“This... this was here?”
“No way. According to the report, the road leading to the Second Inspection City was an open plain with nothing in sight. They even said the road was well-paved, making it easy for the troops to move.”
“Then what the hell is this?”
Before them stretched a massive wall of thorned vines, so tall they had to crane their necks back until it hurt just to glimpse the top.
Each stem was so thick that not even a grown man could wrap his arms around it, and the spikes jutting out were larger and sharper than a beast’s fangs.
Unlike ordinary brambles, these were black and ashen in color, giving off an unsettling, almost suffocating dread.
A wall of thorns that had sprouted out of nowhere where there should have been nothing.
It was unmistakably the work of Demon King Heathcliff.
A feeling told them it was something that must not be touched.
If it was a barrier raised by one who served a heretical god, then to carelessly disturb it might invite a massive curse.
“What are you all doing?!”
“Th-the path ahead is blocked by a wall!”
“So what? They’re just oversized plants! Burn them all down!”
Soldiers carrying flamethrowers on their backs lined up in a row and marched forward in unison.
Wearing crimson protective suits, they aimed their weapons at the wall and pulled the triggers.
Whoosh!
A torrent of fire mixed with thick, sticky fuel spewed out.
No matter how large or threatening they looked, plants would burn if drenched in flame—
or so they thought.
The commander’s confident expression collapsed as the scene before him unfolded.
“The vines are unscathed!”
“What nonsense! They’re still plants—how can they not burn?!”
“The w-wall is moving!”
The black wall of thorns not only refused to burn—it began to move on its own, writhing wildly as if possessed by a will of its own.
Like a colossal octopus thrashing its tentacles, the enormous vines surged and swept through the ranks of soldiers.
The flamethrower troopers at the front were tossed about like bowling pins, sent flying in every direction.
Their armored suits kept them from dying on impact, but the sheer mass of the bodies slammed into the soldiers nearby, creating a chain reaction of chaos.
“Damn it! Get back!”
“If we bunch up, we’ll take more damage!”
Soldiers in the rear raised their guns and fired at the writhing vines.
Ratatat!
But the thick vines remained unshaken.
The bullets couldn’t pierce their hardened surface, and some even ricocheted off the spikes, flying in random directions.
“Bullets don’t work!”
“Retreat from the vines! Pull back the infantry!”
“Get the wounded to the rear!”
The rampaging thorns were dangerous enough by sheer size and weight alone, but the added flames from the flamethrowers made them even more menacing.
It was as if tentacles from the depths of hell were squirming their way up to the surface.
“T-this is the Demon King’s sorcery.”
“So this is the power of heresy...”
The subjugation army, unaware that it was actually an elven creation, assumed the monstrous vines were Heathcliff’s doing.
“Keep up the barrage! Don’t let up!”
The soldiers hurled bombs they had prepared.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Scarlet fire erupted, swallowing the vines in a storm of flame.
They had resisted bullets and fire, but not even these thorns could fully withstand the shockwave of explosions. Parts of the wall shattered and burst apart.
“We’ve got plenty of powder left! Throw everything we have!”
“Keep pressing forward!”
Momentum swung back to the subjugation army.
Under the endless rain of explosions, the vines appeared to falter.
Yet the soldiers’ expressions did not brighten.
“When the hell will this end?”
They had expected only a single wall—
but after destroying one layer, another appeared behind it.
This new wall was even larger, thicker, and more imposing.
And the vines were no longer passive.
They began intercepting the flying bombs, hurling them back or swatting them aside to explode among the soldiers.
“Pull the infantry back! Deploy the tanks!”
The ground trembled as the tanks rolled in, engines roaring, charging straight toward the thorn wall.
But the vines easily overpowered them—flinging the tanks aside or overturning them like toys.
“Impossible! Tanks—losing to mere plants?!”
An armored division capable of razing a forest couldn’t even cross a single wall of vines.
The same went for the steam golem unit that followed.
Despite their reinforced cores powered by mid-grade mana stones, they too were powerless against the brambles.
One-on-one, a steam golem could tear through a vine or slice it apart with its arm-blades.
But there were simply too many vines.
Their spikes were so hard they pierced through even the golems’ thick armor.
“They’re holding the line beautifully.”
From afar, Ambella watched, impressed at how effective the vines had turned out to be.
She had hoped they’d perform well—but not this well.
“What the hell are those things?”
Caroline, watching beside her, frowned.
“How can plants do that? Even with druidic aid, that’s beyond anything reasonable. It’s like plant-type magic on an entirely new level.”
Surprisingly, those vines weren’t magical constructs.
They were actual plants, germinated from real seeds, merely infused with effects like rapid growth, hardened skin, and enhanced elasticity by the druids.
“They’re a special modified strain—grown only in our Elven Kingdom.”
Ambella pulled out a cigar and held it between her lips.
No fire.
Just as she frowned, a small spark flickered in front of her, lighting the cigar.
Caroline had helped.
“Puff... exhale. My thanks.”
“So, that’s all there is to your ‘special strain’?”
“Do you really think that’s all?”
Ambella smirked and blew a stream of smoke.
“A hundred years ago, when humans invaded us, the elves fought with everything they had. Naturally, the Burke family—my family—stood at the frontlines.”
They had fought desperately, and eventually, the elves managed to repel the human invasion.
“But even though we stopped them, the losses were devastating. The advent of gunpowder, bombs, cannons, tanks—just remembering it still chills me. We elves realized then that if another war ever came, we’d have to grow stronger.”
“So that’s what those vines are—the result of that determination.”
“Exactly. Gunpowder, bullets, explosions, flames, the crushing power of tanks—those vines were refined over a hundred years by elven sages and druids to withstand it all.”
Of course, the version before them now was far superior.
And that was thanks to Sedina, who could harness the power of the World Tree itself.
Sedina Plante.
Resonating with the World Tree—the apex of all living things—she had evolved the vines by several generations in a single day.
They now resisted fire, endured mana-based attacks, and wouldn’t fall even under immense impact.
“They weren’t without flaws, though. Since they were grown hastily with druidic support, their lifespan is short. Those vines won’t last more than a week.”
Their rapid growth came at a price—they would wither quickly, aging at an accelerated rate.
“But in times like these, a week is more than enough.”
Even the armored and golem divisions had to retreat, unable to pierce the wall of thorns.
The subjugation army moved frantically.
And the mortars began to fire.
A whistling sound, like # Nоvеlight # a loud breath through the lips, echoed across the battlefield as mortar shells traced elegant arcs through the air, raining down upon the wall of thorns.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rippled outward, fire blossomed, and the tangled vines were torn apart helplessly under the bombardment.
Caroline, watching the battlefield with her arms crossed, clicked her tongue.
“They’re holding out well enough, but I suppose the difference in firepower can’t be helped.”
Since close-range attacks hadn’t worked, the subjugation army had chosen the safer method—slowly erasing the wall of thorns with mortars from afar.
There was nothing the vines could do against projectiles descending from the sky. They shattered apart, scattering into fragments under relentless bombardment.
And the subjugation army’s firepower was overwhelming—too overwhelming.
The claim that they had gathered the continent’s greatest firepower was no exaggeration. The flames consuming the land stretched so wide that it looked as though the entire plain had become a sea of fire.
“Ha. Numbers win, in the end. Though, of course, we’re not just sitting idle either.”
Movement stirred within the bramble forest.
Between the writhing vines, new growth began to emerge—not slender tendrils, but thick, blunt-ended bulbs pushing their way up through the soil.
At the tips of those bulbous heads grew long, needle-like spikes, densely packed like a bed of nails.
The seeds of the spiked gourd, sown between the brambles, had germinated at just the right time.
“What the hell are those now?”
As confusion spread among the subjugation army at the sudden appearance of the spiked gourds—
Boom!
The gourds exploded.
No one had touched them, but they detonated on their own.
The sharp thorns covering their surface were hurled in every direction by the pressure of the blast.
“Ugh! Aaaargh!”
“What—what is this?!”
Soldiers were swept off their feet, struck by the rain of spikes flying like bullets.
It had happened so suddenly that there was no time to react.
While clearing the brambles, no one had expected a long-range counterattack to erupt from within them.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
All around, the spiked gourds exploded one after another, spitting a storm of spikes like shrapnel.
The downpour of thorns tore through the mortar squads; caught off guard, the ranged units suffered heavy casualties.
“Retreat!”
“Bring the mages forward!”
Finally, the war mages stepped in.
The defensive barriers they conjured easily deflected the flying spikes.
Some of them sharpened the air into blades, slicing through the newly sprouted gourd bulbs before they could explode.
Severed gourds rolled harmlessly across the ground, never detonating.
Once the mages joined, the chaotic battle began to stabilize.
Still, the war mages’ expressions were grim.
In truth, there should have been no need for them to intervene at all. The infantry and armored divisions’ overwhelming firepower were supposed to handle everything.
But the infantry had fallen helplessly, and the once-mighty armored divisions led by tanks and steam golems had suffered crippling losses.
In the end, the war mages had been forced to step in.
In modern warfare, war mages were not meant to lead the charge.
They appeared later in battle, overwhelming the enemy with concentrated firepower once the frontline stabilized, while being protected by soldiers.
Even their so-called “mobile casting formations,” designed for fighting on the move, were born from the need for safety—not heroism.
For all their power, mages were still meant to attack from secure positions. That was the basic rule of modern combat.
So when war mages were the first to enter the fray—
—it was an admission that their side was at a disadvantage.
Not knowing the enemy’s full strength, they had no choice but to step forward to minimize casualties, but none of them felt comfortable doing it.
Mages who were supposed to be protected had now been forced into the danger zone.
Just like now.
Ssshhh—
From beneath the dark clouds, long shapes began to rise above the black forest of vines.
They were flowers.
Their buds bloomed wide, crimson petals glistening like they were soaked in blood, and then turned their heads toward the assembled war mages.
Whoosh!
Yellow energy gathered at the center of each blossom, trailing behind like a comet as it shot forward.
“Bombardment incoming! Take cover!”
The yellow projectiles struck the shields and exploded.
The barriers that had easily deflected the spiked shards trembled violently under the flowers’ high-energy blasts.
It was a blatant, concentrated assault aimed directly at the mages.
“Reinforce the shield!”
“Second Defense Company, step up!”
But the war mages were not so easily crushed.
There were hundreds of them on the field—an immense number for any army.
Even if they were merely the vanguard and more reinforcements were still disembarking along the coast, their number already exceeded five hundred.
Still, five hundred mages did not automatically mean five hundredfold power.
That was why they had divided their roles in advance—offense and defense.
The defensive mages took turns maintaining shields, while the offensive mages, secured behind them, unleashed devastating counterfire.
It was reminiscent of the line infantry tactics of the musket wars, except now it was mages doing it—and the synergy was astonishing.
The bombardment flowers that should have inflicted serious damage instead burst into flames, were sliced apart by wind blades, scorched by lightning, or frozen solid in midair.
The war mages advanced like a storm, sweeping away the wall of thorns.
Even though the vines had enhanced resistance to magic, such defenses meant nothing before sheer firepower.
“So, it ends like this.”
Ambella flicked her burned-out cigar to the ground and clicked her tongue.
In the time it took a single cigar to burn out, the wall of thorns had been completely destroyed.
It was proof of how fast the enemy’s response had been.
“Still, I knew it would come to this.”
Even if the first line had been breached, this was only the first defensive perimeter.
They had prepared far more beyond it.
“Let’s show them—why the Burke family is unmatched in defense.”
At Ambella’s command, the druids began preparing their next spell.
The soldiers who had just broken through the forest of thorns began to cheer at the open terrain ahead—only to choke on their breath.
“What... what is that now?”
Spread out before their eyes was a vast, endless field of flowers.