Episode-564
Chapter : 1107
The fire from Iffrit’s blade washed over the first tree, and for a glorious second, the ancient wood was engulfed in a roaring inferno. But then, something impossible happened. The fire didn't die out; it was consumed. Dark, necrotic tendrils of energy snaked out from the tree's trunk, wrapping around the flames like hungry pythons and drawing them inward. The tree was feeding on the inferno, its skeletal branches glowing with a stronger, fouler light. Iffrit’s confident rage curdled into shocked disbelief, a feeling that lanced back into Lloyd’s own mind.
Fang Fairy’s lightning darts struck the second tree in a shower of brilliant sparks. The bone-white bark cracked and splintered under the focused assault, but before the damage could even register, a sickly green light pulsed from within. The wood flowed like wax, sealing the wounds in an instant. The tree hadn't just healed; it had regenerated, erasing the damage as if it had never happened, as if the concept of injury was a fleeting dream.
Abyss's water jet struck the third tree with the force of a cannonball, blasting away a huge chunk of its trunk. But the life-draining aura of the orchard was a tangible thing. The water that composed Abyss's form began to sizzle and evaporate, its spiritual essence being actively unmade by the cloying atmosphere. The shark let out a silent, pained roar as its very form began to dissipate under the constant, passive assault. The jet of water faltered, its power fading as its source was unraveled.
The coordinated attack, a display of power that could have annihilated a small army, had failed in less than five seconds. The trees, their power seemingly amplified by the failed assault, retaliated.
Their necrotic branches whipped through the air with a speed that defied their size, moving like a hundred striking vipers. They weren't just fast; they were sentient, each branch an independent weapon seeking a target. One lashed out at Iffrit, the touch of its necrotic tip not breaking his magma armor, but corrupting it. A spiderweb of black cracks spread across his shoulder plate, the foul energy draining the fire within. Iffrit staggered back, a grunt of outrage rumbling through his bond with Lloyd.
Another branch, moving in a blur, caught the flank of the already-weakened Abyss. The touch was catastrophic. The water shark's form, already unstable, imploded in a burst of steam and sorrowful energy. The psychic backlash slammed into Lloyd like a physical blow, a sharp, cold spike of pain in his soul as his connection to the spirit was violently severed. It was the sound of a scream in a room that no longer existed. One of his gods was dead. Again.
This was the third time he had attempted this fight. The third time he had watched his perfectly laid plans crumble into dust. The third time a spirit had been dissipated by these damn trees. The humiliation was a burning coal in his gut. He had committed his forces in a full-scale, shock-and-awe assault designed for a swift, decisive victory. And the result was a catastrophic, humiliating rout.
"Retreat! All units, disengage and fall back to the sanctuary!" Lloyd roared, the command a bitter pill of failure.
Iffrit, his pride wounded more than his armor, unleashed one last defiant wave of fire to cover their withdrawal. Fang Fairy wove a curtain of crackling lightning to slow the trees’ pursuit. Doppelganger simply dissolved into shadow. Lloyd himself took two steps back and vanished into the shimmering, opaline gateway that led back to his stone house, the taste of defeat like ash in his mouth.
He stumbled out of the portal and into the sterile silence of his sanctuary, collapsing against the cold stone wall. The psychic Doppelganger of Abyss’s dissipation was a hollow ache in his core, a void where a loyal presence had been just moments before. He could re-summon the spirit, but the cost in resources was non-trivial, and the memory of its "death" was a stain on his command. Through his bond, he could feel Iffrit's simmering, volcanic rage and Fang Fairy's quiet, analytical concern, a silent question in the back of his mind: What now?
He had failed. Again.
He slammed a fist against the unyielding stone, the impact doing nothing to quell the storm of fury and frustration raging within him. He was a commander of gods, a wielder of powers that could rewrite reality, and he was being held at bay by three malevolent, overgrown weeds. He began to pace, forcing the raw emotion down, channeling it into cold, hard analysis. Emotion was a luxury he couldn't afford.
Chapter : 1108
His mind, already sifting through the data of his defeat, came to a cold, hard, and expensive conclusion. He deconstructed the problem piece by piece, as if it were a machine.
First, the Aura. The life-draining field was their primary defense. It wasn't an active attack, but a passive, environmental condition. A battle of attrition was impossible. It actively unmade his summons, with Abyss being the most vulnerable due to its fluid, purely elemental form. Any strategy that required a prolonged engagement was doomed from the start. Victory had to be achieved in seconds, not minutes.
Second, the Regeneration. This was their active defense, and it was absolute. They didn't just heal; they consumed. Iffrit's fire, a force of pure energy, was turned into fuel. This suggested a conceptual-level defense. They didn't resist energy; they assimilated it. Physical damage was likewise useless, as the wood simply flowed back together. It was less like healing and more like rewinding a localized timeline of injury.
His arsenal, as vast and terrifying as it was, had a fundamental flaw. He had hammers like Iffrit and scalpels like Fang Fairy, but he had no way to hold the patient still on the operating table. He couldn't burn it, electrocute it, drown it, or poison it with its own power. All his methods were forms of action, of violent change. And the trees simply rejected or reversed that change.
What if the answer wasn't action, but inaction?
He stopped pacing. The thought settled in his mind, not as a sudden epiphany, but as the logical conclusion of his deductions. He didn't need to apply more energy. He needed to remove it. Fire and lightning were energies of excitement, of kinetic violence. What was the opposite?
Stasis. Cold.
The idea was so simple, so elemental, that its elegance was breathtaking. Ice didn't just burn or shatter; it froze. It stopped biological processes at a cellular level. It was the energy of absolute lethargy. If he could introduce an element of such profound cold that it could arrest the very mechanism of regeneration, he could create a window. A brief, frozen moment of absolute stasis where the trees were just brittle, inanimate objects. Then, and only then, a follow-up, overwhelming attack might be enough to shatter them before they could thaw and heal.
The path to the tenth level, the path to greater power, was blocked. And the key to unlocking it was not a weapon he currently possessed. It was a concept he had overlooked. If his current tools couldn't solve the problem, he would have to acquire a new one. A very, very cold one.
The silence of the stone sanctuary was a stark contrast to the violent chaos of the battle. Here, in this pocket of perfect stillness between worlds, Lloyd could think. He paced the floor of the simple, functional house the System had provided, each step a testament to his restless, analytical fury. The defeat wasn't just a setback; it was an intellectual insult. The trees hadn't outfought him; they had simply presented a problem his current toolkit was not equipped to solve. His conclusion was solid: he needed an energy of stasis. He needed ice.
With a newfound sense of purpose, Lloyd sat on the simple wooden stool in the center of the room and closed his eyes. The world of stone and silence faded, replaced by the sleek, star-filled void of the System 2.0 interface. The dispassionate, synthetic voice of the Administrator chimed in his mind.
[Query detected,] it stated. [Awaiting command.]
"Access the Shopping Tree," Lloyd commanded mentally. "Filter for new Spirit acquisitions. Transcendent-Level only. Primary Affinity: Ice. Sub-specialty: Conceptual Control." He added the last part on instinct. He didn't just need a creature that could create ice; he needed one that commanded the very concept of cold.
The star-field swirled, coalescing into a new holographic menu. It was a gallery of gods and monsters, each a potential weapon of immense power. There were frost giants whose fists could shatter mountains, arctic leviathans that could flash-freeze entire oceans, and ethereal queens of winter whose whispers could bring on an ice age. But acquiring a new Transcendent spirit was not a trivial matter. It was a monumental investment, the kind of expenditure that would drain a significant portion of the war chest he had painstakingly accumulated from the execution of the Curse Knights and the treacherous Captain Graph.