Chapter 659 - Stages of the Dread Sapling

Walking through the forest, Shiro decided to wait for a short while so that her wounds fully healed up before leaving. That way, should anything happen, she'll be ready to fight them.

Sitting on one of the trees while waiting for her wound to heal, Shiro looked towards the town with a frown.

If even the air that she breathes is poisonous to her current body then she's not able to stay in the town for long.

Sighing softly, she wondered how she could solve this. Since the dryad said that she had no idea, it could imply that she required someone with more knowledge on the null area and the dread sapling. There was also the problem of a culprit planting such an ominous sapling here in the first place.

What are their motives? What do they gain from this? Why did it have to be this town?

These were the questions that she needed answers to.

While she was waiting for her wounds to recover, she played around with the spirits that had gathered around her.

Which brought up another question or rather, a thought in Shiro's mind.

The fact that she was essentially the same as these spirits without a divinity.

The dryad mentioned that she had never seen a young spirit without divinity attain a human body which meant that some of her power could be sealed away due to this lack of divinity. Once she gets her first one, some features of her race may appear once more but it was unconfirmed.

During this, Shiro noticed a small call in the distance. Focusing her mind on the call, she recognised it to be Dimos' voice and he was calling for her with some worry in his voice.

Smiling softly, she glanced down at her thigh wound and saw that it had mostly closed up now. If she was to stay for another hour, it would heal but she should tell him that first or else he'll be looking around for her constantly.

Hopping off the tree, Shiro jogged over to the edge. With the spirits following her, it wasn't hard for Dimos to spot her.

"Where were you? You had me worried when you didn't come back for a few hours." Dimos sighed.

"I happened to meet a dryad when I was taking a break. I have also found out more about myself and the cause of everything that's happened." Shiro smiled while poking a few of the spirits.

"Oh? That's good then. So do you know why you were in pain earlier?" Dimos asked with worry.

"Mn, it's something to do with my constitution and the tree. It turns out that someone has planted something called a dread sapling into the tree and the air that it produces is highly poisonous to me. I don't think I can stay in the town since the longer I stay, the more likely it is for me to just die." Shiro shook her head.

". . ." Staying silent, Dimos had a frown on his face.

"I know what a dread sapling is and seeing as though it's poisonous to you, I think I know why. You're a spirit aren't you? A rather young one at that. That probably explains why the spirits are attracted to you, however, I haven't heard of young spirits gaining human bodies like you have without divinity. Young spirits are extremely weak to the dread sapling while older spirits have some resistance against it but it still harms them. For you to have such an adverse reaction by just approaching the tree means that you're young and the dread sapling has already matured to stage 2. That explains the lack of nutrients." Dimos frowned.

"Mn? Can you explain to me more about the dread sapling?" Shiro asked as it sounded like Dimos knew that was happening.

"Yes. Though I doubt you'd want to go back to the town seeing as though it's highly poisonous to you at this moment in time." Dimos said whilst glancing back at the town.

"Let's go into the forest. The dryad's divinity in the forest increases my natural recovery. See? Even my thigh wound is almost gone." Shiro said while pulling up her skirt a little so that DImos could see the almost healed wound.

However, before she could show him, Dimos immediately turned his head away.

"Ah a lady shouldn't go around lifting her skirt like that." Dimos coughed.

"What? It's just to show you a wound?" Shiro tilted her head.

"It has different implications."

"What do y- ah…" Realising what he meant, Shiro let go of the edge of her skirt and coughed.

"Well just know that the wound had almost healed up. If I stay in the forest for another hour or so, I should be back in peak form." She explained.

"Alright, let's go then." Dimos nodded.

Walking further into the forest, Shiro sat down on a large branch while Dimos sat on a tree root.

"So the dread sapling is something that can be found in the outside area of this world that I told you about. As you can guess, it's called the null area because nothing can survive there. The same goes with the dread sapling. While the sapling itself may survive, it cannot bloom. I… was one of the people who found out about the consequences of letting the dread sapling bloom." Dimos said as he glanced down at his hands and balled them into a fist.

"There are 4 stages to a dread sapling's life. The first stage is where it infects a host of sorts. Preferably a tree of high vitality in an area where nutrients are abundant. The second stage is feeding like you see in the town. Using the host, the dread sapling will begin to feed off on all the nutrients in the area until it has gathered enough to step into the next stage of growth. Some of us that ventured into the null area believed that the dread sapling was one of the main causes to the place becoming barren. With the saplings absorbing all the nutrients greedily, there's no wonder that no life can be sustained. The third stage is blooming and that's when the host is completely discarded and the sapling shows its true form. In this stage, it gives up on being sneaky when draining the surroundings. Black roots will explode out of the ground and seek out anything that has an ounce of life in it and drain it completely dry. Think of its power as similar to the nature near the tower of Gaia but it doesn't care if you have killed or not. All it desires is nutrients.

"The fourth and last stage is something that we haven't witnessed in its entirety but we're glad we didn't since then we could have destroyed a large part of the world. The fourth stage is what we like to call Colony since as the name suggests, the dread sapling would attempt to create more by spreading its offspring through the wind and into the other parts of the world to allow them to grow. It is theorised that once a certain amount of these saplings reaches the third stage, a network would be constructed between them and the draining force of the nutrients will spread all over the world. We were able to stop it during the fourth stage thanks to a few people that had obtained three powerful divinities but in the process, their lives were lost." Dimos said with a deep sigh.

"What can we do to stop it in its current stage then?" Shiro asked as it wasn't too keen on waiting for the sapling to bloom."

"To stop it in its current stage, we'll need much more manpower than what we currently have. It's not something that I can deal with alone without some sacrifices." Dimos shook his head.

"Then how long would it take for us to get the required manpower?" Shiro asked.

"I don't know. I'll need to spread the news but by the time I've done that, there's a likely chance of the sapling reaching the third stage and by then, we'll need even more reinforcements." Dimos shook his head.

"Damn… If we did have enough manpower, what would we need to do?" Shiro asked.

"We'll need to completely extract the sapling from its host. During the extraction process, the sapling will forcefully enter a pseudo stage three where it will use its roots to attack its assailants and try to drain them of their nutrients. But that's not it, once we extract it, we'll need to completely incinerate the sapling with fire so that it can't heal itself with the nutrients that it's gathered. Someone with Apollo's fire divinity would be very helpful during this." Dimos replied.

"So is there nothing we can do right now?" Shiro frowned.

"Unfortunately no, the best we can do is prepare enough manpower for when it reaches stage three. We'll need to completely evacuate the town and send out a warning to the cities so that they can dispatch some people with the required divinities."

Hearing this, Shiro frowned at their helplessness. If she still had her power from Earth, she could have easily dealt with the sapling. There was also the problem of who put the sapling there.

Narrowing her eyes, she tried to think of a way to solve this when an idea appeared in her mind.