"So we've reached an invincible place, haven't we?"
Upon hearing this, Cyra finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's a pity that Michelle can also fly, otherwise we could have trapped her in here."
But before her words fell, a violent explosive sound came from above our heads, accompanied by Michelle's furious warning that could be heard throughout the forest.
"Feliciana, Elara! If you don't come out, I'll burn down this forest! If the fire doesn't kill you, the smoke will choke you to death! That would be far more painful than being stabbed by my sword."
She was as good as her word. Before long, we saw many branches and leaves above us catch fire.
"What should we do? I almost forgot her nickname is the Goddess of Fire. These trees can't withstand it at all!"
I suddenly felt a little panic. It was hard to say whether the angels would be smoked to death. After all, they needed to breathe too. Moreover, with the trees burned down, there would be nowhere left to hide.
"At least you can rest assured for now!"
Elara seemed much calmer about this. As she looked at the flames above, she explained to us:
"These are Glorious Trees that have been specially bred over thousands of years. They are very compatible with the light element and won't be destroyed so easily by fire."
Sure enough, the fire soon began to diminish gradually before extinguishing silently.
"Then there's nothing to worry about. Since the trees won't burn, we don't need to be afraid either."
Seeing this, Cyra waved her hand and completely relaxed. But I still had some concerns, because I vividly remembered how she had destroyed a vast forest in an instant before.
"Humph, you think you can trouble me with these weird trees?"
Michelle's voice rang out again, but this time not from above. It sounded a bit lower, as if she had descended into the maze.
"Let me show you the power of the Goddess of Fire!"
With a tremendous "boom", a row of tree trunks forming a "wall" in front of us collapsed. At the same time, they began to burn violently.
It was not just these few trunks. Through the fallen "wall", we could see that there was a world of flames beyond, with the very air turned red and distorted. The scene looked even more dramatic than the inside of a smelting furnace.
We of course saw Michelle in the middle of the "furnace". Fortunately, she had her back facing us and had not noticed our location yet.
"Still not coming out?"
"In that case, I'll increase the temperature and range even more! Absolute power renders all tricks meaningless!"
"How can this be? Her flames are so powerful they can even burn down Glorious Trees, which have almost half the light elements of angels' bodies!"
This time Elara had completely miscalculated. Michelle's strength far exceeded her expectations. Now the only thing she could do was to lead us in a continued escape.
"Wait a moment!"
Unexpectedly, Cyra made a hand gesture to stop Elara from swooping over to carry her away. She then rushed forward quickly, took out something from her pocket and tossed it towards the high-temperature zone.
"I've wanted to do this since hearing her threaten to burn down the forest, but never had the chance until now..."
"What did you throw?"
Elara looked puzzled. But she saw Cyra's demeanour change drastically after these actions. The angel fled back as if her life was in imminent danger, with a white aura enveloping her body.
"Hurry up and get me out of here!"
"You can't be serious! You threw that thing out?!"
My face changed instantly as I immediately realized what she had tossed away just now.
Since that was the case, I would go all out to increase the chances of success!
Without another word, I took out the oxygen sphere I carried and threw it out as well. Then I turned to Elara and shouted:
"Cover your whole body with as much light element as possible! Then escape from this place at full speed!"
"What have you two done?"
Hearing this, Elara looked at Cyra and me in astonishment. She glanced again at the ultra-high temperature zone created by Michelle ahead. Even her instincts seemed to sense a trace of fear. Ultimately she still followed my instructions, grabbed Cyra and flew straight up into the sky with me.
"Found you. Did you think you could still escape from my palm..." Huh?
Michelle had just begun to speak when she saw the high temperature region suddenly swell violently around her. The combustion range instantly enveloped the entire Glorious Tree forest.
I looked back and knew this should be the effect of the oxygen accelerating the flames. Then came the climax...
When the combustion range expanded to its limit, the center suddenly collapsed, as if a whirlpool was rapidly absorbing the surrounding flames. The larger the whirlpool grew, the faster it absorbed. Until all the nearby flames were completely drained...
"Here it comes!"
I shouted loudly. Without caring about the others, I hurriedly plugged both ears. At the same time I turned my head forward and added another layer of light element around my body.
First came an extremely dazzling flash of light. Even with my back to the explosion and eyes closed, I could still feel its blinding intensity.
This was immediately followed by a deafening roar. Suspended in midair, I was instantly blown away by a tremendous force, spinning and tumbling uncontrollably.
"Whoaaaaaa——"
I was now even more wretched than a severed kite, not daring to open my eyes to see what was happening around. I didn't know how long I tumbled in the sky or how far the shockwave had blown me. Until I finally got caught in a treetop upside down, I cautiously opened my eyes a sliver.
"Where is this...?"
When I spoke again, it was in an extremely hoarse voice. My throat was shredded from all that frantic screaming in the air. But there was absolutely no response from my surroundings.
Through the gaps in the branches I could see the sky above Edenmere, which normally radiated light, now seemed somewhat distorted. Strange unnatural veins had appeared, looking like milk foam squeezed together on the surface of a cappuccino.
I really survived a nuclear detonation at ground zero!
I definitely felt excited at this moment, but at the same time immensely sorrowful, because it was so miserable! Although I had put on two layers of light element protection in advance, it was still unable to completely offset the power of the explosion.
Even with an angel's body, largely immune to energy damage, I had still suffered extensive severe burns. Almost no intact skin remained on my exposed exterior. My arms and legs were covered in dense blisters that I absolutely could not touch! Still, it hurt so much I was writhing and gnashing my teeth.
As for clothes, those had long since evaporated! I was back to the long-absent nude state. My hair wasn't much better off either. A large section of the ends had been carbonized, changing my waist-length style to a bob cut.
The most serious damage was probably to my back, which I couldn't see. But most of the pain was concentrated there, so I knew the injury was no trivial matter.
At the critical moment before the explosion, I had concealed my wings out of fear they might not withstand it. So all that was left facing the explosion's center was my bare back.
Well, I guessed it was probably cooked through, since the smell of grilled meat was wafting up. And it did smell pretty good...
Such an ordeal would have killed an ordinary human body instantly. But I was still a dignified six-winged angel after all, with superior physique and restorative magic to aid me. Plus my wings were protected, I quickly freed myself from the treetop after summoning them out for a few flaps.
"What's going on with the sky?"
After regaining some altitude, I finally located the direction I had been blown from. An enormous white mushroom cloud stood on the distant horizon, impossible to ignore.
But strangely, there was a huge hole blasted out above the mushroom cloud. The sky once filled with light seemed to be squeezed to the surroundings, like a thick cloud layer.
Still, it looked to be slowly converging back towards the center. Maybe it would be completely restored after some time.
What was that?
I blinked, wondering if I was seeing things.
Logically, Edenmere existed in a different space from the main world, so the cavity should be pitch black with nothing inside. But I seemed to inadvertently glimpse an extremely large sphere passing the hole's edge. Unfortunately that area was quickly obscured by the "cloud" outside the rim, and I couldn't see anything more.
"Feliciana!"
My thoughts were interrupted by a faint call from behind. I looked back and saw a nude angel waving at me in the distant sky.
"Elara?"
Although I couldn't quite make out her face, I could confirm her identity from the number of wings and hurriedly flew over.
"Where's Cyra?"
Seeing her alone, I immediately asked upon approaching. When the two of us drew closer, I saw that Elara's condition was vastly better than mine. Though rather awkwardly, her destroyed clothing left many sensitive areas completely exposed.
"Um..."
I felt it was a bit hard to look directly, because they were just so big... So I quickly suggested:
"Why don't you follow my example and manifest a pair of wings to cover yourself?"
With ten wings, the light elements composing her body was much higher than mine. Although she had similar wing and hair damages, I didn't see many burn scars.