The world tries to slip away from my finger, but I hold on tight. This is not the time to take a nap. The pain that should be overwhelming, is only a prickle, and I’m thankful for the adrenaline hit as I grow as quickly as possible the root network around me.

I feel pain as Lord Max tries to pull his hand back, but the hilt of his sword is already tangled in my roots, and only growing more firmly attached as each moment passes. I look for help, but no matter how I try, I can’t make out anything but the enemy right in front of me. All that comes in perception just slip away, even he is starting to fade, so I give up o this particular endeavor.

Curious about what the fading Lord Max would be doing next, I wait. He again tries to pull his sword and with another red flesh, he finishes opening my left side up. This action however is far from enough to take out the sword.

I know it should hurt a lot more, but I can barely tell or care. Though I know it’s bad any type of further injury, so I concentrate the roots, on the sword, and completely immobilize it compared to my body.

Encased in a cocoon of roots approaching a foot deep, I distantly hear someone cursing, as I’m kicked. All else in the falls away, as for a moment, I regain my lucidity, and seeing no one immediately around me, pay attention beyond the wall. Hundreds of people start to charge in the direction of the back of the enemy army.

Let’s hope they are our reinforcements, not more people trying to run their swords through us. With a wry chuckle, my roots carry me of their own accord back and down the walls.

---------------------------------------------

Lord Max’s POV

I didn’t want to finish him off. Even after his refusal as long as I won this battle he would change his tune. But his interference was way too troublesome. The scout's assessment, that he wouldn’t be able to leverage his powers properly on a larger battle was wildly wrong. The tricks up his sleeve were more like hidden cannons, that completely threw the game out of the window in how large his advantages became.

And even after everything, he almost manages to dodge my blow, how the hell a level 10 person manages that is almost inconceivable. If he was opposed to me it’s good I eliminated him now.

And he even took my sword with him. I paid a gold and 10 silver to order it from our blacksmith. A +4 item, the strongest weapon around, or so I tough until I heard of the +5 spear Gerg was using.

Looking back, I summon a smidge of my significantly depleted berserk aura to speed up my movements. A quick look around is enough to point me to the closet person using a broadsword. Greg and the other level 50 are charging in my direction, but I could handle myself in unarmed combat. Pulsing my aura a couple of times is enough to get past them with only shallow gashes on my skin.

I grab a plus 3 sword from a random fighter of this little village. Ohh, the things I could have accomplished if they had joined me. A slightly better fighter can use a weapon of this caliber. While I struggled to arm even the best 50 people in my army with +3 weapons. With a shake of my head and my enormous strength stat, I pull, and the guy goes flying a couple of meters leaving his sword in my hands.

As I begin the half-turn back to the troublesome spear wielders, but I feel something is wrong. With a fast and decisive parry, I spin, and manage to deflect a spear thrust that would have skewered me.

What I find, is instead of a high-level assassin, or an experienced fighter is a teen with eyes slightly reddish. It seemed he was almost crying. I would smile and laugh if the situation was less dire. Luckily, I chose the correct way to parry and dodge. Otherwise, even with my gut instinct, I would still have ended up like a piece of meat in a wooden stick.

With a simple, but powerful and fast blow, I aim for his neck in a diagonal slash. The inexperience I expected, is not there. And a seasoned, if young, fighter stares back at me, as he dodges my move effortlessly. With no more time to play, I start to parry the blows from my back as I keep this kid in view.

A whole minute goes by, and I think of pulsing strongly my aura. I could end this in a single blow. The boy had fairly low stats. But Greg was much warier of the tactic now. Any attempt would either force me to spend much more to leave my vulnerable state just after the attack, or it would be a pyrrhic victory as I traded a fatal blow for another. And the boy may have low stats, but he did leave a single opening.

My class may be that of a Berzerker, and it was amazing, but this is was no videogame where I just got stronger as people drew my blood. Perhaps as I unlocked more skills, but I worked on reality, not wishes.

With a grim, my full attention goes to the three fighters behind me, along with the peep squeak trying to annoy me.

------------------------------------------------------

Alex’s POV:

God damn it. Why did he have to be so talented? Even Greg would not stand a chance against him one a one-on-one fight. Maybe not even with another 10 levels to boot. This guy is too strong. Still, reinforcements had arrived so the main battle would soon turn in our favor.

Frustrated at my inability, I continue to fight in the hope to learn something. With each blow exchange, there is a lot to learn. I learn more than ever before, but it’s still not quite like Nash told me Aether was like. This isn’t the magical capabilities that Aether enables, this is just me and my skills. Either way, I continue telling a story of learning in my head, and should I ever manage to break through the Aether barrier, I will have this aspect down pat.

As the allied coalition advances, Lord Max finally notices them and starts cursing. But there is little he can do now. He retreats a few meters with a pulse of his aura and yells louder than I thought possible:

“A thousand soldiers to the Back.”

The few people that were basically standing around waiting for their turn to fight or helping the wounded, all turn back and start charging. A few of the ones standing ready to go up the wall follow in the direction of our reinforcements.

As they approach, I grin as what must be a hundred fireballs is shot at Lord Max’s army. Still, that is not what my focus should be on right now, and I single-mindedly turn back to our opponent. A few minutes is not enough to really learn enough to defeat him, but it was a step in the right direction.

So I let my curiosity take over and learn all I can in the exchanges we have.

------------------------

Pando’s seed POV.

Friend is hurt. Help, help. Cocoon, protect, take far away from the bad man.

Time passes.

Other friends come over. Try to guide my movements to place of help… maybe? Follow. Connection to outside world start to collapse.

Lose one connection.

Lose another.

Lose all connections but one.

Connection teetering on the brink of collapse.

NOOOOOO. Connection bad. Connection will work.

Connection continues to get frailer.

Connection stable.

Connection stable.

Connection stable.

Connection stable.

Connection falls.

NO, help friend. Help friend. Help friend.

Brilliant idea. Make connection.

Try to make connection, try to make connection.

Try really hard to make connection, try really hard to make connection.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

…..

Grab glowing white-ish light from link to friend. Try to make connection.

Try, try….Try really hard….

Connection established.

Other friends doing bad thing, trying to cut me. Slap them silly.

Bad friend. Move some roots out of the way.

Enough to help Friend, not enough to be danger to Friend.

Preocupied with friend. Nothing else to help.

Nothing else to help.

Bored.

Bored.

Friend be fine.

Bored.

Good Idea, slap silly the bad man that hurt friend.

Yes, very good idea. Slap them hard.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I enter and leave conscientiousness as the minutes tick by. I feel a distinctly sweet flavor in my mouth that resembles the taste of Health potion described to me, and am thankful, they somehow figured out how to get past all the roots.

I know I should probably be helping outside, but as soon as more than a pair of thoughts come to mind, I’m no longer aware.

Entering and leaving this state becomes the norm for the foreseeable future. But somehow, I still manage to listen in on the reports from the commander to Charlie and a few other people.

“The reinforcements are doing the trick. The idea to bring a smaller number of strong troops seemed to have been the right choice.”

….

“Lord Max is trying to maneuver for a retreat, don’t give him the room.”

….

“Pursue.”

…..

“I thought Nash was out of commotion, how is he still controlling all these plants?”

….

“The rest of you get off your lazy asses and help to bring in the wounded or guard the captured soldiers.”

….

On a lower and somber tone.

“Preliminary tally of casualties: 2 people in the gobbling attack, along with 51 injuries that prevented participation in the second attack. 36 dead on Max’s attack along with 420 badly injured. 6 dead in the allied coalition along with 91 serious injuries. 162 dead on Lord Max’s army, along with 621 captured, adding the injured and the one tangled in the roots.”

….

“Treat all the allied people free of charge, even if they need a healing potion, and extend our welcome to a small group inside if they so desire. They saved our buts.”

….

Voice close by:

“Is Nash going to make it?”

“I don’t see why not. He has been laying there for a good amount of time. His HP is still zero, but you know that for us it doesn’t really work like in games. His wound is slowly closing, and he presents signs of cognitive function for a few seconds at a time. We are trying to leave him alone as much as possible.”

“Thank the heavens.”

….

“I think you have everything immediately handled commander. Come to the Map room so we can discuss our next steps

….

As I come back to myself, I solve one mystery. In hindsight it’s obvious. The comm medallion I was wearing was being fed with a trickle of mana. My memories are a little disjointed, but I can remember pretty well what I heard.

It’s as if I went to sleep and a time skip happened. All the chaos and mayhem have just faded away. Around me, there are only 7 people, one of them being a Nurse. With the number of beds available, I guess almost everyone already recovered.

I focus on sharpening the detail on the information getting to me through this new strange sense and notice that each of the other people is seriously injured. Missing legs and deep cuts slowly closing. They must have been fed with healing potions already, and even that wasn’t enough.

What takes nearly all of my attention is my own injury. In the lower abdomen, I feel as I was sewn up shut. I know that is not the order of things, but it's if I took a blow to the side, that nearly got to my spine. My bottom half is only connected to the chest through a little over half of the normal connective tissue.

How I wasn’t dead is a mystery. Not having moved a single muscle the nurse doesn’t even notice I woke, and I try to keep things this way for now.

I open my stat sheet and ignore everything except my health pool. A quick look shows me what I already knew.

Health 1/515

Closing my eyes, instead of going to sleep, enter the deepest meditation I can while cycling my Aether. My full focus is on recovering from my injury. I go deeper than ever before. Caring for nothing in this world but the singular purpose of healing instead of allowing the pain and misery in.

I will be made whole.

I will come out stronger than ever.