Chapter 436

The third floor of the dungeon had a Plant and Earth mana dominance with the presence of humanoids, what Ajax hadn’t expected was that the humanoids would take the form of eight feet tall ents that could perfectly blend in with the jungle around them.

“This floor would be a death trap for anyone that has an appropriate level.” Anna said as she suppressed a shiver of delving into a floor like this without someone much higher level to watch over her.

Ajax very much agreed with her, the normal way to deal with ambush predators was to take out their cover, cutting down the entire forest however would take months and trying to burn it all down would simply cause a swarm of enemies to overwhelm the party.

Ajax was the first to clear the floor, he had no issues in dispatching a level seventy two but he did find that while the ents looked and fought like humanoids their bodies worked a lot more like plants.

“Taking out the head won’t work.” Ajax cautioned Lexi, Anna and Xavier. “It’s almost like the head is there to act as bait, they have no functioning eyes, no functioning ears, no functioning nose.”

Ajax wasn’t all that interested in biology back on Earth, he couldn’t remember all the different names for every single plant or body part. Evolution was however something that had always fascinated him, not human evolution but animal and plant evolution in how each species changed to better adapt and survive. These ents clearly evolved a head to better balance the body and to act as bait.

“You don’t need to worry about burning down the rest of the forest.” Aranor reassured Anna, “Just make sure they won’t trap you.”

While the ents fought very much like regular physical fighters in terms of their body movement, to the point they even had armor and weapons made out of bark that were fused to their bodies, they also possessed the ability to surge their mana through any of the regular nearby trees to get them to move.

Anna nodded with confidence as she stepped up, it wasn’t hard for the prince to find where the ents were hidden so once Anna found one she wanted to fight she could take advantage of their predatory nature by starting with an attack the ent would surely feel but ignore in hopes of her not noticing its presence.

The pillar of flames consumed the ent and the five regular trees that were surrounding, the flames were so bright that Xavier and Lexi didn’t have the Perception to comfortably look directly at them.

“It’s too bad these trees are all so healthy.” Ajax mentioned as he watched the fight. “Hard for something that green with that much water to burn.”

“I don’t think that’s an issue she is having.” Aranor pointed out.

Ajax was surprised to see that the elven champion was right, Anna’s flames were powerful enough that not only was the bark of the five trees flickering ablaze once the pillar of flames subsided but even some of the ent’s body was still alight.

More than that Anna was given the perfect chance to press her advantage. The ent’s first move was to quickly reach for the trees near it but touching them had no effect, the trunks didn’t lean one way or another, the branches didn’t swing for Anna and the roots didn’t snap up like tentacles to trap her.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

The ent seemed stunned for a moment when nothing happened and that wasn’t something Anna was going to miss. It’s easy to think that [Pyromancer] only affected the flames but that wasn’t quite right, it affected all fire type spells. The fiery explosion of Anna’s fire bomb detonation was a shock to everyone present, including Anna herself.

“She seems fine, and she has a moment to recover.” The prince said after they watched Anna get thrown off her feet by the blast, that same blast had also sent the ent flipping head over heels backwards until it struck the trunk of a tree fifty feet away. “That was quite the explosion, I am surprised it didn’t even try to dodge.”

“It’s spell didn’t work” Ajax said, his casting style being very similar to that of most monsters that he understood that sometimes things like that could happen unlike when using chants or runes. “I think the burnt bark doesn’t let their Skill worm to channel their mana into the trees and it was shocked by the outcome.”

Whatever these ents were they clearly acted humanoid even if their bodies worked like plants. Anna had managed to get to her feet but by then the ent was already charging for her with its shield held un high.”

“I don’t think they can feel pain either.” Ajax mentioned as he pointed to the still flickering flames that covered one of the ents legs. “It didn’t even try to put it out.”

Anna was much more careful with her second fire bomb, the not only was the power slightly diminished but she made sure to partially hide herself behind a tree trunk to weather part of the blast. More than that she had also picked up on the ents inability to control trees that were covered in burnt bark so she started building up her flaming defenses in such a way that the trees around her were all set ablaze.

The ent was already starting to slow down, its body starting to break down as the outer layers of its bark covered form started crumbling to ash as Anna continued to keep up an unending shower of flames.

Despite her vastly inferior physical stats Anna had long ago learnt that the best way to make up for not investing in her physical stats was to perfect her positioning. Her increased physical stats following the delving spree made repositioning that much easier as her body flowed naturally and traversing the terrain didn’t distract her from her opponent.

It was those smarts that cost Anna in the end, she had ensured that there was always a tree trunk between her and ent being sure that it couldn’t be used against her. When the ent stuck its spear straight into the tree she was caught completely off guard as the trees blazing branches swept around and not only broke her flaming shields but also her enchanted shield before sending her flying while breaking the arm that took the brunt of the impact and cracking a few ribs behind it as well.

“These are still level seventy trees, the outside might char but the inside is still healthy.” Aranor nodded calmly as he simply analyzed the fight as everyone else started to panic slightly. “Their ability to control them remains if they can break past the layer of char, since their weapons are fused with them it also allows them to channel their mana directly.”

Anna’s lucky break came from her strategy panning out at the right time. While the ents trees might not function the same way normal humanoids did that didn’t change that their bodies still moved in the same way from a mechanical point. While her flames affected the entirety of the ents body she was careful to focus as much damage as she could into the joints. The ents left knee giving out completely and the leg detaching right as it launched forward after the tree knocked Anna to one side.

Seeing the state of the ent Anna knew it was on its last legs and didn’t hesitate to launch a fire bomb as powerful as she could make before also rolling behind another tree trunk to cover herself from the blast. The explosion was so violent that Aranor had created a shield to protect Lexi and Xavier from the blast as it would have reached the group as well.

“You did it” Lexi ran towards her best friend as soon as Anna got up and started to hobble towards them, marking the fight as finished.

“It could… caught… could have won.” Anna weakly coughed out some blood, her body clearly dealing with internal damage following the impact of the tree branches. Despite her damaged body her spirit as a battle mage was clearly upset. “If it used the roots to entangle me instead of swatting me it could have won.” n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Lexi and Xavier took her warning to heart. Out of all of them Anna had the best match-up against the ents by far and she still only won because of a wrong choice made by the creature.

“Let me know if you see one with flowers.” Ajax said, after he started healing Anna with Life and Light mana, distracting everyone from the tense moment.

“Why do you want one with flowers?” Aranor asked with a frown while Lexi blushed a little thinking the flowers were for her.

“If I kill it I can take the body, flowers should have seeds and I want to see if I can get one to grow.” Ajax explained. “What? what’s that look for?”

Lexi covered her embarrassment by turning around and walking away from him without another word.

“What did I do?” Ajax asked confused.

“I think you should get her some flowers after we're done here.” Xavier suggested.