Later the next morning and when the sky was just beginning to light up, Emrys was up and moving towards the closest nest of harpies. They don't normally inhabit any part of the forest for too long. opting to stay on the move and migrate often.
But Emrys knows of a nearby nest that they use when staying in the area. He began moving through the forest with haste but somehow leaving the plants and shrubbery completely unharmed in the process.
Whenever he stopped to absorb some water from a nearby stream he noticed something odd about the nearby area. Not only did he feel that something was off but he couldn't sense the presence of any animals. No Jackrabbits, large Tusked Boars, or Valhalla's.
They would often frequent this area yet they were nowhere to be found. Emrys took a hard look around to see what he could see. There was the stream that he was just getting water from. It was quite a distance from the tree line so one could not be snuck upon very easily.
Just then out of the blue he saw a flock of birds that had been disturbed and took flight in the distance. It wasn't that far out from where he was right now. He took off in that direction with all haste.
Something must be wrong for him to feel this way and there was what the Griffin said about the Harpies.
He ran as best as he could with his old wooden body, creaking with every step. That's when he saw it up ahead. A portion of the forest had been afflicted by something Emrys had not seen this close to the heart of the forest.
It was the corruption that the demons left in their wake.
"It shouldn't be here. Not this close." He thought to himself. His anger boiling. Of course he knows that the demons have been steadily taking over more and more of his beloved forest. But this was much to close to all the things he tried with great effort to protect.
This made his anger rise to unimaginable levels. As his anger grew, so did his size. Normally, he could be seen as a pretty big six foot tall walking humanoid tree. He slowly grew to be at least eight feet tall and twice as sturdy while moving towards the vile corruption.
The leaves were already rotting and turning reddish black. The roots were turning to dust and any fruit became toxic and poisonous.
Standing just on the edge of the corruption was one of the most horrible creatures one could see in their lifetimes. Just looking upon it would make you sick and nauseous. It had only two arms but they split into four at the elbow.
It had a face full of tentacles and deadly claws. It looked like something you would see on the bottom of the ocean in your nightmares.
Emrys charged forward without any hesitation. The demon was busy spreading as much of the corruption as it could to gain more territory for its kind.
While it had its back turned, Emrys ran and slammed into the demon at full force with his own body. The demon was momentarily stunned.
"Its you!" The demon said. Its voice sounded like rubbing two stones together.
"You will...not...tread here!" Emrys roared and ran at the demon. He stretched out his arms like he was going in for a hug but instead large roots extended from each of his hands and tried to grasp the demon.
The demon tried to tear away the roots but was having trouble getting all of them so he opted to attack instead.
He used a skill only demons posses that lets them cover their bodies in hell fire. Its the type of fire that cant be dosed by normal means. When he erupted into flames, Emrys was immediately covered, his roots burning away and his body getting scorched in the process.
"This land will be ours guardian! All of your brothers and sisters are dead and soon you'll join them!" He struck out with his claws and dug deep into the wood on Emrys's chest.
The demon thought this fight was over with those two moves, there's no way anyone could survive such an attack.
But that's exactly what Emrys was, a survivor.
Emrys reached out with enhanced speed and struck the demon right in the throat and while he was gurgling and gasping for air, he hit him again and again. Each time hitting a critical spot.
The demon was overwhelmed. Even with attacks that had no magic power behind them and a scorched and weakened body he was losing this battle.
If he fails to claim this area of the forest then his kin will have him lashed to a cross.
Emrys knew he couldn't kill this demon or any other with normal attacks, he just wanted to buy himself some time.
At almost the exact same time, Emrys and the demon prepared their final attacks. The demon readied his left hand covered in hellfire. Emrys pulled back his right hand and morphed it into the shape of a spike and covered it in his mana.
They both struck and hit each other. The demon hit Emrys and partially burned of his shoulder. But Emrys made a direct hit to the demons core.
The core lies in the center of a demons chest cavity and is the source of both their life and their power.
"This can't be...!" The demon finally disintegrated into ashes with a look of defeat.
As for Emrys, he was still, dormant. He used too much power fighting this demon and now he has to recover.
His body was badly burnt and the corruption had even began spreading to his body as well. Even by night fall he was still frozen in the same state. He was slowly starting to heal but it would take too long and the corruption would take him before he could move again.
Things looked dire, until a small creature emerged from the woods with a worried look on its face. Like it was afraid it might become corrupted as well.
But it put on a brave face and approached where Emrys, who might as well be a statue at this point, was still standing frozen. The creature inspected Emrys and then left just as quickly after inspecting the state of the treant.
Only a couple of minutes later the small creature reappeared with a odd looking blue stone. It shone with a dim light and looked quite rare, although even the creature did not know how rare it really was.
It flew up above Emrys with its tiny wings and held out the stone. The stone slowly got brighter and then all of a sudden a stream of water was ejected out and landed on Emrys. The water flowed freely from Emrys's head all the way down to his feet.
Not much time had passed before the creature became more and more exhausted until the water finally stopped pouring out of the stone.
Sadly there was no change in the state of the treant, but the creature looked satisfied for today and left.
It was unclear what its goal was at this point. For the next few days the same creature emerged from the forest, poured water onto Emrys, and then left.
At first nothing happened, but then Emrys slowly began reforming. It was a very slow and small amount but it was something.
The creature that was doing all this turned out to be one of the pixies that lived in the west side of the forest. This pixie had never met Emrys before, but it did know that every single day there was always a sizeable amount of the pixies favorite berries hung on a tree just outside their territory.
It had never known who or why these berries were always left there for them so one day it decided to wake up early and try to catch whoever it was.
Of course it was surprised to see one of the guardians of the forest carry a bucket full of berries and leave it at the same tree.
The reason why this was such a big deal is because the only place that the berries grew were smack in the middle of goblin territory. Now goblins aren't that strong compared to most other creatures that inhabit the forest but they were the natural predators of pixies.
Therefor they could not approach the berry bushes without getting snatched right out of the air and eaten. So the fact that the guardian took time out of his day to provide them of their favorite food was something they would not forget.
So one day when the berries stopped showing up, one of the warrior pixies decided to investigate. That's when it chanced upon a scary looking demon fighting the guardian.
It tried to get as close as it could to the fight without giving itself away. There was no way it was going to get caught in the middle of a fight between two of the strongest creatures in the forest.
Then it started thinking about why there was even a demon this far south anyways. The rifts that the demons emerge from are on the north side of the forest and for years the demons have been slowly gaining more ground then before.
The pixies had even moved from their previous territory just to get farther away from the demons. After the gruesome fight was finished the pixie was relieved to see that the guardian had won, although just barely.
After checking to see if he was still alive, it vowed to do whatever it could to try and help the guardian. To repay him for his kindness.