City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Uranor’s End

Waterflower and Phaser hid themselves amongst the raptors, heading for two druids who had transformed into panthers. The two targets immediately froze in shock, hair standing on end as they immediately discovered the opponents heading for them. The two girls weren’t the same type of assassin; Waterflower just scared her targets, but Phaser made them feel a terror from the depths of their souls.

Richard flipped through the Book of Holding to launch another chain lightning spell, knocking down the grand elder who was struggling up once more.

The unicorn charged towards one of the transformed druids as well, its horn piercing into the panther’s waist. The druid cried out in pain, turning to bite its shoulder even as its claws left ten bloody gashes on its body. However, the sacred creature only burst forth with more strength in response, sending the druid flying into a branch with a fling of its head. The unicorn gave a long neigh of victory, its horn flickering with divine light as all its wounds disappeared without a trace. Even Richard was dumbstruck; he hadn’t thought such a beautiful and pure being could be so vicious in battle.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Flowsand lightly stepped aside and dodged another attacking panther, grabbing it by the scruff of its neck before casually tossing it off the tree. This was yet another druid who had underestimated the Church’s martial arts.

The assassins finally cornered their targets as well. Phaser’s eyes had glazed over, red tongue licking her lips. Seeing her expression, the shocked elder actually turned and jumped off the platform himself, leaving the special unit stunned. Waterflower’s blade moved like the wind, her blade leaving injuries all over the panther’s body. Seeing its companion jump down of its own accord, this one sprinted to the edge of the platform and leapt off as well. A mournful cry rang out as it plummeted to the ground.

Finally done with the absurd Book of Holding, Richard started his own chants. Another chain lightning spell flashed in from the sky, knocking down the grand elder for the third time in a row. This time, he could no longer get up. Tiramisu had used that time to recover from his brief bout of dizziness, knocking another elf off the platform.

That left only two elves on the platform, one being the grand elder and the other the weakest of the druids who still hadn’t recovered from Pamir’s strike. The ogre went over and slapped each of them unconscious; they would not be waking up anytime soon.

By this point, Richard’s tactics had grown very clear. He was using the terrain and throwing all the elves off the Tree of Life. The druids could survive the hundred-metre fall, but they would be left with grievous injuries that would, at minimum, cripple them for the duration of the battle. With the powerhouses of the elven tribe beaten down, their battle might was greatly reduced.

The druids were rather sensible, switching to panther forms the moment the first bear had been knocked off the platform. This was a form that would allow them to sustain much lesser damage if they were thrown off. However, this also meant their physical defence was much weaker than otherwise, and their strength was incomparable. Fighting a group where even the mages were strong at melee, they were bound to be thrown off with ease. If they had organised themselves for a moment and all transformed into bears, with the grand elder supporting them with a constant stream of supporting spells, the battle would have been much more tedious.

Just as Richard started to relax, however, his expression suddenly darkened. As the last of the druids had been taken care of, his link with the elite humanoid knight had vanished.

The captives were being massacred? Could the elves already tell that they had lost the advantage, so they were killing all the human soldiers? There were at least a dozen human soldiers imprisoned alongside the humanoid knight, and from what Lina had mentioned 200 had gone missing in the past. The elite was merely a spawn of the broodmother, not possessing a soul like Phaser or the unicorn; strictly speaking, it was just a puppet that could make decisions independently. However, the death of this specific knight felt somewhat different, perhaps because it had taken on the most important and dangerous part of the plan.

Richard turned incredibly stern, pure rage radiating into the minds of all his followers. Although Flowsand didn’t have a soul link with him like the others did, even she immediately noticed the change in his mood. However, he didn’t speak a word. Stowing the Twin of Destiny away, he drew the long elven sword from the back of the unicorn and walked down towards the lower levels of the Tree of Life, “CONTINUE FIGHTING!”

It had taken a great deal of willpower to hold back from an order to kill them all. Still, he led the charge down the tree. Flowsand sighed, supporting him with a war construct spell.

An elven warrior appeared out of nowhere, darting towards Richard with red eyes. Richard didn’t speak a word, both hands on his sword as it danced weightlessly, sending the warrior’s bone dagger flying. He took one step closer, knee crashing into the elf’s lower abdomen.

The enemy curled up like a shrimp, only to find the tip of a sword resting on his neck. The blade drew blood with a little shake of Richard’s hand, and despite all his bravado the warrior immediately froze.

Richard shook his head, holding back the impulse to cut off the elf’s head. He instead knocked the fellow unconscious throwing him into a treehouse nearby. The elf seemed to show signs of surrender at the end, something which was quite rare in planar war. Any local willing to defect was a valuable resource, and a massacre would do nothing more than helping him vent his anger.

Having taken care of the little obstruction, the party quickly continued downwards. Just as they reached the middle sections, the Tree of Life suddenly shook, nearly throwing them off the wooden path. Richard immediately buried his sword into the tree, using it to steady himself.

At first he thought this was an act by the Tree of Life, but it didn’t take much time to realise the shaking wasn’t nearly as powerful as that and actually came from below. Looking down from the wooden path, he saw an ancient treant that was dozens of metres tall with a trunk several metres thick fighting near the base. Every step it took shook the very earth, roars of fury ringing out as its powerful branches pounded the ground in rage.

The primary measures of a treant’s power were its size and number of branches. The bigger and more numerous the branches, the stronger it was. The treant that had charged into the battlefield had ten branches, its power approaching the saint realm. In the special environment of this plane, it could compare to a level 19 human warrior.

This treant was a particularly enormous creature, one whose blows even legendary beings wouldn’t wish to face head-on. Its range was directly proportional to its height as well, forcing the humans to expend several times more power than normal to defend. Seven shorter treants followed behind the large one, seemingly in the range of level 12 to level 16.

Nyris’ eyes lit up at the sight of the treant. He raised his giant axe without another word, charging over to join the fight. Agamemnon shook his head as well, following along with his giant sword in hand. Seeing Demi follow closely behind him, he had no choice but to point to Scherr, “Follow him and take care of the smaller treants. Your curses will be useless against the big one.”

“Can you handle it?” the girl asked with worry. The ancient treant had terrifying power, and the two charging over looked like two squirrels bounding towards it.

“It’s fine. These things are just large, making them easy to deal with.” Having said that, he raised his heavy sword and flanked behind the ancient treant. Scherr had already flashed past to intercept its children; his biggest strength was in his agility, not pure power, and the thick bark of the biggest treant was a natural nemesis.

Pamir, having managed to catch his breath in the meanwhile, rose to the skies once more. A column of lava landed on the ancient treant, causing it to cry out in pain. Although the environment in the Forest Plane greatly weakened fire-type magic, this grade 8 spell instantly destroyed four of the treant’s branches. The grand mage then left the tree to the two noble youths, focusing on bombarding the elves trying to organise a resistance with low-level spells.

Richard looked at the ancient treant and shook his head. Even though it was comparable to level 19, it was up against two monstrous fighters and a grand mage. One had to remember that Nyris and Agamemnon were only level 17 when their runes, equipment, and bloodlines were not considered.

Treants truly were extremely powerful in the forest, having practically no predators. The teeth and claws of ferocious beasts were useless against their thick barks, and their boundless strength allowed them to break the backs of mammoths with a single blow. The lack of metals in the plane meant the intelligent natives did not have weapons that could cut through them either; it was only when Richard moved the wood-cleaving axes that the forest had met tragedy.

But now the ancient treant was up against the advanced weaponry of Norland. The legendary axe in Nyris’ hands was powerful enough to leave a metre-deep gash with a single blow, sending splinters flying everywhere. Its roots and branches could be broken in a single attack!