When the people started falling into despair, four red round-shaped flames appeared in the sky, not losing against the brightness of the orange sky.
People were curious about the sudden light and raised their vision and saw all those fireballs flying to the tree.
As if reacting to the flames, another four roots appeared from the ground, piercing all those flames in an instant.
Boom.
All of them exploded in succession before they heard a clicking sound that appeared tranquil but able to dominate any other sounds on this battlefield.
The people turned around to look at the source of the sound, finding a green-haired man walking to the tree with a calm expression. He wore the same military uniform as any other soldier in the army, but there was a translucent red-colored shawl hanging on his neck.
The source of the clicking sound turned out to be his golden-colored staff with a circular head and many rings attached to it. The rings collided with each other and made the clicking sound like that of a bell.
The man smiled and looked at the tree, asking, "For what reason do you invade the city? I know that you can understand me. We have remained neutral for the past five decades… If we made some mistakes, would you please tell us?"
Theo dropped his jaw to the ground when he heard that someone tried to talk with the monster. Monsters were different from animals. They were aggressive and would attack you the moment they noticed you, so it was hard to talk to them. And yet, this person tried it.
"Wait… Can they talk with you?" Theo remembered the classifications Nart told him. "If Ranks are divided by Level, then Classes divided by… Intelligent? I need to ask for more details."
Theo shook his head and began killing monsters again since the battlefield was still chaotic.
Meanwhile, the tree didn't answer the man and stood still for a minute.
Even the man had realized something must have happened and it required a series of investigations. But he wanted to know the problem from the tree itself and tried to do anything to solve it as quickly as possible.
"I am sure you know that your existence greatly benefits us… And as promised, we won't do anything against you and will punish anyone who does that… Would you tell us the problem? We can solve this issue together." The man called the tree again, hoping it could fix the problem together.
Unfortunately for him, the answer he waited for came in the form of an attack.
Four roots that stopped his fireballs moved to him, striking him down.
Bam.
The dust kicked up and they thought the man just got hit by those roots and died. However, the same man appeared right in front of the tree with a serious expression.
"It seems peace was never an option…" He narrowed his eyes, extended his hand to the tree, and hit the tree's branch that seemed to expand to cover whatever trick he wanted to do, showing its reaction speed.
"Ignition." The man's hand started getting covered by his red-colored flame as it burst in a fan-shaped direction, engulfing the tree.
Some of the leaves got burned as well, but everyone who witnessed it was surprised by the fact that the flame couldn't burn the leaves at all, let alone the branches and the trunk. The flame was proven to be ineffective as if the tree was immune to fire.
The tree suddenly shook its body left and right as some leaves gradually fell from the branches.
The man realized that they were not normal leaves either.
The moment they fell from the tree, the leaves suddenly flew to the soldiers, hunters, or even Theo and his group, becoming a sharp blade.
Many people couldn't react to it and got pierced by the leaves.
Luckily, Alea managed to shield the group with her "Fortitude" skill and prevented anyone from getting injured.
Theo, on the other hand, confirmed that the enemy was similar to the turtle he met back then.
If that Ghost Turtle could summon thousands of skeletons to hunt anything around him without even moving, This tree could assassinate them with just a slight shake.
He wondered what kind of scene the turtle would have made if he managed to get to the city.
The soldier didn't have time to think about the dying people because his enemy was one of the strongest monsters around the area. With his level around the same, he indeed couldn't switch his focus even for a split second.
He raised his hand and a huge fire sphere appeared on top of the tree.
"Crimson Rock." The man dropped that huge flame on the tree.
As if responding to this attack, the tree extended its branches again and formed a net, planning to catch it and throw the ball to the city.
But the man had discovered its intention and showed the might of his Force Control. The huge flames suddenly burst out and split into one hundred smaller flames that looped around the net and hit the tree's body.
Boom.
Boom.
A series of explosions resounded on the battlefield, followed by the roars of the people. They believed the soldier managed to hit the tree with his skill.
The tree even flinched due to that attack, proving their guess even further.
However, the man knew it just did little damage to the tree because the fire was extinguished within seconds.
Ten roots emerged from the ground and tried to stab the man, but the latter dodged every single of them. If this were anyone else, they would have died several times because the roots kept appearing from the ground and returned soon if the attack failed, making it hard for the soldiers to follow the attacks even with his Awareness.
"Since you don't want any peace, then shall be it." The guy gritted his teeth and clapped his hand.
Another sphere ball appeared on top of his head before it grew and started spinning like a tornado. It grew bigger and bigger to the point it reached the height of the tree.
"Hell Vortex." The guy planned to burn this guy to dust, only to find that his strategy was nothing to the tree.
Before the vortex could swallow him, the roots attached to make a hole in the wall suddenly fell back as if they were planning to pierce another spot.
Many people jumped off the wall to prevent the roots, but all of them were surprised when one of the roots went first. It didn't go to the wall anymore. Instead, that root pierced the gate that was filled with humans, killing at least fifty of them that tried to enter the wall to avoid dying.
But with this, there wasn't anyone that could stop the monsters from entering the city anymore.
As if they understood the tree's intention, the monsters quickly slipped past all soldiers and hunters around the gate without caring about their condition. They didn't care whether some of them got struck down or injured by those people as long as they could enter.
"What?!"
"The monsters are coming into the city."
"Not good!"
"The city will fall into chaos soon."
"Help! Help!"
"What is happening?"
The people started panicking as they tried to kill the monsters, but it was too late. Several monsters had come inside the city and the rest would follow soon.
"No!"
Hearing their voices, the soldier that fought the tree gritted his teeth and looked at the tree. "So, this is your answer. Since that is the case, I'm going to kill you right now."
Meanwhile, The city soon fell into chaos. The people were panicking as they never thought the monsters would be able to enter the city when all the soldiers were fighting outside.
But before they continued, an old man suddenly landed on the ground after flying in the sky for quite a while.
He scratched the back of his head with a tired expression. "Haiz… Sometimes humans are eviler than monsters… I am tired of dealing with this."
He raised his hand and summoned a small compressed wind sphere on top of his palm.
"Still, I already told him that nothing would go wrong… So, I guess nothing will go wrong with me here." Yes, the old man was none other than Nart Eilric. He had finally made his move and appeared on the battlefield.
Before the monsters started rampaging the city, Nart threw the compressed wind sphere at them.
It burst out in mid-air and formed a horizontal tornado that swept all creatures, no matter if they were humans or monsters, to the outside.
The people were confused, but Nart simply shook his head helplessly and carried a black bag in his other hand while walking to the gate. "Time to work."
