Seeing the soul trees sway in the wind, Ann was amazed by how similar they looked to all the Snow Wood trees around them.
Unfortunately, it appears as though she jinxed it because those thoughts turned to reality as the roots of the trees within a mile, half a mile for each squirrel respectively, intertwined with the soul trees. The trees glowed with the brown spirituality of the squirrels, growing rapidly.
Now, both Ann and the bird man were surrounded by towering trees, their thick roots ready to pounce as they slapped the ground
"Haha, since you're in our domain now, how about you stay here… forever!"
After the pretentious squirrel spoke, the thousands of roots lying in wait suddenly jumped from the ground, eager to pierce them.
The bird immediately flew up into the air, taking away at least half of the roots coming after Ann.
Ann on the other hand, wildly cleaved the roots by the dozens. Luckily, because the roots of the trees were only covered with a thin veil of squirrel juice, Ann was able to break it and the roots with sheer force. However, that veil made it incomparably easy for the roots to hurt and even kill her.
However, you and I both know it wouldn't be this easy, and so Ann encountered her first obstacle.
With a hard thud, Ann crashed into the ground mildly confused. Soon, though, she realized the issue.
As it turned out, the root she had just tried to slash was an imposter among the normal roots. The root was from the soul tree, but it had taken up shelter in a normal root, wearing it as a sleeve. As a result, Ann had been unable to penetrate the root almost entirely made of soul juice, leading to the collision.
If it wasn't for her refractor shield, which took the brunt of the force, she could have been seriously injured. Unfortunately, this continued for what felt like minutes on end of her getting absolutely clobbered.
This had to end.
She chose this path because of how quick it would be and she was indeed confident in her abilities, however there was a time and a place for them. Right now, she preferred to hold off to save as much energy as possible, like any sane person would. Yet, she now found herself lacking.
She had no way to distinguish between these roots and while she can take her favorite route of brute forcing it and destroying every single one, again, that would be contradictory to saving energy. Plus, her fetal organ was still in recovery so she doesn't want to rely on it to recover her soul juice and injuries.
In the end, she would either have to create a way to perceive the differences on the spot, which was laughable, or to basically just go full balls to the walls.
She would have to decide quickly because with each time she was struck, she would have to rebuild her shield and thus trying to save energy would be rendered useless.
Ann even felt it was unfortunate that she didn't have a eureka moment and invent something completely new, but she immediately resolved those emotions. After all, she was brutish.
And as if to show this, Ann directly unsummoned everything before activating something she had been saving since the start of this fight.
Immediately, rays of light burst forth from her body, turning into a giant over thirty feet tall. Now inside of the soul avatar's chest, Ann could feel its power. However, she could also feel how much energy she was losing and thus chose not to dilly-dally.
The giant took a step, instantly turning the plant-life under it into ashes. The snow melted and the ground quaked as the giant continued moving towards the soul trees, intent on ending this show right quick.
However, roots immediately tried to stop it, yet couldn't. As soon as they pierced the giant's body, it was like they entered a furnace, burning up quicker than a piece of paper. Even those imposter roots were not spared as they were captured by the giant's hands, acting almost as a leash which pulled the trees closer and closer.
The trees being partially uprooted immediately caught the attention of the two squirrels, both of which were shocked to see a white giant stand in the place of what they thought was a human. Of course, while they couldn't see Ann inside the giant, they assumed it was just one of her tricks.
Yet, this was the moment the bird was waiting for.
This was their moment to shine! Literally!
With the flourishing of a skill, the wind once again was called upon by the bird. Instantly, it shrouded the bird, acting almost like a membrane which protected it and boosted its speed.
However, the next part is very important to the plotline. Please, pay attention dear reader.
The bird, finding the squirrels distracted, easily took advantage and did a risky thing.
He activated a second consecutive skill.
The flourishing of both skills through his body were like two raging rivers colliding, the power of which destroyed the surrounding land.
Instantly, parts of his body burst open as the points where both skills intersected shone like starlight through the bloody holes.
The windy membrane ignited, growing into a majestic fiery bird not unlike a phoenix. And although the squirrels sensed the threat, they were unable to react completely in time as the fiery birds movements were too fast.
With a gust of wind, the two soul trees were cut down. When the squirrels, who had been at the top of the two trees, came to, they found that even their tails had been cut off. The wound was cauterized, causing a searing pain to creep up their spines.
Enraged, the squirrels immediately pocketed their tails for the sake of reattachment, but the rage was very quickly replaced with fear as they saw the bird dive bombing them.
They separated, just barely dodging the strike which left a flaming pit in the ground.
Now, the squirrels no longer dared to dawdle. Much like Ann, the desire to end this fight skyrocketed. And just like Ann, their go to method was indeed the soul avatar. They even glanced at each other with a tacit understanding that this would be the end.
With no hesitation, the two activated their avatars, which seemed to lead to a strange development.
Very quickly, their bodies dried up and withered, leaving behind what was almost like a shell. With almost no strength left, the two pulled out a blood-red seed and dropped it onto the ground.
With contemptuous smiles on their faces, they watched as the seeds burrowed into the dirt. Then, as if on cue, the ground began shaking once more. Worse yet, the land around the squirrels turned gray and dry, like it had the life sucked out of it. Anything that wasn't of Snow Wood origin was drained.
The shaking quickly became worse, and before Ann or the bird could do anything, the shaking completely stopped.
Then, two pairs of hands popped out of the ground, pulling themselves out. Now, standing only one or two feet taller than the squirrels themselves were copies made of a blood-red tree.
The only thing not red about these wooden creatures were the bright green leaves which covered their head and tail.
Their red eyes stared first at Ann, then looked down at the pit. They quickly decided who was more of a threat and rushed towards it.
Thorny branches shot out of the squirrels' outstretched arms, covering the pit in an intricate sphere. Taking out the sphere, it was clear that the fiery bird had been captured.
In fact, the bird man was beginning to panic. Of course, naturally he wouldn't let himself get captured in a pit willingly, but simply put, the branches were unkillable.
Well, sort of. In reality, with the strength of two skills, he was able to get through the first layer of branches, but the second was the problem. By the time he got through the second layer, the first layer had mysteriously healed. Thus, he would just continuously cut through branches till the end of time at this point.
So yes, he was beginning to panic because he didn't have much juice left to spare and the thorns were starting to look extra pointy as the sphere slowly closed on itself.
Ann, on the other hand, had been stuck for a little while. And by that I meant that she was simply amazed by the feat the bird had shown her. It just goes to show that while sigils and rune formations have their advantages, skills also have their own advantages.
And this led to the question of how she could save the bird man. To her, it was obvious that the weakness of the enemy was the enemy themselves as their bodies were currently greatly weakened. However, given the wooden nature of these avatars, certainly they wouldn't be this limited in their movements. Surely they could spare a few thorny branches for her right?
In conclusion, isn't the only way to help is to level up her strength?
But wasn't the soul avatar for that? Maybe if she had her fetal organ, but without it?
In the end, isn't her only other choice to go down the same route as this bird? Yet, all she had was her sigil and rune formations; these were all rigid and couldn't combine like the organic skills seemingly could.
The only skill she knew was this soul avatar.
Meanwhile, she also knew what she called a "reverse skill", the star-maned lion… wait.