Chapter 181: Prep For War; Feeling

The tree creature is slowly coming to the realization that it's meagre attacks will have no effect against my Bone Shield.

To that effect, it switches tactics, going from needles to a single, long and undoubtably sharp blade made out of its wooden body.

It's a conundrum to think wood as sharp but I know better than to doubt magic at this point.

The creature launches at me and I prepare, mana set and ready, my feet dug into the ground and my balance centred, ready for impact.

And impact I get. The tree creature slams down so hard against my Bone Shield that cracks begin to appear.

No. That's not it.

My eyes widen as I realize. This creature isn't all that stupid after all, in fact, I'd go as far as to say it's intelligent if it did what I think it did.

My Bone Shield is structurally weakened from the continuous, minute barrage of needles from earlier. Add several powerful whacks like it's receiving now and you get cracks in bone.

I let myself smile despite the precarious situation. The tree creature is pushing me back, forcing me to pivot and allow my Bone Shield's to properly protect me from its dual flurry of attacks.

But this is perfect honestly. I let Shaco slither down my shoulder and make sure to cover his escape as it slithers off to carry out its newly assigned mission.

I'm not sure how much more of the abuse the Bone Shield's can handle but I think it'd be enough for what I've just cooked up.

"You're intelligent, aren't you?" I ask the grunting, whacking tree spawn. 

It doesn't answer, it doesn't even seem to register on its equivalent of a face – a twist of branches in an oval shape with little holes with glowing wisps of light where an eye or a mouth should be – that I've spoken.

But I continue to speak anyway, "You're not the main thing are you, right now I'm simply looking at a puppet, a puppet you've sent. Why don't you come out and take care of me yourself?"

Still, the tree creature continues to slam and smack my Bones aside, achieving a complete break in three by this time, forcing me to feint about even more.

But I'm not done talking yet, "I'm positive you're in there. You do realize that these puppets of yours will never be able to take me down, all this time I've just been stalling for the sake of getting these words to you."

It merely grunts some more, following after me in circles, tripping up on the corpses of the Werebears that lie around.

"Quite frankly, the method I'm about to use to take this one out is a bit unnecessary and might not even get the job done entirely but…sometimes you just want to play, don't you?"

Finally, I get some sort of affirmation, some recognition to my words. The tree creature's glowing lights flicker to me as it lifts its head up, grunting questionably.

I grin and unleash a barrage of Death Grips. It flees, summersaulting and skipping over the tendrils.

Only to land smack where I want it to; in the middle of useless Werebear corpses.

With a simple snap of my finger, I activate the spell Shaco went ahead to lace on the corpses, blasting the tree creature to oblivion, showering it with shrapnel of bone, blood and guts.

"Death Grip." Understanding the resilience of a tree I don't dare to underestimate it. With Shaco in place my spell is channelled through my obedient familiar and several arms of necrosis land firmly on the remains of the tree creature, sucking what life it has left in it.

"Sometimes you just have to flex a bit." I mutter with a shrug, looking up to the sky where I find Anselm judging me as per usual.

"You must have a lot a mana to waste."

"Not really, besides, it's good practice for Shaco and I, getting used to working in tandem." I look ahead, behind the floating frosty ghost and notice Panda breathing through his mouth.

"Got to get used to working with one soon at least."

Anselm sighs, wiping his face with a hand, "You were talking to it?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I had a feeling that it was more than just a mindless monster attacking at night."

"Didn't seem like it talked back," He points out, floating lower for the sake of my neck.

"No, but I doubt it would have to faculties to talk with a body like that." I clap my hands and chirp, "But! It did show some sort of interest…at the end, right before I blew it up. It answered to one of my provocations."

Anselm hums lightly, walking with me and Juri back to the men, many of which are running over to us now.

"And this couldn't be a fluke? You seeing what you wanted to?"

I shake my head, "No, even if it was, I'm sure those tree creatures were being controlled by someone or something far away."

He studies me for a bit before adding, "So, basically familiars?"

Again, I shrug. "Of the tree variant, sure."

"Milord!" Juri yells, kneeling as I approach, "Beautifully executed!" He's got the others doing it too.

"Ah, thank you?" Far too bashfully I pull at him by the arm and demand he stand up.

"Where is Piol?" Anselm asks.

"Still hidden within his tent, Sir, he is well guarded and will not be dying lest you say so."

I…I wasn't going to say so.

Letting out an exhausted sigh I walk past Juri and tap his shoulder. "It's getting super late and we're all tired, I'm not sure any more of these monsters will be coming to attack us tonight, but set up a watch just in case."

"How are you so sure?" Anselm questions.

I throw him a wink as I duck under one of the tents sent up, "Just a feeling!"