by Matthew Peed
Sure enough, the battle ended shortly after, with the ground forces cleaning up the undead monsters and beasts that inhabited the area. Next, we worked on deploying a transponder for this area. I wanted every centimeter of the north that we passed to be covered during our journey through it. This process, while it didn’t take too long, still averaged an hour or so.
Exactly an hour and a half later, we were back underway. While we moved, we only met minimal resistance, as if the forest was gathering strength for the next encounter. This worked in my favor, as I could let the barriers on the ships cool down. They could handle quite a lot of punishment, but it was always a good idea to let them recharge before rushing into another battle.
Izora said she wanted to continue watching, and I didn’t really see a reason to send her back. I thought she might benefit from watching the levels of magic at play in the battle, or she might not. She did remind me of a kid in a candy store with how wide-eyed she was while watching everything. It was hard to say how much she was gaining from the experience.
Our main target finally appeared on the horizon just before sunset. A tree that stood somewhere between two and three hundred meters tall, it would have looked amazing from our vantage point. Unfortunately, the poor majestic tree had been twisted just like everything else in this forsaken land. What should have been a golden brown was a gnarled gray with rot oozing from cracks along the bark. Solid black leaves with neon-green veins formed the canopy around the tree, with everything seemingly dead for at least five hundred meters around the base of it.
The worst part was the cages full of dead and not quite dead beings that hung from the branches. Creatures of all kinds appeared to be present in the cages. I could make out humans, elves, beastkin, and more. Then, too, there were monsters of all shapes and sizes. I was more surprised that there were creatures still alive in the cages, a few of them still struggling against the bars of their cage.
“That’s horrible!” Izora said with her hand covering her mouth.
I looked more closely at the interplay with the cages, and saw that the tree was leeching the various creatures’ mana. It made me wonder if that was the reason it had grown to such proportions. A green miasma was leaking along the bottom and appeared to have a set boundary, but it could have been an illusion to lure the unaware into a trap, much like a Venus flytrap.
As we watched, a treant threw a monster that looked like a mix between a troll and a rhino into the green smog. Vines shot down from the branches, impaling and wrapping around the hapless monster as it struggled. I moved over to a console and made the cameras run a sweep over the cages to see if I could get a count of what was all there.
“I would recommend you not looking with your sight,” I warned Izora. I knew how curious she could be sometimes. She nodded without saying anything. Most likely she already knew what she would see and decided to spare herself the horror of it.
The cameras were pretty good, with a range over fifty kilometers after taking into account the altitude of the airships. It would still be an hour before we reached the tree, mainly due to the aura fighting my own. Up to that point, it had only made itself known and had yet to actively resist me. I was sure that was about to change once it realized we were coming for it, and not just trying to pass through its forest.
“I recommend you leave before this gets out of hand,” I said to Izora once we were closer to the dryad’s tree.
“No, I would like to witness this,” Izora said firmly. “Please, Lord Regan.”
I debated for a moment, then just shrugged. I was confident in my ability to protect one girl from whatever this thing could throw at us. “Very well. Make sure you listen well to my commands if the need should arise,” I said finally.
“Yes, my lord!” Izora said with a grin.
I directed her to an empty seat in the command station, then I took a closer look now that we were physically closer to the dryad. I couldn’t find her humanoid form as I’d hoped I would, and I thought we might have to lure her out by damaging the tree. There weren’t many nature mages who came to my dungeon, so I wasn’t sure what to expect while fighting her.
Turning to one of the automata that represented the combat controls, I said, “Fire a round and let’s see what happens.”
“Yes, Creator,” he said without hesitation. He quickly tapped several buttons on the console, and one of the turrets on the forward arm swiveled toward the center of the massive tree.
With a shudder, a projectile launched, traveling faster than the speed of sound by several times. It reached the tree in a blink of an eye, and to my amazement, the green fog managed to erode the round before it made impact. The outermost layer succeeded in slowing the projectile enough for the process to take place. This had to have been an active application of mana, because before we had seen a monster thrown in without it melting to a paste.
Above the tree, a tremendous storm started to form. Green lightning arced through the clouds as it appeared to gain strength. Thunder peeled, then with a flash of green light, Gamma was hit full-on in the bow of the ship. The barrier held but I saw it had taken a decent amount of mana to hold it together. Delta responded immediately by linking up with all the ships and channeling mana into them.
“Looks like there’s not going to be any negotiation. All ships . . . fire!” I shouted once the situation was clear. I’d wanted to try to save the mortals trapped in the tree. That was likely impossible.
“Aye, Master!” the captains all sent back.
Almost at the same time every tree within a kilometer radius of the dryad’s tree, the full forest, came to life. A massive surge of unholy and nature mana buffeted me through my aura as it absorbed some of the excess that was being put off. Hundreds of treants, already giant as they were, fused together in groups of three to five, becoming even more massive. They easily grew to fifty or sixty meters tall with a bulk to match it and were quickly getting bigger.
I wasn’t about to let them get away with that. Mentally taking control of the fire commands, I targeted all the nearby treants. With a torrent of what many people might consider hellfire, the area within three hundred meters of Alpha was obliterated. Railguns, plasma turrets, high-energy laser beams, and many more weapons rained death on everything near the flying city.
The other airships did the same, targeting everything they could before the fusion finished. When the smoke and debris cleared, which was quickly thanks to the wind caused by the storm, only half of the fused treants remained. These were on the other side of the giant tree and were partially protected by its green smog.
Suddenly, a chunk of stone collided with the bottom of Beta. The barrier bent as it forced the ship up several dozen meters. I commanded all the ships to gain altitude, but Alpha took a few moments to speed up, as it was so massive in its own right. By the time we gained ten meters, the bottom of the city had suffered six impacts. All this while we were being hammered by the unholy lightning.
That wasn’t the end of it. Boulders rained from the other side of the tree as the treants ripped chunks of the ground out to throw at us. These were more easily dealt with, as our weapons could aim at objects flying toward us and vaporize them. The airships were starting to drop their soldiers and mechs to the surface, but they were encountering resistance from smaller monsters and other nature-based attacks. They were able to deal with them, but it was taking time.
The airships continued to fire their weapons at the dryad’s tree, but barely anything was having an effect. Quite a few of the treants behind it were being destroyed, but the dryad’s tree was the main target. I tapped my chin as I considered what to do. Another bolt of green lightning struck the barriers. While I was sure we could hold out, I didn’t want to press my luck.
“The tree’s aura is weakening,” I heard Izora say from her seat. I looked and saw she had her magic sight activated. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, but I knew she only wanted to help. I looked at it as well and saw that she was correct. It
was slow going, but we were making a dent in it.
“That’s good news. Thank you,” I said to Izora as I made my decision. I wanted to test a new weapon anyway, and then was as good a time as any. “All forces withdraw two kilometers from the dryad immediately!” I sent to all my forces.
They hadn’t made much headway based sheerly on the fact that the ground never stopped moving. Looked like I’d need to create some modular setups for them, as they were mainly designed for undead at the moment. Even with all the resistance they were dealing with, they were never struggling with actually fighting of the enemy, mainly just getting to them.
While my forces withdrew, I connected to the station and had it quickly launch a new satellite toward my position. It only took a few minutes for it to reach the position above us in space. All the while the barriers on the airships were taking a beating from the boulders. We stopped firing on the tree and began inching backward as if retreating.
Once the satellite was relative to our position in space, I linked all my existing satellites to it. This would allow it to charge much faster. I’d wanted to find a way to use all the excess mana the was surging in the satellite network. This was it. I flooded the capacitor inside with mana so that it charged faster. It would probably explode after the first shot, but this was more a test than anything. I knew I could just hold my position and hammer it for a few hours, and while the dryad was weakening, it didn’t look like the storm was. Besides, I had things to do.
I pointed one of the positioning satellites toward the new one so I could get a look at the beauty. The satellite was an elongated shape, with four fin-like sections along its hull. They were off the main hull, connected via juts of steel that housed many components. Right now, the tip of each fin was firing a beam of energy into the center of the main column of the satellite as it charged.
Once it was fully charged, I allowed the programming to aim at the target I set for it on the ground. The camera on the barrel of the cannon zoomed in on the location, easily making out the giant tree. The beams from the fins changed to guiding trails and angled toward the surface of the planet. They formed a tunnel for the charged particles to follow so the shot didn’t dissipate into the atmosphere.
With a surge of mana, the cannon fired. The beam cut through the atmosphere, gaining strength from the ambient mana there. I hadn’t taken that into account.
“All ships, full reverse!” I shouted. Activating the engines on full, Alpha gained distance as quickly as it could.
The beam struck the top of the green fog, which evaporated like it was never there. It encased the dryad’s tree in light, making it nearly impossible to see from the brightness of it. The beam finally struck the ground, and a moment later we felt a shock wave from the force. Debris and even a few treants collided with the barrier. They were just far enough from the beam not to get incinerated but suffered from the full blast of the shock wave.
There was a shriek of pain just before the beam cut off. As everything settled, I was surprised to see that the tree still, somehow, managed to survive . . .
Maybe that was an overstatement. The once giant tree was really nothing more than a stump with only one section that still possessed a branch. If it had been an Earth tree, it would have been hard-pressed to survive long after this event. Everything within a kilometer was now reduced to ash at the bottom of a crater. And everything beyond that was torn apart, leaving what looked like a twisted, barren wasteland.
Tendrils of mana arced through the air, as if supercharged. I quickly filled the void with my aura by moving Alpha back toward the dryad. My core sucked the mana up like a sponge to water, almost recouping everything I used while in the undead forest so far. I would have to be careful that this technique wasn’t used near another dungeon, or I might cause them to go insane with the massive amount of mana generated.
Sitting on the stump was a woman who looked similar to an elf, a dark elf to be exact. A dark elf from Earth. I’d actually not seen any during my time in this world. Her skin was an ebony color, and she had long pointed ears exactly like an elf’s. She wore a dress made from black leaves that was reminiscent of a summer dress. Her face possessed an otherworldly beauty that I was amazed hadn’t been corrupted like the other beings in the forest so far.
Tears streaked down her face as she held a severed limb from one of the branches. When my airships surrounded her stump, she looked right at the city ship and screeched much like a banshee. Her eyes turned bloodred, and jagged fangs replaced her normal teeth. As I looked over the damage from the battle, I wondered if it was possible to save her. The treants we had tried to save possessed no intelligence that we could tell. Maybe she could still be helped. I felt it was worth a try.
Chapter 19
Regan
The dryad in front of me continued to hiss and growl directly at me. Somehow, she was accurately aware of where I was even with several layers of metal, alloy, and glass between us, not to mention various types of mana. It was likely that she possessed eyes similar to Izora and Anna. I noticed Izora was observing the creature with interest from the window.
“I wonder if it is actually thinking right now or just acting on instinct,” Izora ventured.
“Hard to say. While we were attacking it, there were clearly indicators that it was reacting and planning ahead of me,” I said, thinking of the storm and fusing of the treants.
“Anubis, go capture her,” I said after some thought. He was the best choice because of his absorption of unholy mana.
Anubis, who was training in one of the many rooms of the city, looked up at the summons. He grabbed his scythe from where it hung on the wall, replacing the training one he was using. When the training scythe hit the ground, it made a sound that was off compared with its weight. It contained gravity runes for my automata to train using heavier weapons.
“Yes, Father! Finally, a worthy opponent,” Anubis said with enthusiasm.
“Don’t kill her.”
“Of course, Father. A dead opponent cannot return stronger for me to challenge again,” he said with a grin.
I nodded. “Good.”
Anubis moved to one of the short-range teleporters on the city ship and ported over to the stump. When he appeared, the dryad finally stopped hissing in my direction and turned toward him. Anubis twirled his scythe around him as he approached the woman, darkness spreading from him with each step. It made me wonder if I was fighting fire with fire.
“Woman, I request a battle worthy of my greatness,” Anubis said, addressing the dryad.
“Juioh Kyfu Ceruio!” the dryad said angrily.
It wasn’t often when something spoke that I couldn’t understand. From some reason the words just felt . . . alien. Even more so than the song Duilin had been singing the other day on the station. I quickly created a magic program in the city system that would take the words spoken from her from now on and add it to a translation network.
“My apologies, I could not understand,” Anubis said with a bow of his head.
“Juioh Kyfu Ceruio. Gue Eduo Ceruio!” the dryad said, even angrier this time.
Suddenly, vines grew from the ground and shot toward Anubis swiftly. He countered with his scythe, reaping the vines as they came close. They would momentarily turn a more natural green before withering away. Anubis was absorbing the unholy mana, then the source of unholy mana was absorbing the mana from the purified vines.
The dryad looked at Anubis as if he were the bane of her existence. Anubis charged the woman before she could attack again, closing the distance in a moment. The dryad formed walls made from bark and bone around her that Anubis tore through like paper. She was quite nimble on her feet for a more caster type of entity.
“Suio Eu Euio. Quos Witoe Qioce Veuios!” the dryad said, more panicked than angry by then. The program needed more time and words to be able to translate her language.
“Again, my apologies, Lady Dryad, but I must defeat you,” Anubis said, brandishing his scythe. “We c
an talk all you want afterward.”
“Fuik,” she said, and I was vaguely aware of what that meant.
A rune formed over her hand, then an arc of the green lightning flashed between her and Anubis. While Anubis managed to absorb it, the blast sent him flying backward a couple dozen meters. After he landed, he stood up quickly but was smoking a good deal. I could tell that he was angry about being sent flying.
Anubis channeled mana into his scythe, and the blade shifted, changing into a spear. He bent his knees, then with great force, jumped straight into the air with such energy the jump turned into more of a flight. He angled straight at the dryad, and with a pulse of energy, shot forward, a few shock waves leaving him as he accelerated straight down. The dryad formed a barrier made of the green fog, but I saw that it was much weaker compared with the one that had surrounded the tree earlier.
Anubis slammed into the spot in a blink of an eye. The blade pierced through the dryad, who was sprawled on the ground, and into the stump. Everything within two hundred meters shuddered as a pillar of black energy exited the back of Anubis’s spear. I quickly pulled it all into my aura, so some other horror wasn’t created from excessive ambient mana.
After nearly two minutes of this, the stream finally subsided, and Anubis pulled his spear free. A completely different woman lay on the ground. Her skin was no longer black, though she still looked elven. Her dress changed from black leaves to green with a much fuller look, though still a summer dress.
Anubis reached down to help the woman sit up. She looked at Anubis with a happy, yet also sad, expression. “Euroi Auo,” she said weakly. The program then parroted it back, “Thank you.”
The dryad fell back, all life gone from her body. Anubis set her down carefully. “I shall honor you as you honored me with the glorious battle!” he shouted, then raised his scythe into the air. I still wasn’t clear of the boundaries of his power in this world. The problem was that thoughts, emotions, and beliefs played a large part when deciding one’s abilities and power.
