The battlefield had become a surreal collision of three distinct forces. There was the mechanical discipline of the Guild army, the desperate engineering of Valeria's fortress, and now, the chaotic fury of the Spirit World.
When the spectral stag screamed, sound did not ripple through the air. Instead, a shockwave of pure mana pulsed through the ground. The snow, which had been packed hard by the boots of three hundred soldiers, suddenly heaved upward.
It began with the remaining War-Behemoth. The massive construct of flesh and steel was preparing to charge the gate again when the earth beneath it liquefied. Massive roots, glowing with the same silver light as the World Tree, erupted from the permafrost. They were not wood. They looked like solidified light. They wrapped around the Behemoth's legs, anchoring it to the ground. The creature roared, its gears grinding as it tried to step forward, but the roots held fast. They tightened, slicing through the necrotic flesh like wire through cheese.
"Nature magic," Lady Lysandra observed from her position in the rear. She did not look frightened. She looked bored. "How quaint. The land thinks it is alive."
She snapped her black feather fan shut. "Show it what true death looks like."
The mages surrounding her shifted their chanting. The green fire skulls stopped falling on the fort. Instead, a wave of grey, oily mist rolled out from their formation. It crept across the snow, moving against the wind. Where it touched the glowing roots, the silver light flickered and died. The roots turned black, withered, and crumbled into ash. The spectral stag let out a pained cry as the mist touched its hooves, and the spirit dissolved into motes of light.
"Blight," the Duke hissed, standing beside Valeria on the wall. "She is killing the soil to kill the magic. If that mist reaches the greenhouse, it will poison the World Tree."
Valeria watched the grey tide advancing. It was slow, but it was relentless. The spectral defense had bought them minutes, not hours.
"Caspian!" Valeria shouted down to the yard. "The alkaline spray! Can it stop the Blight?"
Caspian was currently dousing a section of the wall that was sizzling with acid. He looked at the creeping mist.
"No!" the Shark yelled back. "That is not acid! It is necrotic mana! Water will just carry it faster!"
Valeria's mind raced. She opened the System Ledger in her mind, frantically scrolling through the Library's index. Agriculture. Botany. magical Plant Pathology.
She found it. [Phytoremediation]. The process by which certain plants absorbed heavy metals and toxins from the soil to clean it. But she didn't have weeks to grow sunflowers. She had seconds.
"I need a filter," Valeria muttered. "A biological sponge."
She turned to Kael. "The Spirit Wheat. How much do we have harvested in the barn?"
"Five sacks," Kael said, confused. "Why? Are we baking bread?"
"Get it!" Valeria ordered. "And get the oil! We are going to farm."
While Kael ran to the barn, Valeria turned to Ignis. The Dragon was still slumped against the ballista, clutching his throat. The Resonance Cannon shot had drained him.
"Ignis, I need one more spell," Valeria said, kneeling beside him. "Not a roar. I need heat. Gentle, widespread heat. Can you warm the ground in front of the gate?"
Ignis wheezed, nodding weakly. "I can... maintain a thermal field. But I cannot project it far."
"Fifty yards is enough," Valeria said.
Kael returned with the sacks of grain and the casks of oil.
"Soak the wheat in the oil," Valeria commanded. "Thorne! Get your Bears! I need throwers! Everyone who can throw a rock, grab a handful of grain!"
The plan was insane. It relied on the accelerated growth properties of the Spirit Wheat when exposed to high mana concentrations. The valley was currently saturated with mana from the World Tree's distress signal. If they added Ignis's heat and the nutrient-rich oil...
"Lucian!" Valeria called. "You are the seeder. Take the first bag. Fly over the blight line. Drop it right in the path of the mist."
Lucian grabbed a heavy sack, his wings straining. "Planting during a siege. You really are a farmer, Commander."
He took off, staying low to avoid the Guild archers. He flew over the advancing grey mist and inverted the sack. Golden grain, slick with oil, rained down onto the blackened snow.
"Ignis! Now!"
The Dragon closed his eyes. He placed his hands on the stone of the wall. He didn't push fire out; he pushed warmth. The snow in front of the gate began to steam.
"Grow," Valeria whispered, channeling her own intent into the land.
The reaction was explosive.
The Spirit Wheat, bred in the mana-rich soil of the Sanctuary, hit the ground. It felt the heat. It felt the mana. It felt the threat of the Blight.
And it fought back.
Stalks of wheat shot up from the snow like spears. They didn't grow inches; they grew feet in seconds. A wall of golden vegetation erupted between the fort and the Guild army.
The Blight mist hit the wheat. The plants absorbed the necrotic energy. The golden stalks turned black and died instantly, but in doing so, they sucked the poison out of the air.
"Keep throwing!" Valeria screamed to the Bears on the wall.
Thorne and his men grabbed handfuls of the oily grain and hurled them over the battlements. Where the seeds landed, new wheat sprang up, replacing the dead layer. It was a biological barrier, a living shield that ate death and died so the land behind it could live.
Lady Lysandra watched her Blight mist being neutralized by a rapidly growing field of wheat. Her polite smile finally faltered.
"Annoying," she muttered. "Burn it."
"We can't, Mistress," one of her mages stammered. "The wheat... it is absorbing the fire mana too. It is Spirit class vegetation. It eats magic."
Lysandra's eyes narrowed. "Fine. If magic fails, use steel. Infantry! Advance! Cut down the weeds and breach the gate!"
The Guild tortoise formation broke. Three hundred heavy infantry drew their swords and axes. They marched into the wheat field, hacking at the thick stalks that were now tall enough to hide a man.
"They are entering the field," the Duke said, gripping his hammer. "We can't use the ballistae. We can't see them."
"We don't need to see them," Valeria said. "We just changed the battlefield. They are heavy infantry in full plate armor, marching through thick vegetation and mud."
She looked at Kael.
"They are slow. They are blind. And they are in your element."
Kael grinned. It was a terrifying expression. His golden eyes flared.
"Jungle warfare," Kael rumbled.
"Take the Bears," Valeria ordered. "Take Silas. Go into the wheat. Hit and run. Don't stand and fight. Bite, slash, and vanish."
Kael let out a low roar. He jumped from the wall, landing in the snow with a thud. Silas followed, moving like a grey shadow. Thorne and twenty of the strongest liberated slaves grabbed their picks and chains and leaped after them.
They vanished into the golden sea.
What followed was not a battle. It was a massacre.
The Guild soldiers were disoriented. The wheat was waist-high and dense, tangling their legs. They couldn't form shield walls. They couldn't see more than five feet ahead.
Suddenly, a golden blur exploded from the stalks. Kael didn't use his axe. He used his claws. He tore through the lead soldier's breastplate like it was paper, tossed the man aside, and vanished back into the grain before the man's comrade could swing his sword.
"Contact right!" a sergeant screamed.
"Contact left!" another yelled as Silas hamstrung a soldier and dragged him down.
The Bears were brutal. They used their mining picks to hook shields and pull the soldiers down into the mud, where the heavy armor became a coffin.
Screams echoed from the field. The wheat shook violently as invisible predators tore the Guild formation apart from the inside.
On the hill, Lady Lysandra watched her army disintegrate.
"Enough," she said coldly.
She raised her hand. The Necromancer was done playing with pawns.
"Raise," she commanded.
The soldiers who had just died in the field... they didn't stay dead.
Kael was about to strike another soldier when the man he had just killed grabbed his ankle. The corpse's eyes were glowing green.
"Undead!" Kael roared. "Fall back!"
The fallen Guild soldiers stumbled to their feet, their wounds glowing with necrotic light. They turned on the beastmen with unnatural strength.
"She is raising them instantly," the Duke gasped. "She is turning the battlefield into a graveyard loop."
Valeria saw the tide turning. Her guerilla squad was about to be overwhelmed by an enemy that wouldn't stay down.
"Get them out of there!" Valeria shouted.
"They are cut off!" Ignis cried, pointing. "The zombies have encircled them!"
Valeria looked at her options. She had no explosives. She had no army. Her husbands were trapped in a field of zombies.
She needed a weapon that could destroy undead en masse.
She looked at the sky. It was noon, but the winter sun was weak, hidden behind clouds.
"Light," she whispered. "Undead hate light."
She grabbed the Merchant's Monocle. She adjusted the lens, zooming in on the greenhouse.
The World Tree sapling. It was a being of pure life. Its light was the antithesis of Necromancy.
"Caspian!" Valeria yelled. "The mirror array! The one we built for the greenhouse heating!"
To save heating fuel, Valeria and Ignis had built a system of polished tin reflectors to bounce sunlight into the greenhouse during the day.
"Turn them!" Valeria ordered. "Aim them at the sapling!"
"At the tree?" Caspian asked. "It will burn!"
"Do it!"
Caspian ran to the roof controls. He cranked the levers. The large tin mirrors on the roof shifted. They caught the weak sunlight and focused it into a single, intense beam, directing it straight down through the greenhouse roof, onto the silver sapling.
The sapling absorbed the concentrated solar energy. It pulsed. It vibrated.
"Release it!" Valeria screamed mentally to the tree. "Push back!"
The tree obeyed.
It didn't release a root. It released a pulse of blinding, pure white light. The greenhouse glass exploded outward, unable to contain the energy.
A shockwave of Holy Light swept across the valley.
It washed over the wall. It washed over the wheat field.
When the light hit the undead soldiers, they didn't explode. They simply ceased to function. The necrotic mana animating them was scrubbed clean by the overwhelming surge of life energy. They dropped like puppets with cut strings.
The living Guild soldiers, blinded and terrified by the sudden celestial flash, threw down their weapons and ran. They scrambled out of the wheat, tripping over their fallen comrades, fleeing back toward Lysandra.
The flash faded.
The valley was silent again. The greenhouse was shattered, shards of glass glinting in the snow. The sapling stood exposed to the cold air, its leaves drooping, its light dim. It had spent everything.
Kael, Silas, and the Bears stood in the flattened wheat, panting, surrounded by piles of true corpses.
Lysandra stood alone on the hill, her personal guard having retreated a few steps in fear. She looked at the shattered greenhouse. She looked at the decimated infantry.
She smoothed her white fur coat.
"Well played," she whispered, her voice carrying over the silence.
She turned to her remaining mages.
"Recall the Behemoth. We are leaving."
"Leaving, Mistress?" a mage asked, trembling. "But the mission..."
"The mission was to suppress a rebellion," Lysandra said, walking back to her carriage. "This is not a rebellion. This is a Holy War. I need more mana."
She climbed into her carriage.
"And I need bigger monsters."
The Guild army began to withdraw. It was a disciplined retreat, but a retreat nonetheless. They left their dead in the field.
Valeria slumped against the cold stone of the battlement. Her legs gave out. She slid down until she was sitting on the walkway, her head in her hands.
"They're gone," the Duke said, sitting down heavily beside her. He looked grey. "For now."
"We broke the greenhouse," Valeria mumbled, staring at the ruins of her most precious asset. "The cold will kill the tree."
"No," Ignis said, limping up the stairs. "Look."
Valeria looked.
The glass was gone. The cold wind was biting. But the World Tree was not freezing. The spectral stag had returned. It was lying down next to the sapling, curling its body around the trunk. Then a spectral bear appeared. Then a fox.
The spirits were using their own bodies to shield the tree from the winter.
"The Sanctuary holds," Ignis whispered.
Valeria let out a laugh that sounded half like a sob.
"We survived," she said.
Suddenly, the Duke coughed. It was a wet, hacking sound. He doubled over, clutching his chest.
"Your Grace?" Valeria asked, alarmed.
The Duke pulled his hand away from his mouth. His glove was covered in black blood.
"It seems," the Duke wheezed, his eyes losing focus, "that Lysandra... left a parting gift."
He collapsed sideways.
Valeria scrambled to him. She tore open his coat.
On his chest, right over his heart, a green necrotic rune was glowing. It was spreading like gangrene, black veins shooting out across his skin.
[System Diagnosis: Necrotic Curse (Rank A).]
[Time to Death: 24 Hours.]
[Cure: Unknown.]
"Ignis!" Valeria screamed. "Help him!"
Ignis knelt, his hands glowing with diagnostic magic. He shook his head.
"This is a Soul-Rot Curse," Ignis said, his voice grave. "I cannot heal this. It eats life energy."
"We have to save him," Valeria said, panic rising. "He is our shield. If he dies, the Tribunal dies. And the Guild wins."
"There is only one thing that can stop an A-Rank Curse," Ignis said, looking at the exposed World Tree. "Pure Life Essence. But the tree is drained. It won't produce another leaf for a month."
Valeria looked at the dying Duke. She looked at the exhausted tree.
Then she remembered the Library.
"Renard mentioned it," she whispered. "He said a leaf could heal a dying King. But we don't have a leaf."
She stood up. Her eyes were hard.
"We don't need a leaf," Valeria said. "We need a root."
"You want to harvest a root?" Ignis asked, horrified. "It might kill the tree!"
"Or it might save the man who can save us all," Valeria said. "Get him to the kitchen. I'm going to perform surgery."
She looked at the retreating Guild army on the horizon.
"The siege isn't over," Valeria vowed. "We just entered the second phase."