“Right it is then, let’s go beat the rest of these fuckers up!” Nerva yells as she charges forward through the right path.

Gunva follows the red headed girl’s lead as the two traverse deeper into the cave.

Mana, a kind of life energy that perforated throughout the world, did not tend to be evenly distributed in every region. The region they currently resided in, Oclana, was one that tended to be filled to the brim with mana. To the magically astute, the heavy density of magic felt like a thick fog. One could say that energy was connected to the rapid growth and flourishing life of the vineyard. Gunva could feel it, as they ventured further into the cave, the feeling of a heavy cluster of magical energy or by its more known term, a leyline. It was no surprise to her that a leyline would be present in the valley, there were many more scattered throughout the rest of Oclana. That was what gave it its reputation for the state with the most magical energy and therefore the one that gave birth to the most magicians. If the rest of these lion masked lunatics we’re trying to tap into the energy of the leyline then it couldn’t mean anything good.

Eventually Nerva came across a large underground chasm where small pockets of light from the surface penetrated and lit up the space. She saw the few grunts in the distance who Ryder was supposed to be chasing after and realized he must have gotten caught up in another battle. Gunva catches up to Nerva as she witnesses the giant underground chasm. Her suspicion was confirmed, this place was definitely the area's leyline. The energy in the air was so dense it could actually be seen as it flowed from the earth up through the holes in the ceiling before eventually dispersing.

“Damn, what the hell even is this place? Oi dwarf lady is it just me or does it feel kind of hard to breathe down here?” Nerva questions.

“That’s because of the energy coming from the leyline.”

“The leywhat?”

“It's the source of magical energy that allows you to go crazy with your fireballs. As a magician don’t you know where you get the energy to do all your fire spells from?” Gunva asks her.

“Girl I just kinda feel it ya know. I’ve been able to spout fire from my ass since I was a baby. I don’t think about these kinds of things, I just do it,” Nerva revealed.

“That makes a lot of sense. Well either way now you know.”

“I think I see the rest of these freaks, wanna jump em’?” Nerva asks as her fists light on fire.

“Hold on a moment. Let’s see if we can get closer without them noticing, we might be able to learn something,” Gunva decided.

The two women move closer to the center of the chasm as they take a right path that overlooks the cave from a nearby ledge, careful to avoid getting detected. Two grunts rush into the center of the chasm as they come across a large masked man wearing a yellow fur cloak, somewhat resembling a lion’s mane. He was standing in a pose of exaltation, his arms lifted to the sky as if he were praising the sun. Streams of magical energy surrounded him as it was filtered into a large glowing orb about 30 feet above him.

“Chairman of Ecology Ralof sir, grave news!” One grunt lamented.

“What is it? As you can see I’m very busy. The eye of Tandalf is almost finished charging,” the large man lectured.

“Intruders! Quite a few of them in fact. All of the demon blood we acquired to poison the water supply of the valley has been destroyed. We believe they are heading this way.”

“Then tell Cassius to deal with it,” Ralof demanded.

“Chairman, we believe that Cassius may have fallen. What do we do now?” the grunt cried.

“So Cassius’ little scheme has failed then. No matter, his work was a great help to our cause and now we know more of the effects of demon blood when mixed with organic matter. We have gained a fair amount of energy from our time in Urbossa’s Valley, enough to contribute to the Circle of Harmony’s main goal. It's time to leave as well as removing every trace of our appearance here,” Ralof says.

From up above, Nerva squirmed as she itched to get into a fight.

“I think I’ve heard enough, if we wait any longer they’re gonna run away,” Nerva firmly whispered.

“Yeah seems like it, lets just blast the important looking orb thingy,” Gunva says as she pulls out an explosive potion.

“Alright let’s do this.”

The two girls begin yelling as they empty their entire arsenal onto the area below them. It was not long before fire spread throughout the whole underground chasm, igniting and detonating the area below. The rumbling and chaos even started to erode away the cliff the two girls were standing on.

“What! What’s going on?!” one of the grunts screamed.

“Do not falter, it is simply those intruders you spoke of earlier.”

Nerva stops firing for a second to see the output of her destruction only to find the orb covered in a thick shield of vines. However their destruction did destroy much of the floor causing the few remaining grunts to fall into the deep chasm below.

“Tch, didn’t think it would be that easy anyway,” Nerva said.

Ralof stood upon a platform of vines as he raised himself up to eye level with the two girls.

“Greetings intruders, pleasure to make your acquaintance, I am the Circle of Harmony’s Chairman of Ecology, Ralof,” he says as he introduces himself with a bow in a rather dignified manner.

“Chairman of Ecology my ass, what you're doing in the valley has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the environment. Making plants become demonic, you might as well by putting toxins in the ground!” Gunva yells before Nerva gets the chance.

“On the contraire my dwarven acquaintance, I see this as valuable work. Haven’t you heard the rumors, felt the ripples of power as portals to the demon world occasionally open up? When the demon wave starts, the new dominating species will be that of the demonic. What we are doing here is simply getting a head start,” Ralof revealed.

Gunva expresses her rage as she tosses a potion filled with volatile liquid at the man with the golden mane. It is simply caught by a large vine and is tossed directly at the cliffside the two girls stood on causing them to fall. Their fall is broken when the two small women are entangled in Ralof’s newly constructed web of vines.

“Now now, let’s not get too hasty, we were still in the middle of a conversation,” the man says as he wags his finger back and forth in a rather mocking manner.

“I have nothing to say to you!” Gunva answers harshly.

“Don’t be like that, hmm… now that I take another look at you, you seem familiar. Ah yes you must be the alchemist Cassius ordered to be kidnapped. I must say your work is nothing to scoff at. It will help thousands of people once they consume that demonic alcohol mixture that was already shipped out. Soon all of them will reach their potential. Though it's such a shame that we were unable to help the whole valley.”

“Heh, don’t be so sure, I’m certain none of those bottles of alcohol will ever reach the market,” Gunva smirked.

“What?!”

“Yeah you overgrown dandelion, my friend’s gonna singlehandedly steal all your crap,” Nerva pitched in while struggling in the vines.

“Impossible there’s no way you’d be able to tell, those bottles appear the exact same as the wine that comes out of the valley,” Ralof refuted.

“Oh but there is, I was the one who made that mixture after all,” Gunva remarked.

“Tch, you little pests,” he complained as he tightened vines hold on the two women.

Nerva and Gunva struggle to breathe as they are being constricted. The color of Gunva’s face started to turn blue from the lack of oxygen going to her lungs.

“Rrrgh, fuck you and fuck these plants!” Nerva yelled as she lit herself on fire and bit down on the vine constricting her.

The fire immediately spread, quickly burning up the vines and freeing both of them causing them to fall. Nerva manages to fire off a quick attack, hitting Ralof in the shoulder with a small but dense fireball. Ralof scoffs at the meager attack as he raises himself and the orb towards the top of the cave nearing the surface.

“I have no more time to be messing around with you two. I have already obtained enough energy from the leyline and there is nothing more to be gained here. As a farewell gift, I present to you the plants of the future.”

The ground starts shaking as demonic plants begin to erupt from the chasm below. The plants in particular were the carnivorous plant species known as the Venus flytrap. After being dosed with demonic blood this plant grew to be 100 times its normal size, the plant’s sharp bladelike leaves made it appear as if it had teeth. The few grunts who had fallen into the chasm earlier could be seen inside the mouth of these plants. Their bodies already started to be melted down by the enzymes of the Venus flytrap. About 8 dozen of these plants had suddenly sprouted up in order to cover Ralof’s escape.

“Damn it he got away,” Nerva shouted as she fired off a stream of flames to keep the demonic plants at bay.

“We can deal with him later, but first more blasting less shouting,” Gunva tells her.

The two women were being pressured as the hostile plant life began to overwhelm them. While fire was incredibly effective, the sheer volume of Venus flytraps was beginning to be too much for them to handle.

“Damn it I didn’t think this was how I was going to go out,” Gunva laments.

“Come on dwarf lady, we did not come here to become fertilizer, we came here to kick ass,” Nerva responded.

The two continued to fire on endlessly with their backs to the wall when suddenly a few explosions took out the large group of plants pressuring them. Nerva looks to her left where the explosions came from and a smile crept across her face. From the chasm’s entrance were Ryder, Nazuko and Remi all tossing grenades with a frenzy.

“You guys, plus the hoe!” Nerva shouted in excitement.

“The cavalry has arrived, except we don’t have a horse. Man, I wish my horse Yuki was here,” Nazuko says, reminiscing about her old friend.

“I see you guys must have dealt with that poisoned alcohol situation then,” Gunva assumed.

“Yeah I’m glad that’s over, it's tough enough dealing with the regular hangover alcohol brings. Don’t wanna go adding turning into a demon or death on top of that,” Remi sighed.

“What happened with the guys I went after earlier?” Ryder asked.

“They fell into that large hole in the ground and their fucking leader got away!” Nerva informed.

“In the meantime we still have to deal with all these demonic plants, we can’t let them roam throughout the valley,” Gunva stated.

There were still a plethora of Venus flytraps remaining as they started to create a large wall of organic matter in front of them.

“Then let’s get throwing then,” Ryder says as he generates a large pile of grenades by their feet.

The five of them then began pitching the explosive devices whittling down the corrupted plant life before them.

“Come on, put some elbow grease into those throws, you’d never make the baseball team at this rate,” Ryder yells out.

“What the hell even is baseball?” Remi questions as she tosses more grenades from a large pile Ryder generated.

“It was some sport Will went on about. He said it was his favorite team sport in school because all he had to do was offer moral support,” Nazuko answers.

“That sounds cool, we should play that. Also Ryder why aren’t you using your cannon, we could blast away all these damn plants in an instant,” Nerva says.

“Sorry, but I can’t, I used my laser move in an earlier fight, so my cannon needs to cool down for a bit,” He replied.

“We just gotta do this the old fashioned way then.”

They all continue chucking more grenades to the point of physical exhaustion. The speed and distance of the grenades begin to slow down as the fatigue sets in.

“There has got to be a better way to do this, my arm is getting tired,” the alchemist claimed.

“Yeah it feels like there’s a never ending amount of these plant monsters,” Nazuko says in agreement.

Remi’s ears perk up as an idea pops into her brain.

“Guys follow my lead,” She says as she begins to create wind currents that flow throughout the cave.

She picks up a bunch of grenades, pulls the pin and drops them into the wind current. The grenades are carried via wind at accelerated speeds before detonating and thanks to the split current it is now able to reach a wider range of targets.

Everyone else quickly catches on and starts pulling the pins on the grenades like their lives depend on it. The sheer amount of explosions caused the entire underground area to shake, debris rain from the sky as well as the amount of destroyed organic matter. The plants are no longer a danger to the group of adventurers.

“Alright take that you overgrown weeds,” Remi shouted jovially.

Even as they took care of the infestation before them, Gunva couldn’t help but feel there was another presence still lying in the chasm below.

“Hold on guys it's not over yet, I still feel something coming,” the alchemist claims.

There’s a passing moment of silence before a large arm comes out of the chasm and rips the remaining Flytraps from the ceiling, crushing them in its hand. A large inhumane roar could be heard as the creature revealed itself. What stood before them was a large plantlike monstrosity in an anthropomorphic form. It’s main body consisted of a large tree trunk, its limbs a combination of branches and stones tied together with vines. It’s head was of a similar structure, but it had two branches on its head that resembled a deer's antlers.

“What the hell is that?!” Remi gasped.

“It’s a forest elemental, usually those things reside in great forests, but this one must have been living in the chasm below. All those explosions must have woken it up,” Gunva revealed.

Accounting for the entirety of the being’s height, it must have been 65 feet tall. The creature starts climbing up to the surface using the sides of the underground cave as a foothold. A few plants stop attacking the group of adventurers below to start focusing on the goliath.

“What’s it doing?” Remi questions.

“Dunno, but it looks like it's pissed at something,” Nerva replied.

“Elemental creatures tend to be protectors of the environment, so it must be going after that guy who called himself the Chairman of Ecology. ” Gunva answered.

“The what?” Nazuko asks in a confused tone.

“It’s what he called himself when he met us. He said he was from a group called the Circle of Harmony.”

“Sounds like some weird non-profit organization, like a charity,” Ryder pitches in.

“Nothing that man did or said could be interpreted as charitable. Now quickly let’s hop on that thing and see if we can catch up,” Gunva orders.

“Wait, you want us to climb onto a 60+ foot tall beast that’s mad that someone pissed in its garden?” Remi clarified.

“If we can catch up to the bad guy, then it's worth a shot. Now stop complaining and let go,” the alchemist stated as she grabbed onto the elemental’s leg.

Nazuko followed as she zoomed onto the large being’s head, hanging onto the vines that covered its back. Ryder climbed up to its right arm. Nerva grabbed onto the titan’s other leg and Remi latched onto its shoulder. Rocks continued to fall as the elemental being smashed its way to the surface. A few more Venus flytraps emerged from the sides of the walls attempting to impede its progress. However it was not enough to stop the forest elemental as it ripped the plants off the wall like they were weeds, intent on finding the source of the disruption.

“Damn, this thing kicks ass. Remi, can you tame behemoths like this?” Nerva asked.

“I wish, but I don’t think elemental beings can even be tamed,” Remi answered.

“Definitely not, elemental beings tend to be guardians of nature and tend to be very strong willed individuals. The tamer would have to be extremely noteworthy to get noticed by such a being,” Gunva inputted.

“Heh, she just called you weak,” Nazuko laughed.

“Shut up, I’m at least stronger than you,” Remi refuted.

“Guys hold on, I think it's going to jump,” Ryder interrupted.

Just as Ryder stated, the forest elemental jumped off the cliff wall, puncturing the ceiling tearing away the earth in its path. It took everything Nazuko had just to not get flung off by the movement of the creature. Ryder squinted as the sudden burst of sunlight came into his eyes, nearly causing him to fall off. He could briefly see a man riding a levitating collection of vines that were also carrying along a large orb alongside it. The forest elemental began to roar as it took notice of the man. Remi simply closed her eyes and held on tight as the behemoth broke into a sprint chasing after the Lion masked man.

“Ah, this guy’s really kicking it into high gear now isn’t he,” Gunva notes.

“At this rate the only thing it's gonna be kicking is us,” Nerva said as she struggled to hold on to its leg.

The forest elemental accelerates as it catches up to Ralof. The green giant effortlessly grabs hold onto the orb stopping Ralof.

“What the?!” He says as he is taken back by the behemoth's presence.

Ralof attempts to repel the beast by pushing it away with his vines, but the forest elemental grips on with both hands. In its rage the green giant opens its mouth and shoves Ralof and the orb down its gullet.

“Holy crap, did it just eat that guy!?” Remi exclaimed.

“It just had a salad with no ranch,” Ryder said.

Everyone simply stares in disbelief at what just occurred before witnessing stiff wood branches sprout out from the elemental’s mouth. The elemental starts going berserk as it shakes everyone off, then ripping the branches out and tossing out a bloodied Ralof on to the ground.

“I guess the elemental must have had something rotten in that salad,” Gunva notes.

“I will not end up as an elemental’s lunch. I am far too important for that. There is still too much work for me to do,” Ralof vocalized.

The elemental itself starts to behave strangely as it starts indiscriminately rampaging, ripping up large tracts of earth.

“What’s going on with the big guy,” Nerva says.

Ralof stares on before subtly smirking.

“You, what did you do!” Gunva accused.

“I simply tried a little experiment,” he says as he lifts up a familiar looking bottle in his hand.

“You didn’t?!”

“Ah but I did, I wonder what the effects of demon blood will have on a greater creature such as an elemental,” Ralof says.

The elemental begins to move around as if it is in pain, sending stray attacks in every direction.

Everyone runs for cover inside a large ditch as the environment is upheaved causing a rain of earth to befall the area.

“Ah! What do we do? Is it too much to ask to think an elemental could resist the effects of demon blood?” Remi desperately asked.

“Right now I think our priority is to not get crushed to death by stray rocks,” Ryder tells her.

“Someone needs to think of a plan,” she responds.

“How about plan: burn it to death,” Nerva suggests.

“I don’t think that would work, it would just attract more parts of the earth to make up for its body getting incinerated,” Gunva adds in.

“If it's resisting the effects then maybe it hasn’t spread fully throughout its body. Maybe we can cut out or extract the bad parts,” Nazuko suggested.

“That’s it, I’ve got it,” the alchemist said.

***

Ralof takes a moment to witness the destruction before realizing he’s still in danger. As he is about to be hit by a stray boulder a sharp jet stream of water cuts it in two. Ralof looks behind him to see a womanly figure standing behind him with one arm stretched out. Her face was covered with a mask that resembled a shark, she had a look of dissatisfaction that could be seen through the mouth of the mask.

“C-Chairman of Marine Life?” he gasped.

“Tch, pathetic, to think you could fall this far Ralof,” she spoke.

“Ahem, try not to mind my unsightly appearance, but it is a rare occasion to encounter an elemental,” Ralof says as he attempts to defend himself.

“I suppose, what became of the eye of Tandalf?” the chairwoman inquired.

“Most likely it's been consumed by the elemental when it attempted to swallow me. Shall we work together to get it back?” he questioned.

The chairwoman takes a few moments to think despite the raging elemental before her.

“No, there’s no need. While retrieving the Eye may save us a few days it is nothing compared to the boundless energy we will obtain in the future. Have you been made aware of the new plans by the CEO?”

“New plans? No, I have yet to be informed of such things,” Ralof answered.

“In that case it is fine to cut our losses here. We need not exhaust ourselves to obtain the Eye, just let the elemental rampage and destroy the valley,” She instructs.

The two beings back away from the scene as a large pond of water opens up in the ground before them. The two masked figures disappear from the scene as they both dive into the pool of water.

***

The elemental stomped the ground so hard that caused the earth to shake and fissures a quarter mile wide formed in the earth. At this rate if left unchecked the forest elemental would bring destruction to the very valley it tried to protect.

“So there is a way to get rid of the bad stuff. What kind of medicine do you give to clean an elemental? It better not be soap,” Nazuko stated.

“There may not be a straight cure to counteract the demon blood. What I have in mind is similar to a cancer treatment. Usually elementals of great magnitude are held together by multiple cores, if we destroy or cut out the core affected by the demon blood we may still be able to save it,” Gunva revealed.

“So how exactly do we do that?” Nazuko pondered.

“Do you still have that crystal I gave you earlier?” the alchemist asked.

“This thing?” the short black haired girl said as she pulled out a dark crystal.

“Perfect now if only we could get close enough to it so we could find out where the core is. Although I doubt we could immobilize something as large as that,” she said.

Nerva got up from the ditch, standing over the four of them.

“If we can’t immobilize it, then we just gotta burn away at it until it stops moving,” Nerva says as she pounds her fists together as they light on fire.

Nerva charges forward as she starts shooting out two streams of flame that light the elemental’s legs ablaze. The fire easily spread as the branches, leaves, and wood that made up its lower half began to degrade. Everything was going to plan except for the large blocks of stone and earth that formed the core of its lower appendages. In its berserking fury the elemental attempted to stomp Nerva into the ground, but the flaming girl was too quick for it to catch. She placed her flames behind her as a way to propel herself and increase her maneuverability.

“We gotta help her somehow,” Gunva stated.

Ryder took a moment to look at his cannon which still emitted smoke from its mouth.

“Damn if only I could still use my cannon… Wait that’s it.”

Ryder frantically looked through his bag searching for a specific item, eventually finding a small combustible device marked with a snowflake.

“Only one left huh, we’ll have to make the best of it.”

“What is that?” Nazuko asked.

“The last of my ice bombs I’ve been testing and it will cool down my cannon. If I could hit the elemental with this it could freeze it partially. I just have to make sure not to miss,” Ryder says.

“Hmm, maybe I could help tie it down with my specialization. I think I can make light constructs, but I need to focus. Someone else has to take the crystal and find the core,” Nazuko stated.

Everyone pauses and looks at the last remaining person to accomplish this task, specifically a certain elf girl.

“What, you want me to try and enter the giant rampaging stone monster?” Remi complained.

“Well no else can do it. Look at it this way this is your chance to finally be useful. Also if that thing destroys the valley you won’t get to drink this place’s special wine anymore,” Nazuko mentioned.

“I’LL DO IT!” Remi shouted as she grabbed the crystal and stood up from the ditch.

“It certainly doesn’t take much to motivate her, does it,” Gunva commented.

Styling Theme

Ryder loaded up the ice bomb into his cannon, its presence alone began to rapidly cool it. Meanwhile Nerva began to have difficulty keeping the elemental at bay. While burning away its large mass did slow it down, it was still capable of causing considerate damage to the environment. The bits of organic matter Nerva’s flames burnt had started to be replaced by the local plant life, eventually fusing with the large creature. Nerva herself was beginning to feel fatigue, the output of her flames weakened ever so slightly. The forest elemental lifted its right leg about to slam down on her before being restrained by chains of solid light. Nerva looked behind her to see Nazuko holding back the titan.

“Got your back best buddy,” Nazuko said in a strained tone of voice.

It took everything she had simply to restrain the forest elemental from moving.

“About time, although I probably could have taken him on all by myself,” Nerva bragged.

Ryder got into position as he took aim of the now restrained elemental. He pulled the trigger causing a large ball of ice to collide and explode with the forest being. A large cloud of ice rapidly expanded and covered it in its entirety. In that moment the forest elemental appeared to be a giant ice sculpture that depicted nature.

“NOW GO!” Nazuko yelled as she created more chains to bring the frozen giant to its knees.

Its hand dug into the ground before completely freezing over.

With the crystal in hand, Remi summoned her wolf to gain its beastlike agility and parkoured her way up the forest elemental’s frozen arm. She ran, jumped and slid up the creature, her movement seemingly inhuman. As she crossed its shoulder blade she leaped towards its face and into the mouth. As she slid down its throat she eventually came across what looked like the core. A yellow glowing orb that had a black miasma surrounding it, corrupting its glow. The corrupted core was confirmed as Remi looked at the crystal in her hand resonating with the object before her. Remi took out her knife and attempted to plunge her knife into the yellow core, however the knife simply scratched it making a small dent.

“Damn, this thing is hard. If only Lilith were here, her brute strength would shatter this thing into pieces,” Remi lamented.

The elf girl did not give up, while she did not attend the group training sessions her teammates berated her for not attending, she did in fact find a way to improve her technique. Partial Summoning, the ability to partially manifest a spirit one was contracted with. Remi manifested her bear’s claws on both of her arms, appearing as if she merged with it. Although her arms could be seen through the mist-like transparent spirit attached to her, it still had solid mass nonetheless. Remi smashed the corrupted core repeatedly with her newly acquired strength. The core itself began to crack as it withered away. It was a few moments away when the ice began to break. Before it did, Remi gave one last attack smashing the core. In order to escape the elemental Remi dug her claws through the hard stone, and ripped away everything before her.

Nazuko could see a hole forming in the midsection of the elemental, before seeing a beast like Remi fall out and land on the ground.

“Did she do it?” Gunva pondered as she herself stood up from the ditch.

Aftermath

The elemental after losing its core was unstable, it still had another uncorrupted core lying in its head, but now it no longer had the ability to maintain that much mass. Pieces of it fell to the ground causing the ground to shake. The whole being crumbled into a pile of branches and stone. One object in particular stood out, the orb that Ralof had attempted to escape with lied in the midst of the fallen plant life. Remi took one look at the mass behind her before giving out a sigh of relief. She looked like a mess, a ton of stray branches and leaves were tangled in her brown hair. Everyone came over seeing the aftermath of their hard fought battle.

“Oh god, I like nature but I never thought I would dive inside the mouth of a giant plant/rock monster. I’m glad that’s over,” She sighed.

“You know, I gotta admit that was kind of cool, jumping into that forest guy’s mouth like that,” Nazuko said reluctantly.

“Yeah, I agree, she was all like zoom, boom, wham, ya know. I wanna jump into a dragon’s mouth like those badasses do in the stories,” Nerva mentions.

“Maybe she’s not that much of a hoe anymore,” Nazuko says.

“Thanks? I guess,” Remi says, still confused as to how to take that comment.

“Now that you destroyed its corrupted core, it should go back to normal,” Gunva says.

“Is it really okay though? Why did it just collapse all of a sudden?” Ryder asked.

“It could have been the shock from losing its core, but I assure you it's not dead, look,” Gunva commanded.

The mass of plant life behind them started moving again, eventually reforming its body. However this time it was much smaller than before, about one third of its original size. It was approximately 20 feet tall, but now it looked somewhat more humanoid than its original form. Two dark rocks came to form its eyes as it was now mostly made of wood. It stood over the five of them before looking down at the people that freed it from its torment.

“It doesn’t seem to be going berserk anymore,” Ryder commented.

“Yeah, but I wonder if it's mad that we broke its core,” Nazuko said.

The forest elemental moved its arm causing everyone to be on alert. Everyone was on edge until they saw the being gently pat Remi on the head.

“Um, guys I don’t know how to react to this,” Remi whispered.

“Uh, I think that means it likes you. At least it's not pounding you into the ground,” Gunva verbalized.

“Guess it doesn’t want to kick your ass,” Nerva said as she extinguished the fire in her hands.

As Nazuko observed the situation, she literally lit up as an idea popped into her head.

“Ooooo, Ooooh, Remi, try doing that thing, that thing Tamers do. Try and tame it,” Nazuko said as she started glowing.

Remi turned to the forest elemental, before reluctantly reaching out her hand. What she was attempting to do was forge a spirit contract between two individuals allowing the spirit to be summonable.

“Alright I’ll try it, but there’s no way in hell that it would actually accep-” Remi says before being cut off as the elemental wraps a few vines around her hand sending its energy through her.

The air around the two beings moved rapidly as the sudden influx of magical energy was concentrated on both of them. Remi looked down at her hand seeing her light blue aura expand and flare up into the sky enveloping both her and the spirit.

When a tamer in particular forges a contract with a spirit it results in a massive increase in the user’s aura, as their very lifeforce increases up to three times as it was before. Unlike the other warclasses which gain the majority of their power from unlocking their specialization, the rare tamer class tends to gain more power from forging contracts with spirits.

“What- What is this power?” Remi gasped as she looked at the blue light around her.

Remi felt invigorated, power coursed through her veins like a crackle of electricity. She had felt this before, twice over, but those times were nothing like this. She couldn’t describe the feeling, but it was amazing. She didn’t know what to think of it, her hands were shaking, but she steeled herself and embraced the feeling.

“Whoa! In all my days, I’ve never seen this before,” Gunva says as she felt the power emanating from Remi.

“Nazuko do you think Remi is-” Ryder began.

“Yeah, from the feeling of this power and her aura. Remi is now even stronger than Will is,” Nazuko revealed.

“Meh, I think I could still take her,” Nerva said in denial.

Eventually the white blue light subsided as the spirit contract was forged. The forest elemental picked up Remi and seated her on its shoulder. As it did it gave out what seemed like a grunt of satisfaction.

“Dang I guess you can add forest titan to your list of spirits,” Ryder said, still amazed at what just happened.

“I can’t believe it either, I’m still somewhat shaking,” Remi replied.

“Okay guys, now that the business is wrapped up, where did that Lion asshole go?” Nerva asked.

“As it was rampaging I think I saw another weird looking figure appear and rescue the guy,” the alchemist answered.

“Damn, then he got away then.”

“At least you were able to completely stop his plan. I have no doubt you’ll encounter him again. Just an alchemist’s intuition.”

“What was their name again? Oval of Bitches?”

“Circle of Harmony, you should try to remember that name.”

“What of the maliciously looking orb thingy that was leftover?” Nazuko interjected.

The five of them turned to look at it amidst the remains of the old forest elemental’s body.

“Destroy it, it feels like it stole a bunch of energy from the local leyline. It would be best if that energy was returned to the environment.”

“Did someone say destroy!” Ryder perked up.

Nerva and Ryder looked at one another as they were about to say the magic word for claiming destruction rights.

“Dibs,” someone else in particular said.

They both looked at Remi who was staring down at both of them.

“Oh come on!” Nerva complained.

“She called the rule of dibs, what can we do? We must follow the rule,” Ryder articulated.

Remi turned around and lifted her hand. A bunch of roots magically manifested from the earth lifting up the orb. She quickly closed her hand, causing the roots to crush the orb with enormous weight.

“So this is my new power,” Remi expressed as she intuitively knew what to do.

“Alright with that over with, let's finally get what we came for!” Nazuko excitedly demanded.

“Ah yes, I owe you for saving my life, as well as for saving the valley. Let’s go get your herb.”