"Blow up this forest?"
Fire Lizard was dumbfounded upon hearing the order.
Though the members of the Fire Lizard Battle Group were all blood-taxed, their combat prowess was no lower than normal standards because of it.
On the contrary, they trained even harder than ordinary Fire Lizards in their daily drills.
Their elders had taught them that on the battlefield, their own strength was their only reliable ally.
And these individuals were the elite among the blood-taxed.
They had been selected to join the battle group and trained by a top-tier Silverhorn Noble.
They were clad in powerful armor they had never seen before and equipped with terrifying weapons beyond their imagination.
They had thought they would be sent to an unprecedented, nightmarish battlefield to fight creatures more vicious than the Fiends of legend.
Yet now, Richard was ordering them to blow up a forest.
"Is there a problem?" Richard frowned slightly.
Following orders was a soldier's duty. He had no need for troops who questioned commands.
"No problem, sir!" Fire Lizard immediately replied loudly.
Though puzzled by Richard's order, their five years of training had taught them not to ask why.
A soldier's job was simply to execute.
Richard nodded. "Good. Stay alert. You'll have a tough fight ahead soon."
Quickly, the Fire Lizards divided into five squads according to their combat companies. Three squads lined up in formation, while the other two stood guard as escorts for the firing teams.
The Fire Lizards aimed their Fireball Guns at the dense forest ahead. At the company commander's order, they began a concentrated spell barrage.
"First Company, ready—fire!"
In an instant, a hundred fireballs, each with a destructive force of three hundred energy units, shot into the forest. The crimson flames nearly drowned the woodland.
Before the blaze could fade, the second company commander shouted, "Second Company—fire!"
Another hundred fireballs rained down into the forest.
This time, the crimson glow grew even brighter. Under the elemental-rich environment created by the first wave of Fireball spells, the second wave's power was significantly amplified.
Soon, the third volley of fireballs struck the forest.
This time, towering flames erupted skyward. A small Fire Elemental Storm, coiling like a python amidst the inferno, instantly reduced several massive trees to charcoal.
But it wasn't over yet. Since the fourth and fifth companies hadn't fired, their Fireball Guns were handed over to the firing teams.
With the first company commander's booming orders, the fourth and fifth waves of fireballs crashed into the forest.
At the same time, the Fireball Guns from the first volley had finished their spell cooldown.
The cycle had begun.
Boom—boom—boom—
The thunderous roar of spells echoed in the Fire Lizards' ears. Yet beneath the deafening noise, some among them keenly sensed something amiss.
The ground beneath their feet seemed to tremble.
"Something's under us! Evade!"
A sharp, almost frantic alarm rang out as a massive vine burst from the earth, slamming into a Fire Lizard who failed to dodge in time, sending him flying.
"Hold your ground! Keep firing!"
The first company commander barked the order, then handed over firing command to his deputy. Drawing the curved blade at his waist, he charged toward the vine.
Clang! The scimitar left its sheath, instantly wreathed in golden flames.
The first company commander's body suddenly erupted with a surge of energy, the muscles on his sword-wielding arm bulging.
A single slash was unleashed.
The razor-sharp blade carved a transparent trail through the air, followed immediately by the piercing sound of wind howling past everyone's ears.
This strike cleanly sliced through the air as if it were butter, leaving behind a vacuum trail in its wake.
Boom! The enormous vine collapsed with a thunderous crash, golden flames spreading from the severed end along the fallen tendril.
But this was only the beginning.
Before the company commander could sheathe his blade, the ground began to tremble violently as several new vines tore through the earth, emerging from below.
Accompanying them were countless smaller vine whips, sprouting from the massive vines like tentacles. Each whip's movement sent out razor-thin wind blades through the air.
"All units, activate combat mode!"
As the company commander's order rang out, a resonant hum suddenly filled the battlefield.
Golden patterns began to emerge across the Fire Lizard Battle Group's personal armor. Even though the armor's exterior was coated with green camouflage paint, it couldn't conceal the intense golden radiance.
Energy flowed like blood through the tree-like patterns, spreading across the entire surface of the armor.
And when these arboreal patterns were fully illuminated, the armor awakened.
Clang! Clang! Clang!...
The crisp sound of blades being drawn echoed across the battlefield. In the next instant, the howling wind reverberated through the forest like a dragon's roar.
Hundreds of blades moved simultaneously, their cuts through the air forming what was nearly a wall of wind. The wind blades from the vine whips came crashing like tidal waves, yet this wind wall stood firm as an immovable reef.
Richard stood in the distance, quietly observing the scene.
"Not bad at all, your Fire Lizard Battle Group looks quite impressive," Ulysses remarked, unable to resist praising their performance.
"Of course," Richard replied with a smug smile curling at his lips. "These Fire Lizards are the elite among their kind. The armor they wear and the weapons they wield were all crafted by renowned Alchemy Masters from the former Fire Lizard Empire. The technology embedded within combines the essence of both Wizard and dragon Alchemy traditions."
"Moreover, these Fire Lizards have trained in the 'Standard Combat Techniques' developed on the New World islands, which synthesize all the advanced combat skills of the Fire Lizard Empire."
"It would be strange if they weren't strong."
"So when are we going in?" Ulysses asked, his eyes glinting slightly as he watched the Fire Elemental Storm ravaging the dense forest. "That thing has already begun summoning the insect tide."
"It's already started summoning?" A flicker of surprise crossed Richard's face. "Then let's go now."
With that, Richard produced a crystal ball and spoke into it: "Reduce firing, reduce firing."
The moment he finished speaking, Richard and Ulysses abruptly vanished. When they reappeared, they were already deep within the forest.
Boom!...
A tremendous roar filled Richard's ears as the raging Fire Elemental Storm nearly carbonized his dragon scales.
The continuous explosions of Fireball spells provided unending fuel for the elemental tempest. And this storm cared not whether you were a Wizard or a World Tree Sub-body.
No matter who you were, encountering it meant getting slapped around.
Magic Power surged within Richard as a golden glow manifested across his dragon scales. Before him, Ulysses had transformed into a black-and-blue firebird.
His body had become completely elementalized, much like many Shaping Wizards.
Crash!
A bolt of lightning suddenly struck behind Richard.
The World Tree Sub-body finally noticed these two third-level creatures steadily approaching it.
The surrounding Guardian Forest uprooted itself, pushing through the Fire Elemental Storm as it charged toward Richard.
In an instant, a group of Flame Treants emerged within the dense woods.
Like the Soviets during the counteroffensive at Stalingrad, these Treants pressed forward even as their leaves turned to ash and their trunks to charcoal, determined to halt Richard and his companion.
"I'll handle them."
Ulysses suddenly changed direction, the blue-black flames on his body shifting into pure darkness.
The fire elements within the blaze surged toward him like a torrent at his call, swelling him into a pitch-black beast of flame in mere moments.
With a sweep of his wings, violent black flames instantly turned several approaching Treants into blazing torches.
"Good."
Richard remained composed, swinging his staff to summon a howling gale around him, instantly boosting his speed.
But the gale not only accelerated Richard—it also drew the elemental flames toward him.
The scorching air burned like embers, the elemental fire relentlessly eroding Richard's indestructible body, growing fiercer by the second.
Holding his breath, Richard swung his staff repeatedly, casting speed-enhancing Spells on himself.
Now, he was less than ten meters away from the World Tree Sub-body.
Thud! Richard felt as if he had crashed into a wall, the tremendous impact leaving him dizzy.
The flames on his body had vanished—an invisible barrier separated the World Tree Sub-body from the surrounding inferno.
Faced with this third-level creature that had rushed to its side, the World Tree Sub-body found it strange.
This creature lacked the power to kill it.
The threat it posed was even less than those insignificant beings outside.
Yet, despite its confusion, the World Tree Sub-body had no intention of letting this easy prey escape.
Even the weakest third-level creature was still a third-level creature—their vitality was excellent nourishment.
Fine roots emerged from the ground like tentacles, stretching toward Richard.
But before they could extend far, the Sub-body suddenly sensed an overwhelming presence materializing out of nowhere.
"A fourth-level creature?"
A strange term surfaced in the World Tree Sub-body's "mind."
Memories from its bloodline instantly provided it with a thorough understanding of fourth-level beings—even methods to deal with them flashed into its thoughts.
[Hold Firm, Summon the Mother Tree]
Faced with this solution, the World Tree Sub-body chose to comply.
A call traveled through its bloodline connection to the World Tree residing in the Inner World.
But all it received was silence.
Within the Inner World, the World Tree stared at Grand Wizard Galon with shock and fury.
"Outsider, what have you done?"
Galon chuckled darkly, rubbing his head. "Heh heh heh, nothing much—just anchored space to make manipulating it a bit harder for you."
"Little sapling, don't bother with your crude rules anymore."
"Now, you have only one choice—kill me here."
"Otherwise, prepare to become the shaft of my staff."
As the World Tree gazed at the colossal being before it, a sliver of fear suddenly took root in its heart.
For the first time, it realized—pulling this creature into the Inner World might have been a grave mistake.
...
In the surface world, enormous mycelium tentacles emerged from the spatial rift and plunged into the ground.
This time, there was no Shaping Wizard to break the energy barrier for the World Mushroom, forcing it to adopt a different approach—targeting the roots to seize the World Tree Sub-body.
No matter how formidable the World Tree's energy barrier might be, it couldn't protect the entire root system. By severing the roots, the World Mushroom could use its overwhelming brute force to wrench the World Tree Sub-body free.
The World Tree Sub-body adhered to a strategy of steadfast defense, continuously battling the World Mushroom with its roots.
Yet the maternal entity it awaited never appeared.
Finally, after nearly half an hour of struggle, the World Tree's roots were defeated.
The World Mushroom lifted the World Tree Sub-body from the ground and dragged it into the Secret Realm.
By now, the dense rustling of the insect tide was already echoing through the forest. Richard shouted to Ulysses, who was still wreaking havoc in the fire:
"Ulysses, open a spatial rift and bring those Fire Lizards back to the Secret Realm!
The insect tide is coming!"
With that, he immediately opened a Mystic Realm Rift and plunged into the Secret Realm.
Though the insect tide was fearsome, as long as one took refuge in the Secret Realm, even a Wizard Apprentice would be safe from harm.
(End of Chapter)