight weeks of Cube of Fusing’s production, while Wolf stole a twelfth of its several centuries of savings. Forfeiting the detached root soldier to an empty threat would make Wolf the loser of this confrontation.

Yeah, fat chance. In response, Internal Energy surged into Wolf’s legs, nearing the point of bursting. He shot forward like a bolt of lightning.

The Demonic Converter hesitated. If it dropped a mass of apples, nobody would fight over them, meaning no corpses to grow new fruit. In the end, that momentary indecision allowed Wolf to escape unharmed, while the Demonic Converter conserved its apples for a future clash.

Wolf didn’t run far. Two kilometers away from the lethal glade, he opened a folded space. He sighed with relief as he entered the gap in reality. He sat down and closed his eyes.

It can detonate its apples. The energy of the burst wasn’t elemental, but death or decay related. Hmm… When eaten, those apples release extraordinary vital energy, which demonizes Monster Beasts. If ignited, that vitality violently explodes, siphoning life from its vicinity. Luckily, it failed to hit me head on.

It wasn’t luck, Master. Silver added. You acted cautiously, and it paid off. While if you had taken a risk, you could’ve ended up gravely injured.

Um, Silver, I was seriously injured. Wolf felt awkward at the thought. The wounds he suffered weren’t much to Wolf, but the damage Demonic Converter did was terrifying. A Greater grade potion can revive nine deathbed patients. But that’s not important. Did you sense how it detonated the apples?

Silver nodded in her shell, but Wolf couldn’t see it.

It sent a surge of Soul Force after which they exploded. Wolf continued, taking Silver’s silence as a no. I wouldn’t have sensed it if I hadn’t pushed my senses to the limit.

“That means I could do several things.” Wolf’s Mental Aspect opened its eyes, sitting on the throne of the Mind Hall of Death. “I could try to interfere with it with Counterspell. I could try dispelling them. That should destroy their Soul Force receptor, assuming they have one. Either that, or the apple bursts, but that would happen anyway. I could always try Antimagic, but that would suppress all my magic as well.”

Wolf’s Mental Aspect sat on the throne, tapping his lips while listing several likeliest solutions. Then he turned towards the egg, sitting two steps below his seat. “What do you think, Silver?”

Silver didn’t respond.

“Silver, are you sleeping again?” After another moment of silence, Wolf’s Mental Aspect rolled his eyes, then continued talking to himself, coming up with plans and preparations.

After deciding on several countermeasures for exploding apples, Wolf opened his eyes. He hoped to examine the root soldier, as well as the tendril he salvaged while fleeing from the Demonic Converter. Unfortunately, the Demonic Converter parts of them had turned into a rotten mess. Nothing remained but Demonic Beast bones, teeth and carapaces, which were useless to Wolf.

Damn. I wanted to stuff it into the Cube of Fusing and see what happens. I mean, I could stuff this junk in and see what I get, but with how tough those roots were… Wolf suddenly paused in his thinking. Wait, it’s full of vitality when whole, but as soon as it’s severed, Demonic Converter decays.

The young man rubbed his chin. It could be a dual nature plant. Iceflame lilies are cold and hot, their energies simultaneously promote and restrain each other. Demonic Converters might have something similar with vitality and decay, or something similar. Maybe I could add it to the Mage Academy’s record…

Wolf entertained random relevant and irrelevant thoughts while planning for his next assault.

The next day, an embarrassed young man stepped into the glade. He had no magic reinforcing him. Instead, Wolf emanated the aura of Antimagic. He chose to start the fight with the bluntest approach.