章 53: Monarch of Yngrave (4)

The gaping maw filled with brambles and twisted wooden fangs unhinged further as the monster clamored forwards, stomping its thick legs into the ground and sending another wave of roots straight at us, all whilst a grating, reverberating roar spilled from its jaws, disorienting us as our hearing became all but useless.

Few things could be heard over the sound of the monster's fury, effectively robbing us of one of our senses and making it all the more difficult to battle against something like this; the roots 'silently' flew towards us and tried to pierce through the shields and armor of the soldiers, whilst its legs slammed against the ground like hammers on an anvil, churning the dirt and sending up a thin haze around the clearing.

The old mage and I still did our best to move around and confuse the monster, our two separate spells gradually charging up to completion as the seconds ticked by, infusing the wooden creature with an agitation as it continued to slam into the shield wall, cracking the mana barrier and splintering the wooden shields that some of the soldiers wielded.

Desperation lingered in all of its movements as it repeatedly tried to breach the line, but as the hellish red glow from the mages real spell flooded the clearing, it screeched and leapt back, avoiding the attempts of the Animus Wardens to corral it into the clearing and instead disappearing once more within the forest, vanishing from our sight and silencing itself.

The forest descended into silence as the monster simply disappeared, using both its knowledge of the area as well as the sheer quantity of Nature Mana to conceal itself from the onslaught of flames that the mage had prepared, leaving us in yet another stalemate.

"Tricky thing... tricky tricky thing... fascinating."

The muttering of the mage beside me made me frown, and he continued to speak as he held his spell above his head, the flickering, flaming runes hungrily lapping at the air to sustain themselves, casting his slightly wrinkled expression in a sinister hue as he smirked.

"Never seen a 'Monarch' monster before, lass? Truly a sight to behold, aren't they? Paragons of power given material form, tied to the land they were born from and made into a protector. A 'Monarch' of the area. And Yngrave hasn't had itself a Monarch in a decade at the very least... Truly a fascinating thing...

Now... what should we do about this, hm? It would seem it is unwilling to show itself because of the spell above me, and yet I cannot maintain this for long; even someone as great as me has a limit for my Core, yes? So what to do, what to do..."

Glancing at me, the man smirked before focusing his eyes on the spell above my head, the illusory flames continuing to spark and trick the mind even now, something that made the mage say "Go on, toss 'em. See if the Monarch gives away its position..."

I didn't need to be told twice, so I 'cast' the spell from earlier, bathing the surrounding area in illusory flames that lapped at the trees and spread across the ground, draining my Core of even more mana and making me gasp as I felt a sharp throb in my chest.

I pushed through, however, and snapped my head to the right when I heard an angry growl sound out from afar, only for me to forget the pain in my chest as an inferno spiraled out towards the location of the sound, burning through the forest and felling the trees with its power.

My hair smoldered for a moment in the sheer heat of the attack, whilst my skin almost began to blister and my blood felt like it was a few degrees off of boiling; the air around us wavered as the temperature rocketed incredibly quick, all while two giant twirling spheres of flame formed a helix and crashed through the forest, tearing through it without any issue at all.

A pained screech flooded the air once more as the flaming helix revealed the Monarch looming deep inside the forest, its wooden skin charred and cracking as it leapt away from the attack, which followed behind it as the mage controlled its trajectory.

Feeling the heat behind itself, the monster began to run at us as fast as it possibly could, each trunk like leg sending it forwards quicker and quicker, until it suddenly sprang into the air and screamed down at us, its two long braids whipping off of its head and crashing into the earth around us while the helix belatedly tried to follow it.

Canceling the spell, the mage tried to ready a quicker one to attack the Monarch again, whilst I let my [Illusion] drop as I instead summoned as many roots as I could, blocking the path of the dwindling helix and giving everyone an incredibly short window to ready themselves for what was to come.

The two wooden braids gouged out the earth and sent dirt flying into the air, before crashing into the knees of one soldier and the shield of another, breaking both and sending one stumbling back whilst the other let out a pained scream as they crashed onto their back, unable to stand back up.

Descending down towards us like a meteor made of organics, the Monarch shrieked again and cracked both the braids towards the mage and I this time, while its bramble filled maw sent a flurry of thorns towards us too.

And yet, that wasn't the most worrying thing about this current situation; no, the shield of flames and the overlapping mana barrier around us blocked the thorns and gave the mage and I enough time to roll away from the Monarch and get away from its landing zone.

The most worrying thing for me was the sudden snap of disconnect I felt between myself and my roots, my control over them being wrestled away as the monster emitted a green pulse that washed over the area, and before I could react and try to regain control, the roots went from being a defensive wall that had blocked the helix to long, sharp spears that turned and lanced down at the waiting soldiers without any warning at all.