Without a host, the dread sapling was completely exposed to Lena. It was a fleshy bulb like object with veins pulsing through its body. A black flower bloomed above the bulb as red tentacles writhed around within the flower which made it look like a nest of bloodied maggots.

  The bulb was around the size of a human torso but the extensions from this bulb were far from small.

  Connected by a thick trunk, black roots could be seen digging into the ground as each individual hair on the root would grow with each passing second and also dig into the ground.

  Sensing the arrival of Lena, the ground around the sapling started to split apart as hundreds of roots shot towards her in an attempt to kill her.

  Glaring at the wall of roots that wanted to end her, Lena summoned a shield into her spare hand and swiped with her sword while using the shield as cover.

  *BANG!!!

  Feeling the brunt force of hundreds of roots crashing against her shield, Lena gritted her teeth and tried to stand her ground. However, the force still pushed her back by several meters.

  Before the roots could attack again, a hail of arrows appeared in the air and started to rain down around the main body.

  Creating a dome using its roots to protect itself, the sapling seemed agitated by the interference of the two.

  Seeing the sapling shield itself against her hail of arrows, Shiro clicked her tongue.

  ’It’s almost at stage three but not quite. However, despite not having reached stage three, it can still use roots to protect itself. Since it had quite a bit of time to mature, the amount of roots that it has must be in the thousands now. It’ll definitely be a pain to try to destroy them all without a plan. But if the roots are around, it’ll be rather tough to target its main body.’ Shiro thought with a frown.

  However, she did not stop shooting her arrows since it gave Lena more chances to attack the sapling.

  Glancing back towards the town, she could see one or two warriors that were being led into the forest with the help of the dryad but it wasn’t enough.

  She’d need at least a third of all the warriors in the town in order for them to kill the sapling. Any less would make the fight much harder than what it needs to be.

  Thankfully, Lena looked like she was able to hold her own for a long time but since she was in a constant state of defence, it was hard to attack the sapling. For every root that she cut down, more would take their place.

  To make matters worse, since Shiro’s weapon was a bow right now, it wasn’t as effective as a sword when it comes to taking down roots. Due to her initial rain of arrows, the sapling now had a constant shield of roots around the bulb.

  All of the arrows that Shiro shot would be stopped by this wall.

  Since she couldn’t kill the sapling even with Lena’s help, the most they could do was to delay it from finding the liquified essence.

  After a few more rounds of arrows, Shiro noticed the withering of the forest slowly travelling towards her and knew that the roots were going to reach her sooner or later. Once they do, it’d be hard for her to escape the poisoning.

  On a good note however, more warriors were able to arrive in the forest to help Lena fend against the sapling and they had managed to get a few good hits on the bulb which caused black sap to seep into the ground which seemed to have increased the withering of the surroundings.

  Seeing this, Shiro realised that this dread sapling was a little different from what Dimos had described. Not only was it smart enough to create a proxy so that it could fool people, but it was also able to corrode the surroundings at a much faster pace.

  However, the most that they could do right now was to try their best at killing this sapling.

  Time passed slowly as most of the warriors were now fighting the real body.

  Despite their onslaught, the sapling seemed to be more interested in withering the forest than it was at defending itself.

  Due to the amount of decay that was spreading, Shiro had to retreat from the battle as not even the tall tree was safe from the decay. If she had stayed, she would have inhaled quite a few mouthfuls of poison.

  Watching the battle from afar, Shiro had a serious expression on her face.

  Dimos was next to her as his specialty didn’t lie in fighting.

  "What do you think it’s planning?" Dimos asked with a serious expression.

  "Pardon?" Shiro turned to him, not expecting him to ask her this question.

  "Normally, with something like the dread sapling, it’ll try its best to preserve its life and escape from harm. However, this one seems to be more focused on discovering or perhaps finding something." Dimos said with a frown.

  "Well you think it’s the pool of essence behind us?" Shiro asked while gesturing to the pool.

  "Maybe but it doesn’t look like it to me. It seems like it’s trying to spread its decay as far as possible." Dimos shook his head.

  Staying silent, Shiro wondered if it was looking for something else other than the liquified essence.

  Before she could finish her train of thought, a giant earthquake shook the ground beneath them, throwing them off balance.

  "What the hell?" Shiro clicked her tongue while stabilising herself.

  Looking at the giant cloud of dust in the distance where the fight was going on, Shiro understood that the sapling must have done something.

  "Dryad! Make me another tall tree!" Shiro commanded since she needed to see what was going on without killing herself.

  Without delay, the tree next to Shiro started to grow as she quickly jumped onto the branch. After a short moment, she was now looking over the entire forest. Focusing her attention to where the explosion was, Shiro widened her eyes at the explosion.

  The entire area that the sapling caused to decay had collapsed into the ground, forming a second crater as black goo could be seen seeping from the side of the crater.

  However, her main concern wasn’t the fact that the sapling could no longer be found but the black roots were still around and they seemed to be threading themselves through the crumbled debris, forming a net of sorts while the black goo slowly filled the crater.

  "Dryad! Get the remaining warriors to help with evacuation!" Shiro shouted out since she could see several injured people trying their best to climb out of the crater.

  Thankfully, after the earthquake, the remaining roots in the town ceased to function which allowed the remaining warriors to run into the forest and help their comrades.

  Looking at the destruction caused, Shiro furrowed her brows and looked for Lena.

  Seeing the woman laying down on the ground with a slightly pained face and a set of broken armour, Shiro kneeled next to her.

  "What happened?" Shiro asked with a frown.

  "I don’t know. When the earthquake happened, I saw the sapling shrink itself while spewing out more black goo. It dug into the ground and escaped." Lena replied as her voice was weak.

  Looking around at their casualties, Shiro couldn’t help but click her tongue.

  "Seems like it’s not an average dread sapling. The dread saplings I know can’t do tasks like this." Dimos frowned.

  With the disappearance of the dread sapling, the toxin in the town seemed to have lessened but it still wasn’t good for Shiro to enter for a long period of time. After all of the warriors were taken to one of the inns so that they could be healed, Shiro made her way back to the forest and checked the damage.

  The good news was that the flow of black goo had stopped. The bad news was that there is now a lake of mysterious black liquid in the middle of the forest that was formed by the dread sapling. To make matters worse, the toxicity of the lake was much higher than what the town was. If Shiro were to enter its premises and take a single breath of air, she would immediately die.

  Looking at the black lake, Shiro could see black and purple particles leaking into the air before fading away. The surroundings of this crater was now completely filled with decay and the dryad had to try her best at cutting off the area so that it didn’t pollute the rest of the forest.

  The result of their battle against the dread sapling was a complete loss.