“There seems to be nothing around here,” Lenore mused, her mental voice filled with disbelief. I could empathize with her, seeing the massive tree and the empty meadow around it didn’t invoke images of an incredibly important sanctuary and yet, it was exactly what we were looking at.

It had taken us the entire day and most of the night to cross the distance to the dryad in control over this stretch of forest, carefully following the magic traces and making sure that none of us ever set foot on the ground. To our understanding, the Dryad’s awareness through trees used vibrations in the ground and tactile sensations of the trees themselves, so cutting those off would prevent them from passively noticing us, now that Adra was no longer with us.

I still had no idea where she and Rai had ended up, I could vaguely feel that Rai was still alive, the connection between master and disciple strong enough for that, but determining in which direction or how far away he was was not within my abilities. Maybe with a lot of work, a large ritual and some luck, but really, it might just be for the best. Adra had been getting antsy and now, she could continue travelling wherever she wanted with Rai. That is, until I managed to accomplish my revenge.

And now, it was time for the first step of vengeance.

Shifting my weight, I angled the sheet of Ice I had used to glide upwards, momentum rapidly bleeding off and just before I would plummet down like a stone, I pushed myself into the all-encompassing shadows of the night, stepping into the opening of the massive tree below.

From that moment on, speed was of the essence, I had to assume that the tree had already noticed my intrusion, despite my concealment-magic and stealth-ability. Moving quickly, I stepped up the stairs, following the currents of magic and divination that were flowing with the water from above, homing in on my target.

The dryad looked quite surprised when we barged in, Ylva running next to me, while Lenore was once more in her Hallow, watching through my eyes.

“It is pointless, you will not be able to slay me, monster,” the dryad calmly told me, looking at me with an air of careless superiority. As if I was merely an ant, unable to touch her lofty pride. A pride she had reason to hold if my understanding of her people held true.

From various conversations with Adra, I had a reasonably good idea of a Dryad’s capabilities and the biggest part was the connection to their tree. But what if that tree wasn’t just a singular tree, imbued with powerful vitality but ultimately nothing that couldn’t be destroyed by an axe, a lightning strike or even some simple fire? What if the tree the dryad bonded with was part of a larger organism, hundreds of thousands of trees, all part of that single organism, with hundreds of dryads bonded to them?

Wouldn’t that mean a dryad had an almost infinite pool of vitality to draw on, making it virtually impossible to kill them?

The complete lack of magical defences had given me some confidence in my assumption, anything else would be foolishness to the point of stupidity, but if the dryads, in their opinion, couldn’t be killed, why expend resources to guard them? Why not simply let them live as they liked, without the shackles brought by guards and security?

“We shall see,” I growled back, noticing that the dryad was extending her magic into the tree around us, causing branches to sprout around us, trying to box Ylva and me in. Ylva simply jumped to the side, before pushing off mid-air, using her newly gained abilities to fly to her full advantage.

In the meantime, I stepped through the shadows, appearing behind the dryad and stabbing both blades into her defenceless back, only to get stuck. It was almost as if I was trying to chop wood, some old and gnarly oak, hard and unyielding. From the dryad’s reaction, or rather lack thereof, the wound I had caused wasn’t even enough to be considered a scratch. There was only a sigh before she turned, her arm swinging with indomitable momentum. Her strike carried enough force to crush rocks or impudent ants that challenged a dryad in her burrow, forcing me to abandon my blades and frantically dodge aside.

“See, pointless,” the dryad snorted before another swipe of her hand forced Ylva to back away.

The dryad wanted a point, and I would give her one. Briefly hiding in the shadows, I reached into my bag, pulling my Athame and the Soul Prison out. Feeling for the moment using my bond with Ylva, I stepped back out, managing to catch the dryad off-guard again and creating another thin scratch in her skin. My athame simply lacked the sturdiness to cut into her, but I had managed that scratch and it was enough.

Keeping the blade in the wound, even as it sealed around it, I pulled, putting my newly acquired Perfect Magic Control to the test, employing it to flood her system with Blood- and Death-Magic. I could feel the boundless vitality of the dryad, the attacks Ylva and I had launched not even enough to threaten the body before us, let alone the countless trees she was linked with. But this had never been about threatening them or exhausting their vitality.

Before the dryad could get her bearings and push my magic out of her system, I did just that, ripping on the Blood Magic I had infused into her and establishing that vital link to the Nidhögg.

Suddenly, her eyes opened wide and a shrill, pained screech was ripped from her throat, all the arrogant superiority stripped from her by the pain of having her magic and vitality ripped from her. Normally, that would be far from enough to threaten her, there was likely no non-divine Blood Mage strong enough to channel the entirety of the forest’s vitality. Even if Blood Magic took the magic from another, it still required some effort from the caster and this was far too much for me to channel.

But it wasn’t me who was channelling the vitality, I was merely a bridge that established the initial contact. And the moment that contact was there, I could feel the Nidhögg in their prison rearing up and taking control of the spell, power flooding through my system, allowing me to feel the edges of something more, something unbelievably vast and powerful.

It was intoxicating, strong enough to make me forget everything around me, my whole existence flooded with awe and fear. For a moment, I could feel those black flames, the power to destroy everything but then, the sensation was gone, leaving me a little disappointed. While I had my own flames now, the fascination I felt for the Flames of Nidhögg remained quite strong.

Then the process was complete, mere moments after I had initiated it and the Nidhögg was in full control of the Astral Power I had forced into the Dryad, using it as if the power had been theirs in the first place.

I could feel the massive fluctuation of power, the tree around us starting to burn in black, heatless flames but there was so much more. It wasn’t just that single, massive tree, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of trees around us, the very forest that surrounded this meadow, I could feel the vitality of it all, all getting devoured by those black flames.

Laughing, I looked at the dryad, keeping hold of my athame, savouring the mixture of pain, fear and despair in her gaze and the air around us.

“You wanted a point,” I mocked, ecstatic to literally plunge a dagger into one of those who had killed Sigmir. Plunge a dagger into their back and make it stick.

The dryad was no longer capable of communication, or reason, or anything other than screaming in pain, the sounds both painfully loud but also incredibly pleasant to listen to, the music of vengeance.

The feeding lasted for a few minutes, the air around us thick with power, even as the tree rapidly crumbled and yet, there was enough power in the air to allow me to stand on the very air itself, coalescing the shadows into a solid form. It was the technique I had used to create those black, impenetrable voids, only now I had enough power at my disposal to easily sustain one. At least until the Nidhögg was done feasting.

Turning, I could see the forest burn with black fire, as far as my eyes could reach. The world itself was trembling under the powers invoked until finally, a satisfied sensation of gratitude reached me from the Soul Prison, the dryad nothing more but a withered husk that rapidly turned to dust.

The first blow of my vengeance had been struck.