The rain pounded the ruins in relentless sheets, drumming against broken beams and cracked stone. Wet wood creaked. Bristles hissed. The broom-people formed a tightening circle, each one built from ancient cursed enchanted timber.
Vastarael knew they were Divine Rank but he didn't realize they were this strong.
He twirled Calimostria once, forming a sapphire arc slicing water droplets in half and braced.
"READY!"
Asenane answered not with words but with her halberd. It was an elegant weapon of obsidian steel. Shimmer unsheathed Annihilator, her zweihänder. Runner planted The Crystal Lotus on the ground. Massive petals folded outward like an armored flower. She placed the fawn inside it before the lotus closed itself. Biolumine stepped beside Runner.
One broom-warrior swung first. Its arm was a long pole made of compressed timber. The strike came down like a meteor. Vastarael brought his glaive up but he blow pushed him back five whole steps.
His boots skidded across mud.
"Okay, that's not normal—"
Another came at his left. He swung Calimostria out in a crescent arc. The blade carved deep but the wooden creature didn't fall. It simply turned, bristles rattling, and struck again with unnatural speed.
"Fine. Let's do this properly."
He ducked under a horizontal sweep, rammed the butt of his glaive into the creature's knee joint and kicked off its chest, flipping backward. A broken plank narrowly missed impaling his thigh. Three more lunged at him. He whipped Calimostria in a full spinning arc but they barely staggered.
Vastarael's eyes widened.
"These things are durable! Watch out!"
A broom-thing bent low and thrust both its arms forward like spears. He redirected one, parried the other and kicked its torso so hard it slid across the mud and came running right back.
On the right flank, Asenane's halberd carved long, sweeping arcs. She impaled one broom through the chest. The creature split itself off her blade and regenerated the missing planks instantly, bristles snapping back into place.
"Oh. That is irritating."
It swung at her. She blocked with the shaft but force shoved her back half a meter, which was an amazing feat for a progenitor dragon. Without hesitating, she stepped in, twisted and hooked its knee, then slammed the blade against its neck joint, but the joint didn't break.
"These bodies were made from a deity's forest…"
Two came at her from opposite sides.
Asenane leapt, planted a foot on one's face, jumped off, flipped in midair and came down like a guillotine. Her halberd carved a trench in the ground where one broom had stood. It was too fast for even enchanted wood.
"Darling, I am learning new levels of annoyance!"
Vastarael deflected five simultaneous attacks.
"Welcome to my life!"
Meanwhile, Shimmer was pure aggression. Annihilator sang in the rain with her zweihänder cleaving through wood with explosive force. She swung downward, splitting a broom from scalp to chest. Except… it kept crawling.
She stomped its back, shoving it fully into the mud.
A broom stabbed at her. She leaned back as the wooden spear brushed her nose. She popped back up and swung Annihilator horizontally. The creature's torso cracked apart like firewood.
"WHY ARE YOU SO STRONG?! YOU'RE A BROOM!"
Another grabbed her from behind. She elbowed it in the jaw, kicked its leg and slammed her sword down its spine. And still, it was crawling.
"I hate this town."
The Crystal Lotus floated around Runner In giant sapphire petals. Seven hovered beside her at once. A broom-thing lunged for her but Runner flicked a finger. A petal rammed into it like a battering ram. The creature was embedded into a building thirty meters away. Another tried to leap over her. She rotated a petal upward and slammed it into the ground.
She wasn't as physically strong as Shimmer, but she was terrifyingly precise. Every petal strike was calculated. Then six attacked at once.
"Alright, come on then."
She brought all petals together, spinning them around her like a cyclone. Wood shattered against the rotating barrier. Then she launched them outward. The petals swept the battlefield, knocking broom-people into walls, carts, mud and each other. One broom got too close to the fawn covers by her petals. Runner's expression went cold.
She sent a petal flying faster than an arrow, hitting the creature so hard it skidded across mud, plowed through a wall, and disappeared into someone's destroyed tavern.
Biolumine was a blur of claws, fangs, and iridescent fur. She leapt onto a broom's face and shredded its bristles.
When one grabbed her tail, she twisted midair and tore off its entire forearm. Another gigantic broom tried stomping on her but she slid under its legs, sliced its ankle joints clean and pounced onto its back. The broom-creature swung wildly, trying to grab her but she bit into its wooden skull, and tore a chunk free.
The creature stopped moving.
Runner blinked when she saw that she was capable of killing them.
"Biolumine is built different."
Vastarael yelled while fighting three at once,
"Of course she is! She's mine!"
Biolumine smugly flicked her tail.
------
They were fighting well but the broom-creatures weren't slowing down.
Bodies kept reforming. Planks regrew. Bristles multiplied. Joints snapped back into place with crackling wooden sounds. Every time the family destroyed one, five more stepped out of the shadows.
Vastarael parried a blow so strong it numbed his entire arm.
"They get stronger every minute!"
Asenane blocked three at once as her halberd caused sparks across soaked timber.
"It's the curse. They evolve mid-fight."
Runner noticed the fawn trembling under the lotus shield.
"They're scaring her!"
Shimmer slammed her zweihänder into the ground.
"Daaad?! How long do we have to do this?!"
Vastarael sliced a broom clean in half.
"Until they calm down—"
The two halves of the broom reassembled themselves instantly.
"Okay that's cheating. Everyone, come close to me! I didn't want to use this but..."
The second they did, Vastarael raised his glaive and made a circular motion using both his hands. The moment Vastarael whispered, "Second Plenituse Technique, Calm Gale," the world froze like it got caught holding its breath.
Raindrops were suspended mid-air around them, each quivering with a faint sapphire glow. The forest, the wrecked inn, the shattered ground under their feet, all of it fell silent. Not even the wooden humanoids groaned anymore. It was like the entire town of Broomshaven suddenly remembered who stood at its center.
A single blink later, he vanished.
All they saw was a streak of sapphire cutting through the suspended rain, carving lines through the air. The wooden humanoids never even had a chance to react. They were statues trapped inside a painting while Vastarael danced between them.
Two seconds. That's all it took.
Then the streak returned to the center, re-forming into Vastarael's body as if someone had pulled him back into reality through a rippling pool of blue light. He lowered his glaive and exhaled and the moment he did, gravity snapped back.
All the raindrops fell at once. All wooden humanoids collapsed in perfect synchronization, sliced into neat, flawless segments that hit the soaked ground with muffled thuds. None of them even twitched. The rain washed their remains into piles of driftwood and bristles.
Shimmer blinked hard. Runner's jaw hung open. Asenane whispered, almost offended;
"What… the fuck was that?"
Vastarael swayed slightly and rubbed the side of his neck like he'd just done something mildly annoying.
"I did it, though it—"
And then he coughed. A trickle of blue dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Asenane's entire expression snapped into pure panic.
"Darling? Plenituse Techniques don't injure you. What did you do?!"
Vastarael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave her a crooked, tired smile.
"Using it here was… harder."
His words wavered.
"The curse and the blessing of the Broom God. When I used the Water Divinity to strengthen Calm Gale—"
He sucked in a breath that sounded sharp.
"I fought against the expulsion effect. It… pushed back."
Shimmer stepped forward, shaking.
"Dad, why did you do that?"
Runner was gripping his sleeve with both hands. Biolumine meowed sharply and pressed against him, her fur crackling with faint bioluminescence as if trying to stabilize him. Asenane grabbed his shoulders.
"Look at me. Darling, you used Divinity under a domain that forbids it. You should have been thrown out of the town and expelled at the speed of a meteor! Why didn't you—"
"Because…"
His legs buckled. Asenane barely caught him in time.
"I'm fine. I'm just tired…"
His glaive slipped from his fingers, hitting the mud with a heavy thud that made Shimmer flinch.
"Veneri! Stay awake! Darling, don't—"
But Vastarael's eyes had already rolled back. His body went limp in her arms.
"He's burning up. This is severe backlash. Why isn't his Body Reconstruction working?"