A few days have passed since Adam took Yumud in as a subordinate. During that time, many of the concepts got closer to her, but none as much as Caravela.
Caravela got along with Yumud extremely well, a lot of it due to Caravela being a concept whose main purpose is to travel in water. With both of their helps, the team was quickly approaching the coast of the concept of nature, Tapio's domain.
A day before arrival, Caravela and Yumud spotted a human shaped fire getting closer and closer. It was Pyro, the concept of fire, who had come to give Adam information about his next foe.
"Adam, how are you doing you little rascal? Haven't seen you for quite a while."
"I'm doing alright, how about you, Pyro."
"Me, I'm doing great. I heard you defeated Yumud, how you've grown since I taught you how to use your creation power to ignite a small fire."
"Well, what can I say, you made a good investment that day."
"Guess I did... anyways, you know why I came here, right?"
"Of course, you came with the information about Tapio right?"
"Yeah, and this time I will be able to help you out."
"Oh, so you aren't going to chicken out his time?"
"H-hey, you know that was just because Yumud countered my powers!"
"I know, I was just toying with you. You should've seen your face."
"Not cool man!"
"Anyways, since you brought her up I think I should tell you that she is now my subordinate."
Pyro started laughing uncontrollably while Adam stood there looking at him.
"Wait, are you serious?"
"I am."
"So you got even stronger!"
"True, we will have time later, for now, let's just go and talk strategy with the rest of our forces."
"Sure, just give me a bit of time to rest."
"Okay, go to the crow's nest in about 20 minutes, we'll see you then."
"Got it."
While we give Pyro some much needed rest time, let's talk about the way a concept grows stronger.
A concept's strength increases the more and stronger subordinates that concept has. This is because swearing allegiance to another concept means the power necessary to use your concept's power, not the ability you wield, but the power necessary to use it.
Back to the crow's nest, where Adam and his forces are hearing the information that Pyro brought them.
"Tapio is a mighty foe. As the concept of nature, he controls all manner of plants and animals, rocks and even the way temperature rises and drops."
"So, what you're saying is that Tapio's ability kit is very diverse?"
"That's correct Adam, but is not only diverse, all of his abilities are powerful."
"How powerful are we talking? Adam level powerful or me level of power?"
Asked Tsara.
"If I'm not wrong, it should be more powerful than a combined attack from the two of you."
"And he just throws attacks like that casually?"
"Yup, that appears to be the case Greed."
"And what king of weaknesses does Tapio have?"
Asked Adam
"So, Tapio is surprisingly weak against fire, but really he is weak against anything that does area destruction."
"So your going to be our muscle with Garb helping you. Yumud is going to be the support, with the help of Morrigan[1]'s, the concept of lust's, crowd control ability."
"I have two questions for you Adam."
"Ask away greed."
"Firstly, are you saying you want lust to seduce the concepts of animals under Tapio."
"I really wanted to avoid putting it that way."
"Alright... My second question is where me you and Tsara fit in this plan."
"Glad you asked that. I will be helping Tsara evolve so we can deal a significant final blow, your job is only to make sure nothing happens to us."
"So you want me to protect you?"
"That's right. If possible, bring Kain along, we are sure you two would excel at this task."
"We got nothing to lose from it, so I'm in."
"Adam, we will make sure to damage Tapio so you can defeat him."
Said Pyro.
"Thanks for the support. We will get to land tomorrow, but not just any land, Tapio's territory, so make sure you are all rested up by then."
So, our conceptual heroes went to bed, knowing tomorrow was when they would have to fight their most powerful opponent yet.
On a deep swamp area, a huge figure stood up.
"So they have arrived... Are the war preparations finished?"
What is nature?
Nature is usually said to be all that exists without human intervention, be it flora, fauna, a stone or the air around us.
The concept of nature, known as Tapio, has bark like armour on his legs, arms and belly. Has a deer skull on his right shoulder and is made entirely of mud and eyes made of ruby. He does not like to be disturbed, as he is known to only fight with concepts who attacked him first, making sure they never try to mess with him again.
Time passed and with it did Adam's thoughts, which were now making him understand that every single person around him was going to need him not to mess up, as if he does, it might put everyone, including himself, at risk. that was the first time Adam felt nervous, which meant he had unveiled a new layer of his existence.
We have all experienced it at some point. That feeling that wraps around our throats during a presentation, a job interview or even when we want to ask someone out on a date. That feeling is nervousness. This feeling appears when we feel the weight of what our future actions might do, and as such our mind goes blank, we cannot talk without a stutter or without a bit of awkward silence. But we still have to do what we need to, so we push forwards, doing our best to make the correct choices.
Adam brushed his nervousness aside, as he knew to trust in those around himself, just as much as he trusted them.
With this, the sun soon rose and land was spotted just as everyone from both sides prepared themselves for a big fight.
[1] The concept of lust, Morrigan, was named after Morrigan Aensland, a succubus hailing from the Darkstalkers series.