With the fauna utterly obliterated and their leader’s foot and lowest portion of his leg blown to itty bitty bits, the tree-kin were now in a bit of a bind. They could have simply bit the bullet and advanced, but they had counted on the animals being not just a flanking force, but also a meat shield and diversion as well. Now, however, the mammals, reptiles, and arthropods were either all dead, bleeding out, or dying of shock. Well, at least they still had the birds that were circling above the battlefield. At least they could be used in the way that the other animals had been supposed to.

However, there was another major issue that cropped up soon after. While the birds were sent ahead to distract the evil servants of that malign corruptor, the tree-kin were still slow as all hell. Even the fastest among them could really only pull off enough speed to equal what most Humans would call a ‘power walk’, and that speed was less impressive than you’d think. After all, those that were the fastest were also the shortest.

Despite being over six feet tall at a minimum, and with legs that were, in most cases, longer than a Human’s, their movement was more of a weird ambling pseudo-shuffle than a decent walk. To watch these ‘fast’ plantoids move was like watching someone with Cerebral Palsy try and move faster than they would normally go, except even less gracefully.

And to be brutally honest, the smaller planetoids moved so unnaturally that it would make those with Cerebral Palsy look like supermodels strutting their stuff on a catwalk. But then again, when they had spent the better portion of their lives simply standing in one place without much movement, what else was to be expected. Besides, their forms were unnatural as it was. Beings made out of wood and other plant matter were not designed to move like a normal animal, so it could be said that the actions that they took were them forcing their own bodies to be something that they had no right to be.

Hell, even the larger ones walked with a gait that would make those with mental and physical injuries and alterations look like they were normal. Given how the leader of these mostly wooden people was now trying to walk normally despite missing about 9% of his left leg, one could say that the planetoids were just trying a fair bit too hard to come off as ‘normal’.

Regardless, as was stated previously, they were as slow as molasses going uphill in the middle of a Siberian winter, or maybe just a little faster than that. Their leader missing a not-so-small chunk of his lower leg and foot on one side was just another thing keeping them from going full speed, not that their full speed was anything to write home about. However, they would soon with that they could move a hell of a lot faster, as their air force was being quickly dealt with by the defenders of the small town up ahead.

Being creatures of flesh and blood and having bones that were hollow, the giant birds didn’t stand much of a chance in a melee engagement. This was especially true given that they were not facing only living people, but instead also facing hordes of undead as well. The more independent living people were able to act of their own accord and with more intelligence than the garrison of undead, and they used this to their advantage.

While birds aren’t actually as dumb as most people think, these birds were obviously either mentally deficient or just hopelessly naïve as they were lured into engagements that they could not possibly hope to win. It was a rather simple matter to pop out, draw the attention of a few giant birds, scurry away to a set location and then duck for cover as the birds came down to kill them. Once on the ground, it was easy enough to send tens of Zombies to pile on top of the grounded birds while Skeletons came up and slashed their necks.

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Gradually the giant birds were killed off, one by one, until at last the survivors of that ill-fated maneuver broke and ran, flying off as fast as their wings could take them. They wouldn’t get far, however, as the very Fel bats that they had kept at bay via their presence, numbers, and power were now more than capable of swarming the remaining birds and tearing them apart mid-air.

…

He was beginning to save second doubts right about now. Although, he had to be honest with himself; there wasn’t much else he was able to do besides go forward and hope that the birds had managed to deal enough damage before running away. He had instructed his kin to avoid stepping on the objects planted in the ground, but it seemed that some of them would explode even if you were only a few feet away. Some of them seemed to literally jump up from the ground before exploding, and more than a handful of smaller tree-kin were harmed by these jumping explosives.

Still, despite all that had transpired, there were now only a few objects between the purest incarnation of nature and the evil, malicious, sadistic, mongrel mockeries of life that lay before them. Their unnatural constructs would be shattered and returned to the earth that they were drawn from. The people hiding inside that place would become living fertilizer, spending decades in agony as their flesh was forced to give back all it had taken from nature in the most painful and brutal way possible.

And no, that wouldn’t be sadistic or cruel, as it was something to be done to the enemy. It isn’t hypocrisy if it is for the good of all things, after all. It was merely a just punishment for their actions and thoughts, nothing more. Certainly, they would find a great delight and joy from what was to be done to them, but that was not sadism or malice, it was their understanding that these evil beings were going to be punished for their sinful existence.

As he drew closer, he felt a change in the earth before him. It wasn’t nearly as clear as it would have been had the lower 9% of his left leg not been blown to pieces, but he still felt it. There were… cylinders? And they were planted in the ground at an odd angle and pointed towards him and the other tree-kin. He found it strange, and he feared that they were larger, more powerful explosives that would detonate if he and his kind got too close.

The other landmines were dangerous enough, but these ones were much larger. He did find it strange that they smelled like some kind of putrid ungodly muck. He could have sworn that he had experienced such a scent before, but that memory would not make itself present anytime soon. He sent the signal for his forces (or what remained of them) to halt. He would not lead them into another massive explosion, and he would find a way around these bombs if he had enough time.

…

Little did he know that these were not mere landmines, but something Kain had ‘borrowed’ from a war of a different kind, despite knowing full well the horrors that it was capable of and the utter inhumanity of what he was planning to do with it. That smell? The one that the tree-kin leader couldn’t quite place? It was something that had brought nothing but pain, suffering, and abject misery to a great number of people. It was no incendiary, nor was it magical in nature. It was something altogether much worse and much more insidious, especially to the knife-eared militant hippies and their floral friends.

Kain had brought into being something altogether more horrific for Elf, Plantoid, and allied animal alike. Something that had been outright banned due to its destructive effects and that one nation on Earth used to the point that even its own veterans had horror stories about it.

This was no average chemical. This was Agent Orange.