“Enemy attack! Intruders have appeared inside the inner fortress!”
“Guards of the nearby sectors, move quickly! Lord Bereborn is fighting!”
The fortress guard moved busily.
Even upon hearing news that enemies had breached the walls, their well-trained ranks did not panic and rushed to give support without hesitation.
But even those disciplined guards froze on the spot the moment they saw the beast, a divine creature thrashing and firing torrents of blue mana blasts in every direction.
“W-what is that?”
“A divine beast? Why would a divine beast suddenly appear inside the fortress?”
It wasn’t moderate or neutralist elves that had broken in—it was a massive white stag with golden antlers.
And not just a stag, but a divine beast.
There were indeed a few divine beasts in the Elves’ Forest of Life. But most lived far from the kingdom, each ruling its own domain quietly.
This situation shattered the very foundation of elven common sense.
“Don’t panic! Remember what we must do!”
Even so, they were trained warriors.
Though a giant beast was spewing out endless mana, instead of fleeing, they raised their spirits and prepared to fight.
‘These bastards.’
Hans, watching them, muttered inwardly in alarm.
For now, he was using whatever techniques he knew to thrash about and create chaos, but he was beginning to feel danger creeping in.
The elves, who at first had been startled, were now dodging swiftly whenever he tried to fire a mana blast.
Part of it was Hans’s poor /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ aim, but their coordination was remarkable.
They were adapting, little by little.
For now, he could endure with sheer size and power, but at this rate he would become the hunted.
‘There’s no way to win this fight. At best, I can only hold out—but not for long.’
So instead of trying to bring them down, Hans swept the area with his blasts, collapsing terrain around him.
Ceilings crumbled, rubble tumbled down, blocking paths and restricting elven movement.
Seizing those gaps, Hans charged with his antlers, trying to ram the elves.
The startled elves scattered, and Hans immediately veered toward Sedina’s side.
[Get on!]
“S-Senior?”
[This is your chance!]
Sedina grabbed his fur and climbed onto his back.
The elves weren’t about to stand idly by.
“Don’t let them escape!”
They realized what the divine beast’s purpose was.
The druids of the fortress stepped forward, unleashing their sorcery.
Roots from the fortress interior stirred and bound Hans’s body.
Thick vines twisted around his legs, and massive roots locked around his torso.
[Like hell you will!]
With the body of a divine beast, Hans twisted violently, tearing the roots apart with cracking sounds.
Sedina, on his back, frantically helped remove the bindings.
She picked up several root fragments from the ground and scattered them into the air.
The roots floating in midair peeled like onion skin, transforming into thin sheets of paper.
The paper folded and spun into sharp saw-blades.
Though they were paper, imbued with mana their cutting power was extraordinary.
Slice. Slice.
Wherever they spun, roots were severed in chunks.
But more roots sprang forth than were being cut.
The longer the fight went on, the more reinforcements arrived, uniting to hold Hans down.
[We run for now!]
“What about Alex, senior?!”
[Your rescue comes first! He’ll handle things on his own over there!]
As Hans said, Alex was locked in a fierce duel with Bereborn.
Each time their swords clashed, deep gouges like axe-chops were carved into the surroundings.
Astonishingly, the fight was evenly matched.
Hans was shocked that even fully armed with artifacts, Alex couldn’t overwhelm his foe at once.
The elves, in turn, were shocked that Bereborn could only fight a single human to a draw.
But no one could interfere.
Their movements were so fast that even elven eyes could barely follow, only afterimages flickering in sight.
If anyone tried to shoot an arrow, they risked hitting Bereborn himself.
Naturally, that fight remained theirs alone.
The elves focused solely on the divine beast Hans.
[Stay tight against me!]
Hans shouted, releasing his mana in a violent burst.
Roots climbing his legs disintegrated into dust.
He had just unleashed his one and only full-body mana release.
But he judged there would be no other chance, and he was right.
‘Back to the hole we came through first!’
He turned toward the passage to the underground, but the sharp elves had already sealed it with spirit magic.
“He keeps trying to escape! We just need to hold him down!”
“Reinforcements keep coming with time—we only have to stall him!”
[Damn it.]
Hans glanced around, then lifted his head upward.
If he couldn’t go down, then he would go up.
He decided—and acted instantly.
His legs, filled with blue mana, lifted him skyward.
“Stop him! He’s trying to fly!”
The elves hadn’t imagined Hans could take to the air, and their response was a beat too late.
It worked.
Hans smashed upward toward the ceiling, trying to break through and escape outside.
“Well now. That won’t do.”
At that moment, a voice echoed right at his ear.
He looked around in alarm, but no one was there.
“You won’t see me, no matter how you look.”
The voice came from every direction.
Sedina could never forget that voice.
“V-Ventmin Lifret?”
“Seeing you try to carry that girl away, it seems you’re no ordinary beast. One way or another, if you insist on making my work troublesome, you’ll pay the price.”
The entire fortress rumbled.
Hans’s beast instincts screamed in alarm—if he didn’t escape now, he was in mortal danger.
‘I have to break through...!’
He launched upward again to smash the ceiling, but an immense pressure crushed him, forcing the breath from his lungs.
Something massive burst through a wall, slamming him like a tentacle.
Hans crashed to the ground, and Sedina was thrown off, rolling across the floor.
Struggling, Sedina lifted her head.
“W-what the...”
What had burst through the wall was a gigantic tree trunk.
It was nothing like the druidic sorcery of ordinary elves.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?”
A voice sounded right beside her.
She turned, and saw a tiny root swaying as though waving hello.
The voice flowed out from that root.
“This is the power of the World Tree. Only nobles with the right to commune with it can wield such authority.”
And even so, the power Ventmin had just used was only a fragment of the surface—less than one percent of the World Tree’s might.
Yet even with that, she had crushed divine beast–Hans with a single trunk.
At that moment, a streak of light cut through the trunk’s end.
Alex slid in right after, positioning himself beside Sedina.
“S-Senior.”
“Hans?”
“He’s still holding on, but the situation isn’t good.”
Alex clicked his tongue in frustration.
At first, the sudden strike to snatch Sedina had gone well.
They had almost succeeded.
But Ventmin had stepped in, and everything changed.
She hadn’t even come in person—she was merely using the World Tree’s power from within the Cradle.
Yet with that alone, the divine beast Hans had been subdued, and the situation had turned disastrous.
“You there, human. Isn’t this far too rude?”
From the severed trunk, a new one sprouted, scolding in a petulant tone.
Alex knew full well that tone was mocking their hopeless situation outright.
Bereborn, who had followed after him, bowed his head toward the trunk.
“My Lady, forgive me. I should have dealt with this myself.”
“It’s fine. Who could have predicted they would suddenly burst out from underground? More than that—it’s strange.”
Ventmin’s eyes shifted between Alex and Hans.
Humans.
And until the moment they revealed themselves, she hadn’t sensed them at all.
That was impossible.
How could she, who was connected to the World Tree and able to perceive even a single insect near the royal fortress, have overlooked their presence?
“Tell me. Which of you—”
Her words, carried through the trunk, suddenly fizzled with static, breaking up like distorted noise.
Ventmin was startled.
Someone had interfered with her while she was exercising the World Tree’s authority.
“Now!”
Bellaruna suddenly leapt out from below.
She seized control of the World Tree in an instant, disrupting Ventmin’s hold, and flung open a path through the massive roots that had been blocking the way.
“Over here, everyone!”
The elves weren’t about to let it pass, but Bellaruna craftily slammed the roots shut again, cutting off their pursuit.
Bereborn hurled his sword into the gap just before it closed.
Faster than waiting for the path to seal, the blade shot straight toward Bellaruna’s back as she fled with Sedina.
But Alex intercepted it midair.
“Ah... Alex?”
Through the narrowing roots, Alex smiled faintly.
“I’ll hold them here. If I leave that guy alone, who’s going to help him?”
And then the roots sealed the passage completely.
Choosing to remain behind with so many enemies—just the two of them—was practically suicide.
Sedina bit her lip at the sight.
Her thoughts were jolted back by Bellaruna’s urgent tug on her hand.
“The jamming won’t last long! We have to escape underground now—!”
They had bought a moment’s respite; they needed to flee below the roots at once.
But Bellaruna’s plan was shattered by a flower bud that burst up through the floor.
It drilled through the hard marble like a screw and then bloomed into a great pink blossom.
Through the scattering petals, a sleek leg lashed out, slamming into Bellaruna’s side.
Distracted by the dazzling sight, Bellaruna failed to dodge.
“Kyaaah!”
She was hurled aside.
But she didn’t suffer in vain.
In that brief instant, she had pulled a vial from her pouch and hurled it at her attacker.
The shattered vial spilled its venom across the foe’s head.
“My, my. Even in this situation, you use something so nasty?”
But the other’s voice was utterly calm.
Gasping, Bellaruna stared.
The one who emerged from the flower was unmistakably a highborn elf.
She stroked the venom off her skin with a finger, then licked it away.
“Too bad for you. With the World Tree’s blessing, every poison made from plant extracts is meaningless to me.”
Ventmin Lifret.
She, who should have remained in the Cradle, had come here in person in an instant.
“More than that—I’m impressed. To think another elf could connect to the World Tree. And with such subtlety that even I was deceived.”
Her gaze upon Bellaruna was as chilling as autumn leaves falling under moonlight.
“It was you. The one I met through the dead roots of the World Tree in the human world. You even survived the tracker I sent, yet without regard for your life, you dare to come here?”
“H-how did you...”
“The World Tree’s power is not limited to sight of its surroundings. Wherever its roots extend, I can move as swiftly as this. Just as I did moments ago.”
Immunity to poison.
The ability to travel instantly wherever the roots reached.
The authority to see and command even from afar.
This was the World Tree’s power—what could be drawn even from less than one percent of its vastness.
“I thought about tearing you limb from limb. But seeing you like this, I find myself hesitating. Still, I must praise you. To think a mere wanderer, not of noble blood, could attune to the World Tree so smoothly—no one else has achieved such a feat.”
Ventmin snapped her fingers mockingly.
The roots Bellaruna had desperately sealed creaked open, revealing the scene beyond.
“S-Senior...”
There lay Alex, collapsed and battered, clinging barely to life.
“An excellent knight, a mysterious divine beast, and even a wandering elf who can connect to the World Tree.”
Ventmin shook her head at the fortress guards belatedly bowing toward her.
“That John Doe... he does such entertaining things. To stir up so much with so few. Perhaps I should thank him for the spectacle.”
Tapping her lips with her finger, Ventmin suddenly smiled wickedly, as if struck by an amusing idea.
“Your luck is good. I was going to kill you all right here, but I’ve changed my mind.”
At her command, the roots lifted the bodies of Alex, Hans, and Bellaruna.
“I’ll invite you directly to the Cradle. There, you can watch John Doe die with your own eyes. It will be most delightful.”
The captives, bound by roots, were dragged into the Cradle.
A vast cavern, its walls woven entirely of living roots.
At its center gleamed a pool filled with the World Tree’s sap.
Sedina trembled at the sight.
This was the World Tree’s nexus, the very place where ceremonies were held.
A place she should never have set foot in—yet here she was.
Ventmin tossed the unconscious three aside and turned her gaze upon Sedina.
“Now, shall we finish our business?”
Sedina backed away, but there was nowhere to run in this dead end.
Even if she did, she could never escape Ventmin, who commanded the World Tree.
“Now your fear finally shows on your face.”
Ventmin, seeing through her heart, smiled with cruel delight.
“In that case, I’ll show you too—what John Doe is doing right now.”
With a flick of her hand, the Cradle was filled with a gentle glow.
Bathed in pale, firefly-like light, Sedina’s vision shifted to another scene.
She saw the elven army laying siege to the outer walls.
And within their ranks, she spotted Ludger, hidden among them.
“He sent his underlings ahead to draw attention while he slipped in separately, hoping to strike at me.”
Ventmin laughed coldly at the sight.
“He doesn’t realize I can see everything. And if I wish, I can do this.”
She extended her hand toward Ludger and clenched her fist.
Roots erupted beneath his feet, coiling around his body.
It happened before he could even react.
“N-no...”
“Farewell, John Doe.”
Ignoring Sedina’s desperate plea, Ventmin squeezed her fist tighter.
Crack.
The sound echoed from the vision.
Blood spurted crimson through the roots.
“A-ahh...”
Sedina collapsed to her knees.
Ventmin watched with a face of rapture.
Squelch!
“Wha—?”
But her words never left her lips.
A swordstick blade had burst straight through her chest.