"How did such a weak person get ahold of such a powerful weapon?" Lyrielle's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and taunting.
It landed.
Silas's eyes narrowed. The easy smile flickered, tightened at the edges. "Weak?" He ran a hand through his blonde hair, a gesture that might have been casual if not for the tension in his shoulders. "Me?" His voice dropped, calm and cold. "I am going to cut you into a thousand pieces."
He abandoned his guard entirely.
He rushed forward, greatsword singing through the air, slicing through vines and wooden platforms with savage efficiency. Each cut brought him closer, each step more certain. The distance between them shrank.
Lyrielle smirked.
He had fallen for it.
Vines coiled around her body, not defensively, but as conduits—channels for power. Her eyes glimmered, and the ground beneath them began to shake.
"Ramulus Dei."
The valley itself seemed to tear open. A massive chunk of earth lifted, cracked, and from the rift rose a tree—not summoned, not grown, but pushed from below as if the world itself was giving birth to it. Its trunk was wider than houses, its branches thick as ancient oaks, and it surged upward directly at Silas.
For a moment, he simply stared.
"How are you capable of this much power despite being sealed?" The question escaped him, directed at no one, as the colossal wooden mass bore down on him.
He moved.
He dodged the first branch, then the second, then a dozen more. But they kept coming—an endless barrage of wood and force. If he cut one, three more took its place. If he dodged left, a branch swept from the right. He was fast, impossibly fast, but there was nowhere to go.
A branch grazed him.
Just barely—a glancing blow to his side—but the force behind it was immense. He was hurled toward the ground like a stone from a sling, impacting with a thunderous boom that sent debris flying in every direction.
Lyrielle didn't stop. She poured more aura into the attack, branches raining down on the spot where he'd landed, pounding the earth into dust. Over and over, relentless, giving him no room to breathe, no chance to recover.
Then came a blur of movement.
Silas erupted from the barrage, leaping onto one of the branches and using it as a springboard. He ran up the massive tree, closing the distance with terrifying speed. In one hand, he held Nithfang. In the other, he'd produced a long, heavy chain from a pouch at his belt.
He connected the chain to the hilt of his greatsword.
The weapon became a whip—a spinning, deadly arc of steel and poison. He swung it in wide circles, controlling its trajectory with practiced ease, and his aura flared.
"Poison Magic: Venenum Flux."
The blade shone with sickly light. A metallic liquid began to pour from it—thick, viscous, glowing faintly—and Silas directed it with his swings. Some of the poison arced toward Lyrielle. The rest splattered across the branches around him.
Wherever it touched, disintegration began.
Wood didn't just break—it melted, bubbling and dissolving into black sludge. The giant tree's branches withered on contact, their aura bleeding out, their form collapsing.
Lyrielle sent another barrage. Silas swung his chained greatsword in a defensive whirlwind, the blade chewing through everything that came near. Around him, sound magic vibrated in a visible shimmer, repelling debris and splinters. He was an engine of destruction, grinding through her attacks, advancing step by step.
He was almost to the top. Almost to her.
The serpent slammed into James and Kai, its massive body carving through the space where they'd been standing. They split apart at the last second, instincts screaming, and James spun mid-air to bring his sword around in a desperate arc.
"First Technique: Thousand Strikes!"
The barrage connected—dozens of hits in the span of a heartbeat—and for a moment, the serpent recoiled. It was enough. Enough for Kai to plant his feet, draw, and fire another shot directly at its exposed flank.
The arrow struck true. And did nothing.
The serpent's hide absorbed the hit like water absorbing a stone, and its eyes—those cold, slitted eyes—flickered with something that looked almost like amusement. It had been playing with them. Toying. And now it was done.
The creature straightened its massive body into a single, terrifying line. Muscles coiled. Scales tightened. And then it rolled—not like a snake, but like a wheel of destruction, its entire form rotating at incredible speed. As it moved, it shrank, condensing its mass into something smaller, faster, more concentrated. The velocity increased, a blur of scales and death hurtling toward them.
Then, just before impact, it expanded.
The explosion was catastrophic.
The ground shook. Trees for fifty meters in every direction splintered or were simply gone, ripped from their roots and hurled into the air. Dirt and rock fountained upward, and a massive crater yawned where the serpent had struck. Dust clouds billowed outward, thick and blinding, swallowing everything in a grey, choking haze.
For a long moment, there was silence.
The serpent lifted its head, scanning the destruction. Its prey was not dead—but vanished into the dust. It twisted, searching, and saw that the spot where Raya and Koby had been was empty. No bodies. No blood. Just churned earth and settling debris.
Somewhere in the clouds, movement.
Behind a small bush sheltered by a cluster of tall trees, the team regrouped. They moved low, quiet, barely breathing. Raya had dragged Koby through the chaos, her arms screaming, her lungs burning. Now they huddled together, listening to the distant shifting of the serpent as it searched for them.
"That thing is going to kill us." Kai's voice was flat, stripped of its usual sarcasm.
"We're stating the obvious now?" Koby managed a smirk, though his face was pale, pinched with pain.
Kai reached out and tapped his shoulder lightly. "You okay?"
"It's a lot of pain." Koby's jaw tightened. "But I'll manage."
Raya shook her head, her voice a whisper. "I only had enough aura to deal with the major injuries. There are still minor ones—internal bruising, strained muscles, small tears. They could worsen if he moves too much." She pressed her palms together, and they trembled. "I don't have much aura left. The healing drained me."
The weight of her words settled over them. No healer. No backup. Just the four of them and a monster that had already proven it could kill them a dozen different ways.
"So what's the plan now?" Raya looked at each of them in turn. "We can't afford fatal hits. One mistake and we're done."
Kai opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I have an idea."
Everyone stared at him.
"What?" He blinked, defensive. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's just..." Raya hesitated. "You're usually the voice of reason. Or doubt. You shoot down plans, you don't make them."
Kai shrugged. "Well, we're going to need another voice of reason, because this plan is crazy. Even for me."
James leaned forward. "Let's hear it."
Kai took a breath. "The yggthra's skin is tough. We know that. But I noticed something during the fight—multiple hits in the same area leave dents. Small ones, but they're there. And when it shrinks down, the skin hardens and the dents smooth out. It's like it repairs itself."
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
"Our attacks by themselves can't do the trick. But what if we all hit the same spot? Over and over, one after another, right on top of each other. Eventually, we punch through. Create a hole. Then we hit whatever's inside."
Raya frowned. "What makes you think it has a soft inside?"
James answered before Kai could. "Because it's a serpent. It moves. It twists. It can't do that if it's solid all the way through. There has to be muscle, organs—something softer beneath the scales."
Koby nodded slowly. "Makes sense. But it's not going to just stay still while we line up shots on the same spot."
Kai turned to Raya. "Can you restrain it? With your vines?"
Raya's face fell. "I don't have enough aura for that. Its size... I'd need to use a wood variant, something stronger than normal vines. That takes more aura. Way more than I have right now." She looked at her hands, still faintly trembling. "I barely have enough for basic vine restraints."
Silence.
The plan, promising for a moment, crumbled. Without restraint, they couldn't focus fire. Without focus fire, they couldn't break through. Without breaking through, they couldn't win.
Then Raya spoke again, her voice quiet but steady.
"There might be another way."
Everyone looked at her.
"If we could pile freshly cut wooden trees on top of the yggthra—a lot of them—I could borrow the aura still inside them." She spoke faster now, the idea taking shape. "Aura runs through every living thing. Trees have it. If we cut them down, the aura doesn't disappear immediately. It lingers. If I can tap into that before it fades, I could shapeshift the wood into restraints. Strong ones. Real ones."
Kai's eyebrows shot up. "Really? You can do that?"
Raya hesitated. "I... could try."
The doubt in her eyes was unmistakable. She wasn't sure. She'd never done this before. But she was willing to try—to push beyond her limits, to risk failure, to attempt something that might save them all.
James looked at Kai. Kai looked at Koby. Koby looked at Raya.
"Then we have a plan."