After such a display most of the humans were ready to flee. The only thing keeping them from doing so was their leader.
"Don't you dare run away! You all know what will happen if we don't finish our mission here today!" shouted the leader.
The other humans visibly cringed when they heard those words. Even so, not a single one of them moved from their spot.
They didn't run away nor did they move in to attack Emrys. Instead Emrys was the one to slowly walk towards them.
With every step forward the humans would make a step in the opposite direction.
"Screw this!" The leader was fed up with these spineless fools he had as underlings. If they wouldn't fight then he would. He tightly gripped a dagger in each hand and rushed forward to meet Emrys.
"What kind of monster are you anyways?" The leader asked while looking for an opportunity to attack.
"The...evil killing...kind." Emrys replied with his rough, deep voice that sounded like two big rocks being rubbed together.
"Haha! I like your spirit! Lets do this." As soon as the last word escaped his lips the leader burst forward for a few steps to gain some momentum and then jumped up into the air.
Emrys morphed both of his arms into shields and blocked the attack. His daggers were sharp but it wasn't enough to cut through his shields.
Before the leader could regain his balance Emrys quickly added some spikes poking out of the face of his shields and charged at him.
The leader did his best to dodge the charging treant but one of the spikes caught his arms and created a long gash wound from his elbow to his wrist.
The blood flowed from the wound like a fountain. It quickly soaked his shirt with fresh blood. He must have cut an artery or something.
The leader ignored his injury and counter attacked by stabbing his dagger into the right side of Emrys's ribs. The dagger sunk in so deep that the leader was unable to pull it back out so he jumped back a few feet to gain some distance.
Emrys winced from the pain. Even though he had no insides like normal creatures, he still felt pain whenever he took damage.
The leader had a smug look on his face. Like he felt that he had already won the battle.
Emrys turned and readied himself for another attack but then he started to feel strange. He felt a little dizzy and he couldn't think straight. What was going on? He had only ever felt like this one time, long ago.
It was back when he was young and his parents were still teaching him about the forest and its many plants and animals. One time he was out on his own and saw a delicious looking mushroom. Now treants like him don't really need to eat to survive but they can still taste things and he wanted to try everything at least once.
So he picked the mushroom from the ground and bit into it. At first it was just as he thought it would taste, but then he started to feel bad. There was a terrible burning sensation all over his body and his mind was foggy.
He struggled to even make it back home.
When he went back to his home and told his parents, he found out that it was not an ordinary mushroom that he ate but a highly poisonous mushroom.
It was so poisonous in fact that most living things would die in just two hours after consumption. Thankfully treants are magical creatures and don't work the same way as other living beings. They are made up of wood and a magical core in the center of their chest.
Therefore he was able to make it through without dying to the poison.
After that experience, Emrys did some thorough testing with all of the different poisons found in the forest. Eventually he found a way to build up his resistance to the poison and also a way to expel it from his system.
All he had to do was use his mana to gather up the poison within his body and push it through his body until he was able to puke it up.
And that's exactly what he did. He pushed the poison from the wound where the dagger still remained, all the way up until he puked.
The leader went from looking smug to almost puking himself. The sight of Emrys vomiting out this small amount of clear liquid was enough to make others want to puke as well.
"What the hell, man! That is not cool." The leader said while covering his mouth with his hand.
When Emrys recovered he pulled the dagger out of his side and threw it to the ground. He was done playing around with these humans.
Emrys knelt down and placed his hands on the ground. At first nothing happened, but then the ground started to rumble.
"Is this an earthquake? No, its him." The leader said. "Keep your guards up if you don't wanna die!"
Besides the leader, their were only four others remaining. Till now they had been frozen solid and hadn't made a move. That changed with the leaders warning. They all made for the forest in different directions but it was too late.
Before they could escape, massive tentacle like roots burst from the ground and grabbed each of the humans tightly.
So tight that they felt like all of the air was squeezed out of them and they couldn't breathe.
They tried cutting and stabbing at the roots to no avail. The only one to avoid the roots was the leader. He managed to jump away at the last second.
He tried his best to free his men but they were crushed to death right in front of him. They became mangled corpses with bones poking out of their skin in various places.
With all his men dead, his only choice was to make a break for it. He had to get away and report the situation to the ones that hired him.
He could do that, or he could sacrifice himself to finish the mission by killing the nobles before the tree monster could kill him.
He thought about it for all of three seconds before making his decision. With the maximum amount of speed he could muster, he dashed for the nobles with his remaining dagger in hand. The clear poison dripping from the serrated blade.
He got so close he thought he would actually be able to pull it off. He glanced back and saw the tree monster still in the same position as before making no move to stop him.
"It was perfect." He thought.
But that's when all the hope was stolen from his heart. From behind the nobles a large and terrifying creature, that he had only heard of in legends, jumped out of the woods and unleashed a powerful roar.
The leader could feel the air vibrate all around him. The creature turned out to be Indigo the griffin. Emrys had known before hand what kind of human this leader was from the choices he made during their battle and knew what he would do when it came down to it.
So he had Indigo circle around to where the nobles were sitting on the ground and protect them. He stayed in the forest just enough so he couldn't be seen.
The leader dropped to his knees with no fight left in him.
"I have failed you, milord. Please forgive me." The leader whispered so that he was the only one that could hear and then lifted the poisoned dagger up to his own throat. With the expert movements of someone that had killed many people before, he slit his own throat and ended his life.
Emrys was only a little surprised when he saw this play out. He knew this might happen, humans are strange creatures and were very misguided in his mind. He could never understand why someone would take their own life for any reason.
When Emrys finished these thoughts, he looked over to the nobles. They looked terrified, dirty, and tired but they were alive and unharmed.
That was good.
They were looking at Indigo with fear in their eyes. Its likely they had never seen a griffin before just like the leader. It makes sense because if a human were to run into a griffin they would have to have made it deep in the forest without dying.
Then if they actually came across a griffin they would be swiftly eaten, usually.
Without Emrys's orders Indigo wouldn't have saved these humans in the first place. rather he would have either ignored them or he would have eaten them.
Emrys tried to approach the nobles but their reaction made him stop in his tracks.
"Don't...be afraid...humans." He spoke as best he could and tried to show that he meant no harm.
The nobles looked at each other with confused looks, it seems they didn't expect a monster would be able to speak their language.
Their were only three of the noble humans still alive. The others were already killed off by the humans dressed in black.
All three of them wore the same white and gold colored clothing, but the young girl that sat in the middle looked like she was more important somehow.