"It has been a while, hasn't it? My dear orange!" Blood dripped out of the figure's face, one riddled with mutated spores. Peeling skin resulted in embers that smoked out, forming a fleshy cloud around her.
The golden feline she was riding was covered by rust, showing fragile locations throughout its form, twitching and morphing constantly. But then, it took a step forward, causing all the rust and other defects to peel off, revealing a pristine body of gold within.
The figure seated on it grabbed the tip of her nose once and pulled with force, yanking out the entire layer of skin from her body before chucking it into the Sandy-Grey Void, "Now, that's better!"
Her eyes blinked as an instant later, the mouldy flesh within recovered immediately. She didn't have to extract the influence of the Transcendents from her body but instead, the sheer quality of her Prana caused her to recover naturally, neutralising the external influences that sought to change the composition of her body, mind, and soul.
Once the flesh healed, the skin formed, further sprouting luscious hair that naturally braided itself. At the sight of her actual appearance, confusion sprang among the Mammoth Clansmen.
"Yarsha Zahara?" Raaha frowned, "How is she here? And…why is her presence striking fear in us?"
"That's impossible!" Vhalla expressed her disbelief, "Haven't we ensured to instantly annihilate any Parute Tree that appeared in our biomes? How are they able to get information about us?"
"Moreover, she even caught up to us…" Raaha muttered, his expression pale as he looked around, unable to detect Brangara before focusing on Yarsha Zahara, 'What the heck has happened to her? She seems significantly stronger than what Orakha's reports stated.'
"It's Brangara's Tertiary Nature," Right as Raaha's mind reeled into chaos, unable to understand the situation, a Mystic Eater slithered onto his shoulder and whispered in his ear, "He's become a Major Treasure and fused with Yarsha Zahara. The result in this fearsome entity before us."
"They're playing to their advantage." The Mystic Eater continued to speak as more of its kind slithered to the shoulders of the Empyrean Tusks, "Her ability allows her to use all our powers against us, reducing our means to physical combat. And when an opportunity shows itself, Brangara might reveal himself and go in for the kill."
"Even otherwise, she could simply use the Tangible Natures to fight."
"Are you done with your little chat?" Yarsha Zahara acted like she was giving them time to take a breather when in truth, she was using the opportunity to quickly clean her body of all external influences.
'Good, I'm clean now.' She thought as she flexed the muscles in her triceps, adjusting her mind as she used Mystic Sumatra Art to communicate with Brangara through their Information Slip.
[Everyone is here! So, which plan are we going ahead with?]
There was silence for an instant before Yarsha Zahara felt a mild pang in her chest. Her heart became strained a little as her Spirit Container poured more Prana through her bloodstream. That was enough to display Brangara's intention as his voice echoed soon after, bubbling with hatred.
[Capture the ten strongest Empyrean Tusks and kill the rest. I won't be able to sit still without gorging upon their corpses!]
[Calm down and let me handle it. I've been training just for this occasion.]
Considering the sheer number of Empyrean Tusks in the vicinity, irrespective of how much he tried to control himself, hatred began to consume Brangara. Hearing the sounds made by the Empyrean Tusks as they walked, their voices, and even the mere sight of them amplified his anger by a multiple.
In such a state, he was bound to make a mistake, which his enemies obviously wouldn't be shy to not capitalise upon. There was a chance Brangara might die at least once. But considering the sheer quantity of resources necessary to grow a single body of his to maturity, Yarsha Zahara didn't intend to make any mistakes.
'There's just one Mystic Path here.' She thought as she stared at Orakha, 'There's six more of them, each equally dangerous.'
She then noticed Raaha's expression, smirking in response upon seeing the latter's hesitation, "You seem like you have something to say to me. Go ahead. I can at least do you that favour."
"Can't you let bygones be bygones?" Raaha asked while trying to curb the fear he felt, one further amplified in his case as he had two Natures of Internal Inertial Gravity, "We plan to live in hiding here for the rest of our lives. We promise to never come anywhere in the Varahan Empire's sphere of influence. Please, can we not fight…"
"Ha…haha…hahaha!" His words were cut off by Yarsha Zahara's raucous laughter, "Let bygones be bygones? Isn't that too late?"
She slowly tilted her head with an expression of maniacal anger, "You shouldn't have killed my daughters if that were the case. But of course, there is one way we can establish peace between us."
Her expression returned to normalcy as she announced, calmly eyeing all the Empyrean Tusks, "Bring me Resha's head and I'll let go of my hatred."
"It's only fair, right?" Her expression turned fierce, "Bring me the head of the individual who killed my daughters. That's the only way the Mammoth Clan can survive my wrath!"
"Hehe…" She let out a chuckle upon seeing the expressions of every single Empyrean Tusk harden in response, displaying animosity, "Of course, whether it was in the past or now, the Empyrean Tusks have always displayed unusual care for Resha."
"THEN!" Veins popped on her neck as her voice boomed, "FOR WHAT FUCKING REASON DID YOU KILL MY KIDS?"
The ground ruptured as a voracious amount of Prana billowed out of her, the sheer quality of which caused grass to sprout from the ground at speeds where they surpassed her height in a matter of seconds.
"You're all dead!" Taking a step forward, Yarsha Zahara activated a bunch of Nature simultaneously.
Nature—Bone-Melting Artillery!
Nature—Rocky Intimidation!
Nature—Prana Bomb!
Nature—Mudball!
Nature—Comet!
With a grunt, all these material-based Natures combined into a composite, mixed without losing their individual properties. Each was a sphere at first before elongating like an arrow. In a matter of seconds, thousands of such composites hovered in the air around Yarsha Zahara.
And then, using the propulsion power behind the Natures of Bone-Melting Artillery and Comet, these composites blazed through the air and rained down upon the Empyrean Tusks.
Boom!
Four storage lanterns flew into the sky and exploded in their miniature forms, causing the compressed space within to push out, resulting in a powerful shockwave until the inner space expanded enough and merged into the external space.
Each floor of the storage lantern created by the Secondary Nature of an Empyrean Tusk had a volume of 8400 cubic metres, which was compressed to occupy less than a fiftieth of a cubic metre from an external perspective.
Now, when the storage lantern exploded, the compressed space within expanded volumetrically, to more than a hundred thousand times its externally-occupied volume. The generated shockwave was powerful enough to injure even an Attributed Creature, which was exactly what was used here.
The shockwaves sent the composite projectiles flying away from the group of Empyrean Tusks, with many of them redirected at Yarsha Zahara. However, just as they were about to slam into her, they stopped.
Nature—Comet!
A wave of Prana erupted from her being and poured into all the projectiles, activating the power of a Comet in them once again. As a result, the composite projectiles began to accelerate in the direction of the Empyrean Tusks, countering the momentum they carried thanks to the shockwaves.
A few seconds later, once the momentum had been negated, the power of the Comet sent them reeling in the direction of the Empyrean Tusks once again.
"We have to destroy them. Otherwise, they'll keep coming at us." Raaha shouted and blew a powerful shockwave at the composite projectiles.
"Indeed, that's annoying." Yarsha Zahara muttered, nonchalant as she used Subtle Terrain Domination to fuse all material natures into a composite projectile and launched another group of them at the Empyrean Tusks.
She then aimed even higher and continued to launch a volley after another. The ones high up avoided the shockwaves unleashed by the Empyrean Tusks and flew overhead, landing at a location far away from them.
'That bastard used this to annihilate my house at the Varahan Empire.' She grunted for a moment upon recalling the sight of Bone-Melting Artillery turned heavy thanks to Internal Inertial gravity raining down upon the Varahan Estate and reducing it to nothing. Virala was the one behind it.
And now, she was using the same tactic, sending a massive stream of composite projectiles into the sky, enough for them to rain down nonstop for at least a couple of minutes.
"Where's she getting such a large reservoir of Prana to spam this ability?" Raaha continued to unleash bursts of air to push away the composite projectiles, frowning upon noticing them piling up in their surroundings. 'Is she planning to trap us here?'
"You're playing defensively, huh?" Yarsha Zahara muttered, aware that the Mammoth Clan was planning to inspect her abilities before countering her. The piles of composite projectiles she was accumulating in the region were nothing.
An Empyrean Tusk only needed to assume Pranic Beast form and unleash a gust of air from its trunk to push them all away. Heck, even assuming the Prana Beast form generates such a strong tornado that would push away everything.
'But I dare you to do it!' She thought, letting out a mild smile, 'That's when you'll fall right into my trap!'