At first glance, the fight goes suspiciously well. A million troops against roughly 200 thousand of their troops still in their city. But they have the shelter to hide behind. To deal with that we brought siege weaponry of our own and Mana continuously streams from batteries spread all over the world and directly connects them to Pando’s root network slowly recharging our local mana batteries. While I have an absurd level of mana compared to any one individual, against half of Earth’s population who returned, it’s still a drop in the bucket.

Even Pando himself, with the multipliers and broken system, didn’t see anything that dwarfed ‘my own’ regeneration with the help of the colonies upon colonies of rabbits in the Inner World.

But even as the number of injuries diminishes compared to our last bouts and I can start to pay attention to the fight, I use that time to watch carefully for any hidden tricks or other moves that they try to pull. Still, the time passes without any surprises.

I can almost sense in the air the change in their troops this time, but all the increases are linear and we didn’t deal with a single real curve ball, only the lack of understanding of their tactics.

Stronger shields, armor and even AOE defensive turrets.

The stone walls seemed to have grown thicker and stronger. So we would have more trouble breaking it down if that was our invasion path and most of the unknown runic formations were starting to show their power to our detriment.

I don’t understand how they operate, nor how to replicate them, but after directly witnessing their effects they lose their black box status. I use as much of my attention as I dare, trying to burn it all in my brain appreciating the practical effects of them and trying to understand it all, even if the results are often gruesome to anyone caught off guard.

I even watch a new Arch Druid closer to his troops than the central building, but still behind multiple layers of protection. He hides way deeper than both of his predecessors, but against someone like me, maybe that is wise. Still, even if I can sense a different weight from him. The weight of age, of command, but no brilliant stream of orders comes from him and he actually leaves most of that to the old Arch Druid only occasionally interceding as he is the one taking in reports from everywhere. And just those nudges make all the efforts from the old commander way more effective.

This new Arch Druid looks in puzzlement as each of my portals opens up inside cocoons of roots to take the injured into the inner world. He senses something there, but seemingly can’t make sense of it.

I’m too far away to get feedback from One Step Towards Connection, my secondary use of telepathy or anything else to give me a deeper insight into what is happening in his mind. But that is no problem, I can almost feel the gears tuning in his head. Well, my ‘fun’ may be over, but if they fully expose the inner world, while they can probably take some unknown countermeasure to stop some of what I can do, it will also free me to utilize it in full view and a lot more liberally.

I extend my will out and just soak in everything stopping on occasion to heal someone that would be unlikely to make it through without help even with all the wonders of the system.

The enemy’s numbers dwindle to just cross below 100 thousand and then they start their retreat.

The system’s interference as we enter their village is even stronger this time. Even though its size is only some 12 hundred meters wide. Compared to the number of troops they had a day ago, it is all but empty. The mostly stone buildings resemble in a superficial way medieval construction, but they carry an undeniable alien and futuristic flair to them. The tall homes cramp over each other squeezing multiple bunkers into each room, with stores for everyone’s equipment and the production needed in a city this size.

Still, eliminating nature around the outer edges of their city makes the place seems sterile, especially for elves. They are afraid that I will turn their own plants against them with good reason and I have to agree on the sound tactical move.

I watch in full definition, almost listening to the sounds solely through the perception field as the old commander tries to convince this new Arch Druid to move to a safer place but his new addition with a presence that warps the room around him is not moved. I can almost understand the words, he believes himself safe enough and a few probes with my portals above the city reveal he is mostly correct. Maybe I could pull a rabbit out of the hat if I had no other choice, but that would likely take me out of the fight after confronting the system.

His mind and eyes keep watching as my other half teleports yet another injured into the inner world even if this one probably won’t need any actual healing, just bandages and time to recover.

Then it is my turn to go on the offensive.

I get up pulling all the essential stuff around me and fairly well hidden into the inner world as I start running at a near full sprint. At high way speeds even without any of my resources, I fight the wind which is becoming an ever increasing problem as my speed increases. With a single step in the middle of the ramp leading up the wall, I make it to the top and over it.

My movements are relayed in moments, and I see him learning of my presence. Then he looks straight at me.

Through layers of stone cloth and leather, he can SEE me. Maybe it is not direct vision like my own perception field and he has to pierce those obstacles, but he is clearly using his eyes, not some other sense. That’s how he noticed them disappearing. He has ‘x-ray vision’.

But he still hasn’t made sense of my inner world.

I draw power from my energy pools charging my body with potential though I’m very sparingly with Life. Roots grow underneath my feet and I get ready to run in the midst f the enemy. Then I encounter an iron wall.

Twenty meters ahead of the thousands trying to force their territory to grow smaller, a field of grayish energy takes in Mana from several sources and interlinks shields into a construct larger than itself.

I bounce back, instead of sliding through a pair of fighters. Then the wall moves to encircle me, but I don’t retreat just yet.

About 50 points of Qi accumulate on my fist passing through a simple impact rune construct and I hit forward like a 100 pound mechanical sledgehammer. A punch that’s so strong that it would go through solid wood like a hammer through a mass of wet paper.

I expected to lose momentum, but the results make me halt midtrack. Instead of a crumping shield and a single fighter tumbling back, everyone on that side of the line braces while the force of my punch is spread out to at least 2 dozen fighters.

I gawk at what they did as I start to think of a thousand solutions. But even while I parse the engraved runes in their shields and the ones manifesting in the air to power this effect, they try to close in to take away my maneuvering options. But I’m not alone. From the air, where there are no such shields, 50 of the strongest avatar wearing seeds drop in to reinforce my assault even as others slowly make their way from the outside for me to retain as many escape options as possible.

I channel the Qi accumulated over the centuries asleep as fast as I can in a storm of blows that put my previous one to shame. Each punch is like a runaway truck imparting such momentum that I almost feel the limits of their strange shield straining by forcing so much strength in such a small area. They try to balance their maneuvering with bracing against my attacks while fending off all the other Avatar seeds inside and outside the circle, and the results aren’t encouraging for them.

I don’t try to save my Qi and I even start to spark my blows with hints of Life trying to develop the technique further. I had improved a lot and my progress and matured my fighting style, but there were limits to what I could accomplish on the short term simply sparing. Now however in this all out assault with unrestrained use of my resources, I learned another aspect of my strength. Worrying about the hundreds of thousands if not millions of Qi points I spend will come later. Though they actually regenerate at a decent pace with only a modicum of my attention.

Punches, kicks, leg sweeps and wild staff strikes strain their defenses, but they are either lucky or they managed to get an accurate measure of my limits even as I only showed part of my kit so far.

I put out everything that my own body can manage while my second half keeps up my defenses passively while shooting powerful attacks in the form of fireballs, lightning bolts and earth spikes. But they are even less useful against the enemy’s shields than my own fists or staff. The physicality of my strikes somehow lend them exactly what I needed to make them more effective against this ‘intangible’ shield.

But then I start to find the limits of my technique.

Turrets from outside, the avatars and teams of mages approaching from all around help me in this contentious spot. I’m just 20 meters away but also in another world. Nature grows directly from my inner world and sprouts everywhere, which is enough to stop them from advancing and pushing me deeper into their domain but we reach an impasse.

However, my options aren’t over.

The inner world once against comes to the rescue, as I open a slightly larger portal still trying to be stealthy, but unless I’m gonna take flight and only my inner world can come to the rescue from my current skills.

A wide force turret sprouts from my chest and then instead of one attack, powered by my will and limited by what I can directly wield, my main battery dumps as much mana as the engraving can take. The gold engraving, covered by steel and roots for protection glows in my perception field.

A moment later, a simultaneous punch and force bolt threaten to blow a hole through their defenses.

It is a tiny thing, a stretching in the weave right on a seam of the mana shield. But it stays for half a second before it vanishes and that is all the weakness that I need.

The chink in their armor.

The miraculous strategy that might have fallen Earth’s mightiest defender unraveled.

Pando’s guardian won’t fall today, you will.

Now I just have to punch it a few times in succession widening the crack before it can close back up.

------------------------------

Arch Druid’s POV.

“Why are you opened mouthed?” I ask, but he doesn’t listen to me, his gaze bores through all the layers of stone and dirt to where the enemy is. Everything that would have his line of sight is simply gone for him.

Three seconds later, I understand his speechlessness as I get a message that our most troublesome adversary pulls yet another seed from a hidden pocket.

“He is breaking through.” I hear from another report.

I simply shake my head. I warned him that he was going to pull through… somehow.

“That is not possible.”

So you had to see his power firsthand to believe me?

“No… it is possible. I warned you he was strong.” I say.

“You don’t get it.”

“What I don’t get?” I ask him already forgetting about the messengers.

“He has a fully unlocked inner world.”

“I..” An explosion in my mind rocks me back. For someone of less than level 300 and less than a few centuries of experience to get an Inner World. How rare is that? Even I didn’t have an inner world, relying on a much more basic form of spatial storage and while the Elder likely had at least a basic form of it, it would be restricted by the system until at least a few of the enemy hit level 300 and our own cap was raised.

“We have to kill him.”

“That was always the plan.”

“NOOO, we HAVE to kill him. NOW, before he grows into his power. He is an anomaly, he is going to break everything! EVERYTHING!!! NO expense is too great.” He stares at me and I feel a chill come down my spine.

He is serious and he is right I realize as numbness and incredulity give way to resolve.

“What did you bring?” I ask even as sweat breaks out on his forehead.

He starts to pull some things from literal hidden pockets inside his coat I try to think of what else we could really do beyond getting ourselves killed for a chance to end this threat.

“Should we warn command?”

“The system won’t allow information like this to leave the planet, not even to go to another group that also can’t spread it beyond early stage invasions.”

“We have the codes to account for some of that.”

He just shakes his head as if I’m missing something here.

“Not enough to allow something like this without severe repercussions. The judges that audit us are going to be all over this planet if anything like that comes out. I will be leaving two accounts for those coming here. And they should be kept in the safe zone at all times, you should also make multiple copies, just to be safe. One will be encrypted for Grand Arch Druids and another for Arch Druids should I fall. This information and its implications cannot die with me.”

Less than ten seconds later, he holds a wooden plaque roughly formed that carries none of the usual aesthetically pleasing nature of such communications, but it is perfectly legible and after another few seconds of thought, he makes a third one.

“This is what we will send back. It is as much as I dare.”

I glance at it reading it through the parts of the code that I memorized and the two words embedded in the middle written in Italic call my attention.

True threat.

I don’t know exactly what those words mean. But as scouts go put everything in secure places, he gets ready and then speaks to the other druids around.

“Let’s go and kill this native. These little toys should help maintain control of your own roots.”

I look at the forbidden artifacts. Rare and expensive, we would pay high a price for using them. He walks around with another dozen giving the druids lesser versions of my own artifact.

But we need every edge we can get, then my heart freezes when he takes what I assume will be his own instrument. It’s inside a protective tube, but I feel the black cold thing.

A void striker. I heard rumors that we had already lost a particularly important seed to their strange clonal tree grove. A unique treasure from the planet taking care of the Aether ‘bounty’ and now we bring something even greater. A void striker. This world might be even more essential than I had dreamed of. But at least this time there is little risk of loss.