I wasn’t sure what to expect as the huge treant got closer to the undead fortress. I didn’t expect panic, at least not the blind kind if such a monster attacked a city filled with people. Zombies lacked the sentience to be affected by their oncoming end, and liches could always retreat.
However, even when counting that, I was surprised by the reaction the sapient undead was displaying against the battle. Reading a bunch of bones wearing robes or armor was not exactly simple, but I was almost willing to say they were…
Excited.
The reason didn’t take long to understand. Half of them dashed into the vault, and when they left, each was carrying crystals, their lack of glow showing that they were empty. And the ones that stayed back were clearly unhappy.
I already knew they were using it to capture Divine Spark, and probably for an important objective, but the intensity of their reaction and the incentive they were displaying that they were somehow benefiting from captured Divine Spark.
And, considering their speed to join a potentially dangerous battle, they not only benefited from it, but they also benefited from it significantly. Which was curious, forcing me to reexamine most of my assumptions about the battle. Clearly, something else was going on.
Luckily, I had the time to examine that. Just as the first wave of zombies was dashing toward the treant I started examining my strategy, curious whether I could attract the remaining group as well.
First, how to handle the first wave. There was no chance the zombies could damage the treant even a bit, but even at a distance, I could feel the excessive amount of necrotic mana filling every zombie. They weren’t going there to damage, but to deliver some mana.
Smart, too bad I had no intention of allowing that to happen. I sent another magical order, and the treant raised its wooden arm. A swing distributed hundreds of seeds, and a small horde of smaller treants rose, moving faster to meet with the zombies.
One horde against the other, while I watched through a remote spell. As they crashed, chaos appeared under their feet, grass and flowers blooming and dying repeatedly in a spectacular display of the circle of life. Zombies died, and treants got injured, even as I slowly started to tap into the core of the situation.
A glamorous battle slowly covered the plain in front of the tree fortress, balanced even as the sky started to get covered by the fluctuations of mana.
However, the balance didn’t survive for long. As the number of necromancers on the field increased, they started to support the treant from a distance, slowly chipping the smaller army of summons.
Pity there were still many guards at the vault. I wondered if I could actually trick them. I let the huge treant radiate even more nature mana even if it started tapping into the reserves I had created.
Yet, it was effective for two reasons. First, it allowed the treant to rush forward faster, taking down more and more zombies, and doing so rather rapidly as the horde got closer and closer to repurposed remains of the previous tree. Second, and more importantly, it implied that the treant had even more Divine Spark than they had first thought.
The temptation didn’t take long for the work. A few more liches rushed into the vault and left with empty crystals, and after some argument, they left, leaving only two Death Knights to guard. Not willingly as I could feel they were the weakest ones. Their reaction confirmed that even with the extra juice, they didn’t see the treant as a threat but as an opportunity.
I understood their approach, certainly. Pity, it was a horrible decision.
Since the threat of the casters was no more, I approached the vault much easier, and relaxed as I suppressed my magic. I started gathering my magic, sharpening the nature mana into two deadly spears, and soon, I let them loose.
{-1290 Mana}
Two death knights went down immediately, before they could even react. I created a cage of mana, preventing the remaining mana in their structure from dispersing, and drained their Divine Spark.
{+29 Purified Divine Spark}
Now that the threat of the death knights was no more, I started working on the Vault, quickly unraveling the security layers, enough to allow me to enter. Luckily, the defenses were more focused to prevent unauthorized access than actual protection, which made the problem much simpler than otherwise. Soon, I was inside.
“Wow, that’s a lot of crystals,” I murmured as I examined rows and rows of crystals, though I noted that once one crystal was placed, a magical defense activated to prevent it from being removed. Not a huge problem, but harder than the entrance — especially since, at the same time, I had to keep my attention on the treant and make sure it was giving a valid defense.
The challenge got bigger since I couldn’t actually let any of the liches or death knights approach, because, unlike what I was faking, the treant only had a few points of Divine Spark, and most were about trying to maintain the connection. So, I used the reserves to aggressively blast any that approached — even if it destroyed a few death knights and ruined the opportunity to steal all the Spark they had.
Luckily, I didn’t care much about a few dozen points, not when I was looking at the hundreds of crystals that were in the vault.
Two minutes later, the first row was successfully unlocked. It wasn’t a huge amount of time, but unfortunately, not little either. Not with a battle going on outside, each second costing a dangerous amount of mana.
{+529 Purified Divine Spark}
“Amazing,” I murmured, but before starting to work on the next row, I decided to make a little adjustment.
{-442 Purified Divine Spark]
{+2 Intelligence}
{+2 Manipulation}
The immediate boost not only allowed my mana to dance much more smoothly, but also allowed me to understand the intricacies of the situation even better. Soon, the second of the ten rows was unlocked, and it took about a minute and a half.
{+621 Purified Divine Spark}
Excellent, I thought even as I applied the next wave of improvements, even as I started to feel the weight of the unbalanced attributes. Luckily, there was still some margin to push.
{-432 Purified Divine Spark]
{+1 Intelligence}
{+1 Manipulation}
{+1 Perception}
With those three increased as well, each row took less than thirty seconds to unlock, which meant, the remaining eight rows barely took four minutes.
{+5210 Purified Spark}
A fascinating amount of Divine Spark.
It was still a challenge to balance the battle outside, but the treant managed to both keep the illusion that it was packed with Divine Spark, but also drove much closer toward the fortress than I had been expecting.
It surprised me. I was already planning to let the treant retreat a bit to maintain the illusion, but the magic of the necromancers had been much weaker, and the defenses were much more chaotic. Then, I realized the problem.
The necromancers were manipulating the defenses, and they were doing so to allow treant to approach much easier. For a moment, I was surprised, as while the existence of the traitors wouldn’t have been shocking, it was a weird location to reveal that.
Then, I realized that their trick was a bit different than I had predicted earlier. Instead of weakening the defenses of their opponents, they were weakening theirs … only to draw the treant closer, clearly hoping to take the biggest share of Spark once it was taken down.
A fascinating show of selfishness … though maybe not, considering I was dealing with a bunch of people that sacrificed their lives for a cursed existence.
Regardless of their drive, it gave me a rather interesting opportunity. But, before taking that opportunity, I needed some more improvements. First, some physical boost to balance the weight of the stats.
{+5 Strength}
{+5 Precision}
{+5 Agility}
{+5 Speed}
{+5 Endurance}
{-2550 Purified Divine Spark]
“Finally,” I murmured as the familiar warmth spread into my body, one that gave me the necessary physical improvement to allow me to push for more and more.
Next, I wanted to top off the Wisdom and Charisma to match the other stats.
{+4 Wisdom}
{+3 Charisma}
{-746 Purified Divine Spark}
And just like that, my stats were fully balanced, and with a great amount of Purified Spark available to be leveraged for the next stage or to be converted to Stats if necessary, but converting and absorbing all that Spark took another few minutes of me.
Enough time to get the treant even closer… which stopped me from improving my other stats. Getting even stronger was nice, but not at the cost of ruining my opportunity.
It was showtime.
{Strength: 13 Charisma: 13
Precision: 13 Perception: 13
Agility: 13 Manipulation: 13
Speed: 13 Intelligence: 13
Endurance: 13 Wisdom: 13}
{Purified Divine Spark: 2618}
{Pseudo-HP: 2869 Mana: 12140}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 10}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Forest - 2009}
Elven Priestess - 70}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
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