Her fist met the coating above my palm and the frightening momentum of her punch was transferred to the coating. The coating was made up of many layers of void. As the force passed through them it weakened with each layer as a part of it was reduced to void. Before it could penetrate through all the layers the force of the punch was diminished and faded away. I had successfully neutralized her punch.
Rose's eyes flared up with one last bit of raging red hot temperament as the ground rumbled.
"Someone like them shouldn't have a home to return to. They aren't worthy of the oasis that harbors them!"
The ground right below her rumbled again and with an earthquake of magnitude four or maybe a little higher a pulse rushed with her as the epicenter.
As the pulse neared our oasis it immediately faded as if it had wanted to avoid it. However, in all other directions, the pulse didn't lose strength at all. This was no normal earthquake!
Nature in this realm was sparse but it held power. Rose, for some reason unknown to me, had always been loved by nature. Enough for her to be called the beloved child of nature amongst druids and dryads.
Her incensed words spoken in a moment of pure outrage had been heard and I truly felt pity for those who lived in fortress city. With just a single bad decision of an individual, they had all lost the very basis their lives depended upon.
I wasn't sure how bad it was going to be but we'd surely face more adversity from now on. Well, no use to complain now.
"You alright now Rose?"
"Yeah, sorry that I lost control again."
"Don't be sorry, you managed to hold on to a bit of your sanity, didn't you? That's already an improvement. If you can reach the point where you can willingly enter and exit this state it will become a powerful weapon."
"And when will that be? Even you gave up on mastering it. How am I supposed to succeed?"
"I haven't given up, I'm just taking a break. Touching upon those feelings too much won't do me any good."
After this, we collected the leftover materials that could be harvested from the gods and walked back towards the oasis. The battle here had mostly concluded. It would seem that after making sure we had the gods under control Red joined in and completely crushed the o so mighty buns.
After seeing him cut down foes left and right the remaining buns had decided to surrender. They were all wrapped up by Home's vines now looking dejected at their loss. I looked for the leader but found only his corpse. After entering the wall through the burning breach he seemed to have encountered Puri and lost his life in combat.
A shame, capturing their leader would certainly have revealed some inside information. Since that wasn't an option anymore I searched around for any of the others that had taken part in the planning of the attack.
And looky there, at the side of the sand ramp lay a half-buried body with only the lower part sticking out of the sand. Any bypasser would think that he was dead or unconscious but I could feel a very active mind from that body. Upon closer inspection, I spied a small tube coming out of the sand behind him.
I decided to mess with him a little. With a wave of my hand, a gust of wind hit the same above him and made it slide directly onto the opening of the tube burying it completely. At first, there was no reaction. Then, the body started to move in twitching motions as if dying but the real purpose was to shake the tube free from the sand.
After the tube had been freed the body lay still again. Still playing dead after all that? Truly shameless.
I stepped on the tube to make sure no air went through and waited. No more twitching to free the tube this time. I could feel his mind become agitated thinking frantically of a solution. Good luck with that buddy!
Red came walking over and took a look at what I was doing. It didn't take much for him to understand the situation.
"Sometimes you have a real mean streak."
He pulled his sword and plunged it into the sand.
"If you want to live then get up and stop playing dead!"
No reaction. Before Red would actually stab the guy to death I stopped him. This human, Carlson if I remember correctly, had hurried himself deep enough to be unable to come out by himself in a short amount of time. A convincing disguise needed a few risks.
I grabbed one of his legs and yanked him out of the sand. After being pulled so roughly he just lay there taking deep breaths. His face wasn't visible due to being in a bag to keep the sand from entering his eyes, nose, or mouth.
"Looks like we got ourselves a prisoner. He was the one who proposed the plan of attack so he must know a lot."
"Would you mind if I did the interrogating, Abel? I'd like for his mind to be intact should we need him at a later date."
"Empty accusations! I don't break every mind I search. Only the ones that deserve it."
"And that's why I'm worried."
"Fine, you do it then. I'll clean up the mess around here."
Red picked Carlson up, jumped over the wall, and headed for the oasis. With him gone I sent out a stream of magic into the ground and made the wall of sandstone disappear into the sand like it had never been there in the first place.
The captured buns were staring at my casual action outright horror in their eyes.
"Is he a god?"
"No, gods don't walk amongst mortals, he must be a monster in human form."
"Shut up, he can hear us! If you piss him off we'll all die."
They chattered in low voices but some of them seemed to have figured out that I could hear their entire conversation. They quickly went silent as the last thoughts of resisting were purged from their minds.