A valley burns

Year 76 Month 4 Week 4

Fire elemental and a perpetual blizzard. Not exactly what I imagined to face, but here I am.

The demon-fire Alexis arrived a lot later than expected, I initially thought she would arrive perhaps within two to three days, given the heroes overwhelming cheat powers, so I scrambled to prepare myself to face a hero, but then again, her body is controlled by demonfire, and that demonfire isn’t exactly… intelligent.

But yes, her arrival is easy to spot, as the demonfire is a lot more flashy. Despite a snowstorm that engulfs everywhere we can see, her glowing, flaming body just shines through all that snow like a lighthouse in a storm. Her body is a huge glowing fireball shaped like a woman, she reminds me of a female version of the human torch, or perhaps phoenix, but there under all that fire is something that looks like a solid core.

And, she arrives with a bang, shooting fireballs and firing beams of fire throughout the entire valley.

“This is the monster the tree spirit warned us about?” Yvon’s immediate reaction is… well, shock.

After Meela had the revelation, I quickly cascaded the alert down to the people, that a probably powerful monster is coming our way, so that they can prepare. But I would realise all my preparation was for naught.

Jura nods. “Yeah. Some kind of… fire-creature.”

“That is a whole lot more than just “fire-beast”.”

Alexis floats in the sky, surrounded by a dark, maroonish fire that rages violently. The remnants of the demon king’s fire, it looks unaffected by the effects of this magical blizzard, or even if it did, whatever effect it had is probably miniscule.

Yvon looks back at Jura and shakes her head. “Whatever that is, it is flying. There’s very few ways to engage that thing, unless it comes down to the ground. Our arrows are not going hurt it, and I doubt fireballs from our mages will either!”

As Yvon and Jura discusses, Alexis clearly does not consider them threats, instead she still continues to shoot fireballs at the forest and blast up a whole bit of the valley, one fireball at a time. The first impact vaporises any snow or ice that is built up, and the second impact instantly sets the normal trees on fire.

Indeed, given the monster is... A fire elemental, the best option is to use opposing elemental weapons, or some destroy the elemental’s core.

“So?” Jura looks at Yvon, he enters into the bear-armor mode, a black-colored wood wraps his entire body, and it makes him look at a giant bear, and he leaps into combat, charges in the general direction of Alexis.

The fire elemental notices, and directs the fireballs at Jura. And each time, he activates a wooden shield to parry those fireballs, the shields, are only able to absorb two fireballs, so Jura had to constantly re-activate the wood shields.

“Well, how are you going to hit it?” Yvon wonders, and activates a magical arrow. The fact that it’s a fire elemental meant Yvon quickly reorganised the team she prepared for this. Not everyone is suitable to face a high-tier monster of this sort, so some of the guys retreat back to New Freeka, and set up defensive positions.

Jura’s bear-shaped legs contort, the wood armor twirl into a spring-like structure and propel him high into the air, close enough to come into contact with the fire elemental…

And he gets blasted with a point blank inferno, it exploded right in front of him, and he gets chucked super far away into the ground, the wooden armor, already black, but now charred and smoking. The impact is enough to knock Jura out, but thankfully, not kill him, as the armor took the most of the damage, as I sense Bamboo going offline. But I think he’ll probably need to be in bed for a few days.

“Jura!” Yvon shouts, but she quickly turns back to face Alexis, who now notices the rest of the men, and retaliates with a few more fireballs. I activate my [wood shield] to protect them from the fireballs.

“Well, that went horribly well.” I think to myself, as I activated multiple wood shields to block the fireballs. Their effectiveness is pretty good, blocking multiple hits before getting destroyed.

“Master, they won’t be able to harm that monster.” Trevor quickly summarises our problem. True, with enough wood shields I can significantly reduce the damage Alexis deals, but we can’t hit or hurt it that much.

And this is when I notice Horns, charge towards the monster. “For the master!”

Uh. What?

“I shall defeat the foe!”

I think he somehow forgot that he can’t fly, so I am not sure what possessed him to attempt such a move, and what is he attempting to do.

“What’s he doing?”

“I think he may have some skills, master.”

“Really. Let’s see it, but I think he’s gonna lose.” Alexis is a hero, and that fire is from the demon king itself...

Horns charges towards Alexis, his beetle shell coated with some kind of resin, which is actually pretty good at absorbing the fireballs. And then when he finally gets beneath her, he digs into the ground, and shoots spikes at Alexis, from his shell.

[Spike-attack]

“Oh. I didn’t know he can do that.”

But, it’s too-low-tier a skill, and the spikes burn up before they even actually harm her body. And so, Alexis lobs a few fireballs at Horns.

And he would have been crispy fried beetles if not for a few [Wood shield].

“Retreat, Horns. Not your match-”

Alexis waves her hand and shoots out a continuous jet of blue fire, and it incinerates everything it is path, including the wood shield. I instantly try to activate a few more shields to protect Horns, but it’s not good enough, the blue flame burns through the wood shields rather quickly, and also burns half of Horn’s back body before he manages to run out of range.

“Master- I failed-” And I sense Horns going offline. He’s… probably not dead yet, but I’ll need to repair him after this.

“It’s fine. Hibernate mod.”

Yvon, very smartly, chooses to retreat all the way to me. I guess the fact that she survived so long out in politics is no fluke.

“We’re no match for this monster.”

At this point, I know. Alexis has a fire aura that burns any lesser object that gets near her, and she almost limitless quantities of fire-type magic, and that blue flame is really powerful.

“Any suggestions?”

“No sire. I think our chances against is quite slim.” Even now, her very presence is melting all the snow into water, then steam, and then the trees are catching fire. It’s ridiculous how she can be a one-person weather changer.

“Is there really no way we can reach her?” Meela sighs, she feels upset that Alexis is burning up the forest, and she has created a path of destruction that leads her right to me.

[Root strike]. A root flies up to her, and it hits her. The damage is low, as the fire aura incinerates the root partially, and so reduces the impact.

I thought I could do a repeat of my earlier strategy by using multiple root strikes, but then I notice that fire soon regenerates the damage. The root strike barrage would need to deliver a fatal strike, or I may just be wasting time.

Meela, tries the friendship route, and so she prays, and attempts to mentally communicate with Alexis. To convince her to stop attacking it

I try a few more [root strikes], just to be sure, and like the earlier ones, it does hit, but the damage I deal is not much. I throw a few fruits at her just to be sure, but they burn up midair, without achieving a thing.

“Yvon, can you evacuate the elves? And stay out of this.” This is not going to be easy, and I suspect the mages will be useless.

“Ah… yes. Certainly.” Yvon quickly take the elves and run. A few fireballs go their way, but I block it with the [wood shields]. The [shield generator] trees also have been trying to block the fireballs, but not as the shield generators are independent of me, their strength is inferior, and can only block 2-3 fireballs.

“She’s in there, and she says she’s in great pain.” Meela actually manages to communicate.

“How?”

“It’s a thing heroes of the same generation can do. A kind of… telepathic link in short distances... Anyway… she can’t help us, the demonfire is too strong, and her soul is too weak to resist or take back her body.”

“Okay, no friendship-no-jutsu route.”

Alexis burns up a few more of subsidiary trees, and sends a few fireballs direct at my main tree, and it explodes right on my trunk

My historical experiences with fire has made me very resistant to them, so the fireballs don’t even leave a scratch on my main body. My main body, unlike the skill extensions, enjoy the full benefit of my [Tree Heart], and this prompts Alexis to aim blue flames at me.

And they don’t hurt. The blue flames can’t burn me either.

This seems to be a stalemate. She can burn up the entire forest and I will still be standing. And I can’t hurt her.

This outcome is not what I want, so I need to find a different strategy.

Irritated, Alexis sends out a wave of fire from her body, and pretty much burns almost all the normal trees immediately around my main tree. The subsidiary trees, forge tree and root-brain complex share quite a bit of my fire-resistance abilities, but the flame is strong enough to let Trevor experience pain.

“Master… I don’t feel so good.” Trevor is housed in the root-brain complex and the blue fire is slowly getting to it. It inherits a smaller % of my godly fire resistance, and would be invulnerable to most fires. Except one from a hero, or a demon king.

“Shut down and hibernate. Horns, you too!”

“Acknowledged.” Rather than lose Trevor and Horns from the constant barrage of fire, it’s better to pull their artificials souls back from their bodies, and house and hibernate their souls within me.

“This isn’t ideal.” I shake my head, Alexis is still blasting the forest, and I’m doing my best to block as much of the fireballs as I can. Which works, and as a results, irritates the demonfire Alexis more.

Meela shakes her head. “Alexis’s trying to take back control, but it’s not working. The demonfire’s will is too powerful.”

At this point, the elves have managed to evacuate to the “relative” safety of New Freeka, and it’s just me, the spirits, and Alexis. Yvon managed to haul Jura away from the battlefield as well.

It’s strange, to be feeling so hot when just a bit further away, it’s the cold blizzard. Too bad I can’t channel the blizzard’s power and direct it all at Alexis.

“We can’t defeat her.” Meela sighs. “All you can go is stall her, but she’s free to run elsewhere.”

I pause and I try to think.

If I can’t defeat her, then, I will attempt to contain her. The logic to me is simple, she can’t hurt me, so if I contain her such that she can’t hurt anyone else, that’s a win too!

Alexis lobs a few more fireballs and releases multiple fire-waves, and what is once a green valley turns into a blazing inferno, with me, the sole untouched tree in the middle, as the blue flame is strong enough to burn even those with higher fire resistances.

“What’s your plan?” Meela asks.

“Well, remember my extremely crazy demon and fire resistance? I am going to exploit it.”

“How?”

“I am going to eat her.”

[Constrict] x 30. 60 roots and vines shoot out from my main body, and attempt to reach out to Alexis’ firey body. Thanks a bit to her target being me. which I suppose is due to her sensing the presence of Meela, or perhaps those fragments of heroes, she is now really close to me, trying to burn me.

I’m not sure whether Alexis gets the point that it’s not working, but hey, if all it wants to do is keep trying, go ahead.

The fjre work to a limited degree on the roots and vines. Her fire aura burns up a few strands of roots and vines, but there is enough of the constricting vines and roots to form a thick net. I had taken inspiration from Horn’s body to coat the roots and vines with a layer of fire-resistant resin, and as they touch her fireform body, some of them burn.

With the resin-coated fire resistant net around her, I begin to pull, and manage to grab her flame body, and pull her towards me, into me.

“You actually going to…” Meela looks surprised.

“Eat her ...” Yes. I am.

Alexis’s body seems to panic, and so released a continuous stream of blue fire, and even stronger black fires, but closer to my main body, the root and vine’s fire resistance increase, so, she’s trapped. Fireballs after fireballs explode as I pull her ever closer.

Alexis’s body now almost touches my trunk, and she releases a huge chain of fire-waves, the acts of a drowning man, flailing, in an attempt to escape, but she still could not break through her vines. However, that fire scorched the surroundings, the forge-tree and the root-brain complex burned, the ground charred black.

Then, as she closed in on the trunk, the main body of my trunk open up, reveals a biolab pod. And the vines push her inside into the biolab. The demonfire attacks the biolab, and now, I feel like I’m in a sauna. Or like an arctic monkey sitting inside a hot spring in winter.

That doesn’t stop Alexis. She keeps trying, releasing wave after wave of fire. Perhaps she thinks my resistance is due to an extreme regeneration and so I will run out of mana, or somehow she hoped that the fire will eventually get through.

But it doesn’t.

I am kinda thankful that it’s only power is fire, and so it’s only response to any threat is to burn the shit out of it. I mean, if it had Alexis’s brains, she’d probably try lightning, or perhaps ice. So yeah, when you’re a hammer, all you can do is hammer.

“This is insane.” Meela says, clearly rather amazed to see Alexis dragged into me.

“Well, it works.”

And I begin the next step, trying to battle the demonfire’s presence. It’s strangely… familiar. Like the [Fires of Baal] that used to burn on top of my trunk, the fire even feels rather pleasant. This time, I’m not the same tree I used to be, and so I will defeat the demonfire myself.

My mana, and I draw on all the mana I have, from the leyline, from the normal trees, from the storage, from… everything, and with it, I flood Alexis’s body with my mana, and, drive out the demonfire and the demonic mana that now runs through her body.

It is like attempting to do a blood transfusion, to drive out the dirty demon blood and replace it with my clean blood.

Unbeknownst to me at this time, from New Freeka, by putting Alexis’s body into me, it seems like the entire valley’s trees appear to be on fire. The heat generated from the trapped demonfire, is released through my roots, my branches, like how a kettle vents out hot steam, and throughout the valley, my branches and roots would periodically spit out the trapped demonfire.

And, from afar, my main trunk is like a furnace, there’s reddish glow from within, that trapped demonfire, a fire inside a paper lantern, and this lasts for weeks as I battled.

Single-mindedly focused on beating the demonfire, I had no idea what happened other than my long, laborious battle for control of Alexis’s body

I kept at it, and continuously flooded her with my mana, and gradually, I made progress. Like my experience with the hellhounds, on how they, after I overwhelmed it’s body with my mana, it transforms into a woodhound.

Everything I had, I poured into Alexis’s body. Though I doubt I can take “control” of Alexis, my theory is that it’s all I need to drive out the demonfire.

After a week, I gained ground, and pushed the demonfire, perhaps by half. The demonfire tried, and gave it’s all, releasing all the fire it could and tried to destroy me from within.

After the second week, even more progress, the fire-elemental form is starting subside, like a body that’s finally stopped burning. And in my biolab, I begin to see something resembling a soul again. It’s black color body, a “charred” body, is starting to emerge from what was once a body almost wholly made of fire.

But that doesn’t look good for Alexis, as it means she is probably going to die anyway.

So, as I fought the demonfire, I also now begin to look into her body, and see a spring that’s tainted red, burning. A body that’s parched, cracked like a baked dirt, like a lake that is drained of water. A bloody red mana that flows out from everywhere, and my mana flowing into it, slowly pushing it out into the beyond.

And after the third week, I finally drowned the demonfire with all the mana I had.

I won.

Year 76 Month 5 Week 3

“You did it…” Meela nods.

The demonfire is gone. Finally, and Alexis’s got her body back. Well… what’s left of it. Could not have happened soon enough, as all the ejected heat from the demonfire meant the entire valley is literally like a minefield. Any second a tree would emit fire or hot steam, so all the inhabitants of the valley tried to stay as far away from trees as possible.

But this meant the treefolk had to go out in the open, to New Freeka.

Anyway , Alexis’s body has been in the fireform for too long, and her physical body is completed burnt, and now it is crumbles right before our eyes, like a collapsing sandcastle. It is evidently not an ability that is meant to be used for so long...

“Help me, connect to me.”

“What…?”

“Please. Just do so.” Alexis coughs, her body, even though there’s no demonfire anymore, is no use.

To be honest, something strange about that request. But I did, my roots and vines enter her body and attempt to provide her with nutrients, the way a feeding tube would. But her body is a goner, unable to receive nutrients anymore.

And then Alexis mumbles something… a spell that I couldn’t quite understand. It causes her body to crumble, then turns into a paste, and then, it… mixes into the vines and roots in her body. And that vines and roots mixes with the rest of the biolab, and that pod transforms into a chrysalis of some kind.

“What…”

[New subordinate consciousness, hamadryad Alexis detected]

[Integrating…]

[Integration failed]

[Soul condition is in extreme damage. Extensive repairs required]

[Attempting to repair using soul forge]

[Soul forge is offline. Expected downtime 2 weeks.]

[Subordinate consciousness will be put into stasis]

[Alexis has died]

[You gained a fragment. You have 67 fragments!]

[You have gained 4 levels. You are now level 128!]

[Biolab upgraded three times! Biolab resistance to attack increased. Biolab modification options increased! Soul-forge-linked abilities increased!]

[Constrict upgraded! Vines now are able to drain mana and lifeforce! Vines now able to ensnare magical creatures]

[Natural Mana Overwhelming upgraded!]

[New tree variant obtained : Carnivorous plants]

[New ability obtained : Heat transmission root systems]

Year 76 Month 5 Week 3, a day later

With Alexis defeated, I can finally take stock of the damage. And it’s quite bad.

From all the fireballs, and the inferno that raged afterwards, the valley lost about 7,600 normal trees, and about 100 of my subsidiary trees. Both the forge tree and the root tree complex is damaged by the blue flame, and need about two weeks to regenerate their damage. Horns is also in a kind of ‘repair’ mode, and is holed up in one of the beetle subsidiary trees, recuperating from the damage.

Trevor is also offline, and it’ll be two weeks before he’s back on, so my range and detection ability is back to what it once was.

The elves, and New Freeka, and most of the refugees stayed far away from the forest, and so when it finally stopped, everyone looks incredibly cautious. Of course, I went and check on the elves first, and find Laufen, Jura and gang resting in one of the rest houses.

“It’s finally stopped.” Laufen looks out the window, noting that the fires had stopped for a full day. And with it, that means the snowstorm is going to return as well. From snowstorm to blazing inferno, and now back to a snowstorm again.

“Yeah.” Jura’s awake, but his entire body is suffering from burns. He’s recovering though, as the healers tend to his wounds. “Wonder how TreeTree is doing…”

“The monster is inside TreeTree?” Belle nods, “If so, do we still want to go back and stay there, if TreeTree is still there?”

Laufen nods. “I trust that TreeTree will take care of us, and keep the monster separated from us.”

“Hi.” I mentally speak to the elves.

“OH!” They all shout in delight!

“What I missed?”

Laufen paused, and then soon elaborate how the entire valley is on fire for a good three weeks. The heat from the burning forest helps warm the entire area, but also makes it dangerous for anyone to get near the forest as there’s all the periodic firebursts from my roots and trees.

But other than that, all else is normal, as the refugees are still hungry and cold, so I turn my focus back to the forest.

“I’m still around, boss.” Dimitree speaks, reminding me that he’s spared from the damage because he is just so far away.

“Ah yes. Great! All well in your part of the world?”

“Yes boss. You’ve been draining a lot of mana for the past three weeks, so we’re on low-activity mode. Now we can get back to our usual routine again.”

Well, that’s good, so I then turn to the research trees. A few of the biolabs were damaged during the entire battle, and with me draining all the mana, and Trevor being out of commission, the research on the volcanic and winter adaptation is all suspended.

Beetle winter adaptation stage I - 2 months remainTree volcanic adaptation stage I - 3 months remainTree winter adaptation aura - 3 months remain

“Dimitree, can you continue the research?” I mean, I do have another forest mind, so he can continue the research, right?

“Certainly. Please create a few biolabs in the Southwest Forest?” Ah yes, that makes sense, as the lab should be near to the Forest Mind for it to conduct research.

Once Trevor wakes up, I wonder whether it's possible to get both of them to do research. Does that speed things up?

Spaizzer

Anyway, some explanation of the elemental resistances. TreeTree enjoys extremely high fire and demon resistance from his 66(67) fragments of heroes that forms his "tree-heart", but the resistance does not extend 100% to his subsidiary trees, or his skills. Depending on the type of sub-trees, or skills, some of them get 75%, some get 50%, some (like the ginseng tree), gets none. There's also a small distance modifier (ie a subsidiary tree really far away doesn't enjoy as much resistance as a subsidiary tree right next to the main tree). There will be future skills that alter this, of course.

And... indirect vore? I only realised after I finished writing, then I had to add the carnivorous plant skill. Venus flytrap incoming. 

Also, I'm early. Yay? I hope to do next chapter around 4th or 5th April. 

Thanks everyone for reading and supporting, and thanks to my new patreon, Jacques L!