After the battle that lasted a few more minutes, Flor stood on the , looking down at the corpses of the 7 Stormbird Riders and their mounts. Liu Shu's roots slowly coiled around them and dragged them underground, where they were dissolved and digested by the World Tree.

Because of Liu Shu's current range for the skill, escaping was almost impossible for them. Even if they flew, they would be bombarded by .

Hence, fighting while using Liu Shu's powerful attacks and immobilization techniques, the injured Stormbird Riders were nothing but prey with tough skin.

Flor's and Ignatia's ranged attacks were strong enough to dictate the battle's direction as well. Then, with hundreds of creatures attacking them, regardless of their defense, they were bound to fail and fall.

Once the cacophony of sounds created by the battlefield stopped, the leaders quickly started checking on who on their side was missing.

Thallus said, his slow tone a bit sad. "Four. Young. Died."

Flor looked at Ignatia and saw her sighing. "32 here. Our large numbers made it a bit more challenging to dodge, incurring more casualties."

Flor nodded and muttered with a sigh. "So, we lost 4 Myconids, 32 Fire Ants, and 14 Rose Fairies."

The casualties were incredibly low if one took into account who they had just fought. The people were trained professionals who knew about war. While their squad captain was not that clever, that didn't take away from their overall ability to fight.

If the squad captain had been more competent, then it would've been almost impossible to stop them like they did. Fighting that team of 10 people, unless they were defending and using the walls as a resource, would be pretty difficult.

Ignatia approached Flor and asked. "Why are those girls not coming back yet?"

Flor looked around and frowned when she didn't see them. "Let's go look. Amapola, you are in charge. Ignatia and I are going to check on the Sylvans."

Amapola quickly nodded and began guiding everyone and giving orders to the people.

A few moments earlier, in the forest, the three Sylvans had been fighting against the three Level 12 humans for a while.

Eventually, using their regeneration and many other powerful advantages, they defeated the three of them and went to help the three Level 10 ants, who were locked in a tense fight against the three Level 10 Stormbirds. Thankfully, these ants were all E- Rank. If not, they would've died a long time ago.

After the Sylvans arrived to help, the battle had no wild turns and was won shortly after. The combination of the three Sylvans, Verdantia's summons, and the three Fire Ants was strong enough to overwhelm the .

After the battle ended, the three ants fell to the ground, exhausted. Verdantia said, "Quickly, feed them the 10 Phoer Berries. Those +2500 Phoer will revitalize them greatly."

Cinderielle approached them and opened a pouch she had tied on her waist. In there, there were quite a few of those berries. They were relatively small for a human, around the size of grapes. Therefore, she could carry quite a lot of them in the pouch.

Tempestria looked at her own body, which was filled with lacerations, as Cinderielle fed the exhausted ants and asked. "What about us?"

Verdantia said seriously. "No need to rush. We are not in a critical situation because our transformations have healed us. Liu Shu's berries have an anti-bleeding agent and quick wound-regenerating properties. If we use them later when we are more critically injured, they will have better effects."

Tempestria found the argument reasonable and looked on as Cinderielle fed the last berry to the third ant. All three ants didn't take much more than one minute to stand up, and right when they did so, Tempestria heard the sound of footsteps from a distance, which was carried by the wind. 'Hm?'

The wind Sylvan turned around and squinted.

Cinderielle sighed as she looked at the six corpses. "We are finally done with these. Let's go back to the town and help Flor and the rest. With our transformations having finished, we will probably be able just to give them support, but playing an active role will be tough."

Verdantia agreed as she patted the head of one of the large Fire Ants. "Let's return quickly. We don't know if they are already fighting. Perhaps we can catch up with these three guiding us?"

Tempestria's laugh reached their ears, followed by the Wind Sylvan unsheathing her sword. "No time for that. It seems that those people had reinforcements."

Verdantia and Cinderielle's faces changed, and they quickly looked in the direction Tempestria was looking at.

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They saw the faint silhouettes of several people wearing the clothes.

Cinderielle asked. "Tempestria, Verdantia, do you have another charge of the transformation?"

Verdantia nodded. "I can do the transformation twice a day."

Tempestria smirked. "Same here."

The Fire Sylvan sighed. "If those people join the elite army, things could spiral into a very dangerous situation, right?"

Tempestria added. "I can't see anyone above Level 10."

Cinderielle smirked. "Well, shall we see if six people with first cycle strength can deal with 50 Level 9s?"

The other two smiled back, and Aether Mana and Anima Energy began swirling around them as they ate the Mana and Energy berries.

Cinderielle laughed and started activating hers.

***

Flor and Ignatia rushed through the forest at a quick pace and reached a place with traces of fighting and blood. Looking around, they couldn't find any sign of other people, so they followed the traces of battle, and as they continued down that path, some corpses began to appear.

Feeling that this was not normal, Flor and Ignatia increased their pace and finally reached the main battlefield's location.

Seeing the tens of people lying dead in the surroundings, they couldn't help but gasp. "What happened here?"

Ignatia sniffed around a bit and said. "Come, quickly."

Following a trail of pheromones left by her children, Ignatia and Flor quickly spotted Cinderielle, Valeria, and Tempestria together with the three Level 10 ants.

All six of them were covered in blood and lying on the floor while breathing faintly. Flor was quick to analyze before anything else and saw that their Phoer Body shards were between 1 to 2 thousand, while their Aether Mana and Anima Energy were almost completely depleted.

The wounds around them were severe, and after Flor quickly fed them one of Liu Shu's berries, she noticed that they didn't have any effect. "They are like this after eating Liu Shu's berries?"

Ignatia spoke. "They would probably be dead without them. However, they should survive. I haven't seen any harsh drops of Phoer Body Shards during all this time in any of them. They are really injured, though. Let's carry them to Liu Shu's side. Her should help a little bit with their recovery."

Flor asked, her tone a bit rushed as she cleaned their faces of blood and mud. "Why don't I heal them with my skill? Look at these children. They are so pale."

Ignatia looked around and spoke. "I understand your worry, Flor. But we can't. We don't know if there will be more enemies. Since none of them are in peril, let's first reach the town. Once there, if you still have Aether Mana and Anima Energy, go ahead and heal them as much as you want."

Flor found it reasonable and used her Aether Mana to lift the three giant ants while Ignatia carried the three Sylvans. The reason for this arrangement was that Ignatia was not big enough to carry the horse-sized ants on her.

Ignatia paused and looked around. "Have you confirmed that everyone is dead? We don't want people surviving because of negligence."

Flor blinked. "Right. I was so worried about these six that I forgot."

Then, Flor and Ignatia looked around for a few minutes, and Flor couldn't help but praise Ignatia. She found four people who had survived and had quite a big chance of survival, while there were around seven who were on death's door and would've died if left alone.

Regardless, they finished all of them off, and just to make sure, they decapitated everyone with Tempestria's sword.

Ignatia couldn't help but be impressed. "48 people. That's incredible. Moreover, they are all Level 8 and Level 9.."

Flor frowned, feeling something amiss. "Isn't 48 a strange number?"

Ignatia blinked. "What?"

Flor commented. "I mean, wouldn't 50 people going to reinforce them be more… instinctual? Like. Who would say, 'Oh, let's send 48 people as reinforcements'? Even the elite group was ten people and ten mounts. There is a certain… How to say it…"

The Ant Queen understood what Flor meant and was thoughtful. 'She has a point.' But even if that was a valid suspicion, she didn't want to follow ghosts, so she said. "How about we return and send everyone out to look at the surroundings? There are plenty of people who are still quite healthy. As long as there are two Level 9 humans, if we send them in groups of 10, there should be no surprises even if they find them."

Ignatia said. "Even if there are two more people, they must've been injured enough during the battle that they couldn't finish off any of these six children. So, there will certainly be traces to follow. My ants are really good at following scents."

Flor agreed and quickly returned to the Golden Sap Town with the rest in tow. Liu Shu's voice reached her, sounding quite worried. 'What happened to them?'

Flor sighed. "They were holding back the reinforcements of those people we were fighting. If they had joined hands with the people we fought, it would've been quite… Disastrous. Cinderielle, Tempestria, Verdantia, and these three ants stood there and killed almost all of them."

Liu Shu was silent, and Flor didn't know what was going on in her mind. However, she could somewhat feel that Liu Shu's aura was more turbulent and dense than usual.

"Liu Shu? Are you okay?"

A faint but strangely mature voice reached her. "Yes."

The Rose Fairy Queen was startled, and to make sure that she didn't hear wrong, she commented. "Oh, right. Liu Shu, can you cover them with your aura? They are plant-related at the end of the day. Therefore, it might help the Sylvans."

Liu Shu's usual soft and slightly young voice reached her. 'Okay~. I'll do my best, Flor!'

This confused her. 'Hm? Did I imagine it? Wasn't her tone slightly different a moment ago?' She rubbed her forehead and remembered the potential two people who escaped, so she placed this event on the back of her mind.

"Amapola! Gather everyone who can fight! We are going to hunt. Those who are not injured but are low on their energy reserves, stay back and help the injured ones."

Liu Shu saw everyone moving around with her 360 degree gaze, but her vision was fixed on the three Sylvans lying on the leafy bed built by her side. It was built a few months ago because Flor sometimes liked to lie there.

Since she was going to build it, Liu Shu crafted it in human proportions so that everyone could fit in it. She honestly did so impulsively, but now she was glad that she didn't need to place the injured Sylvans on the hard ground.

Her trunk slowly leaned forward, and as if it were hair, her dropping willow branches gently fell on top of the three Sylvans.

The image was endearing, looking like a tree woman reaching out to the three injured people.

'Hm. Strength… More Strength…'

The World Tree's vision extended to her surroundings and muttered. 'It seems that I won't be able to play nicely anymore. I need to reach Level 10 as fast as possible.'

Liu Shu's aura surged underground and spread to the surroundings, making all nearby trees shudder.

For some reason, the gentle rustling of leaves from the forest sounded somewhat ominous today.