Zalia followed the bird for a little while, finding herself quickly approaching where the Grove stood. What danger could be near the Grove? She had searched the nearby area already before setting it up, though not as thoroughly as she might have.

The bird took her up the hill just behind the Grove until flitting down to sit upon the grass.

“What is it, little friend?” Zalia asked.

Danger, the concept came. The bird began pecking at the ground to emphasise.

Zalia frowned, walking over to see what it was doing. There, in the side of the hill was a little crack. She knelt down, summoning her armour onto her body as she did, and put her face next to it.

Looking through, she could see there was a wider space inside. She tapped on the dirt, watching the vibrations carefully. It looked like there was a passage that led even further in.

“What is in there?” Zalia asked the bird.

It didn’t answer, hopping about nervously, pecking at the ground.

“You may go, thank you,” Zalia told it.

It immediately took off, as if it had been waiting for her to release it. She watched it go, wondering as to how humane the ability was. Did it force the animal to do that? Did it coerce it?

She would have to test that more at a later time, for now she had a danger to solve. Another one.

Boreal came hurtling up the hill, sliding to a stop beside her.

“Fight?” Boreal asked, looking at the dirt.

“I don’t know,” Zalia whispered.

She began moving the earth with her manipulation skill, Boreal helping the process along. The entrance soon became wide enough for her to squeeze through. She was incorporeal, so it was much easier than it might have been as parts of her simply passed through the dirt. The little chamber that she had to crawl through led deeper into the hill and she began to notice that the walls were marked. As earth became stone, those marks became clearer, more defined. They were scratches, like the claws of something digging into the hill.

The first thing that came to mind was the Silver centipede she had encountered back in her first months in Endaria. She almost started backing up but realised there would be a good amount of the poison it commonly dripped all over the walls if that had been the case. Steeling herself, she pushed further in, Boreal shoving her way behind.

They actively worked to widen the passage as they crawled, the tunnel behind them becoming much more comfortable to travel if a quick escape ended up being necessary.

“Any ideas what it could be?” Zalia communicated to Boreal.

“Smells… corrupt,” Boreal answered with a low, quiet growl.

A shiver ran up Zalia’s spine, memories of all the times she had fought or encountered the various corrupt creatures flashing through her mind. She started to feel it, the aura of corruption, oozing out of the tunnel further in. Perhaps it was a good thing she had set up the Grove where she had, if she had discovered some hidden… nest?

She cast a few rituals, minor ones that gave both her and Boreal protection from senses and harm. She also tried to restrain her Healing presence as much as possible to prevent them from being detected.

“Ready for a fight, if need be?” she asked Boreal.

“Always,” Boreal’s reply came.

With that, she pushed forward.

Zalia’s sight widened, the vibrations within the earth and air providing all the clarity and confirmation to what her sight told her. Within the chamber that the small tunnel led to, was most definitely a nest. A nest of corruption, dozens of creatures swarming about. As she watched, she could tell that none of the creatures within were of a high rank, many still only Tin. Was it some sort of breeding ground for more of the corrupt?

As she watched, a few of the small bug-like corrupt, similar in form to the other flying demons she had encountered, cracked obsidian skin and six wings, yet not humanoid, entered the chamber. They might have been the young of the larger and more powerful versions from all she could tell.

The little bug corrupt were dragging a body behind them. It was an Ironfur rabbit, the metallic sheen of its pelt unmistakable. As she watched, it was swarmed and pieces of the animal were torn off and shared between the nest. Zalia had seen quite enough.

Knowing that no higher ranked were in there but not knowing if they resided nearby, she decided on a quick blitz tactic.

She marked ten of the creatures, cast the spreading cursed fire ritual, and threw herself from the hole.

Fire erupted and screeches echoed through the space. She set off an explosion ritual on the opposite side of the chamber even as she began cutting down as many of the corrupt bugs as she could. Boreal was close behind, tearing through them with a single bite, swipe or pounce each. Ice spread out like the roots of a tree, occasionally lancing upwards to impale one of the bugs and holding it there as if a morbid piece of art.

Boreal quickly moved off and began stopping the creatures from leaving but Zalia was quicker. She used Nature’s wrath, gaining control of the very elements making up the nest. The tunnels closed off, the air rushed towards the cursed fires, fanning them and fueling their power.

Soon, there was no oxygen left in the chamber but Zalia did not care as she held her breath, controlling the fires, fueling their power now only with her magic. She made them burn ever hotter, spreading it across the entire nest.

A flash of memory, a hand, closing.

The heat grew further, the ashes of the dead beginning to fall.

The hand closed with a crunch.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The heat grew to a point that even she began to feel it. Still, she continued pushing more and more power into the fires.

The two allies Nature’s wrath summoned, elementals of stone, began their own slaughter. They quickly became charred and cracked as the heat rose yet they continued on their path of destruction. Each of the elementals was now Iron rank, rather than Tin, and a force in their own right.

“Zalia,” Boreal said in her mind.

She ignored it for the moment, feeling the fires burn ever stronger, cleansing the corruption as thoroughly as she could.

The top of the nest exploded as two Bronze ranked demons entered the space. She sealed the entrance they had made immediately, condensing the flame around the two newly arrived creatures as their screeches of pain filled the chamber too.

They didn’t last long, Zalia now hanging suspended by earthen arms as she performed her grizzly work.

“Zalia!” Boreal said louder.

What did she want? Couldn’t Boreal see that she was busy?

The smell of scorching flesh reached her nose as the momentary burst of fresh air cast smoke across the room and yet she fueled the fires ever onwards. Nothing remained of the corrupt but ashes and melted stone, lava pooling along the floor, the roof turned to a scorched mess.

“Zalia!” Boreal said once more, the sound a yell in her mind.

Another flash, the dead collective littering the floor

She felt a pressure building within her as the flames burned brighter, scorched earth cracking.

Ro-ak, surrounded by two horrible creatures.

"Zalia!!" Boreal yelled a final time.

Nature’s wrath ended.

The earthen arms holding her in the air broke apart and she dropped to the floor, panting. She realised the smell of scorched flesh was her own as her skin began flaking off, already healing by her own power. She knelt there, breathing heavily as new air filled the chamber through a hole in the ceiling as the molten stone collapsed.

Boreal appeared at her side, ice gently covering her and cooling her.

She was unharmed but Zalia could see the concern in her body posture.

“Don’t worry, it’s over,” Zalia croaked.

Her two elementals collapsed in a pile of cracked, scorched and melted stone.

She leaned heavily against Boreal as exhaustion took over her body, a deep headache pulsing within her skull.

“Do- Don’t worry,” Zalia repeated, her voice slowing and her mind shutting down.

Her vision started narrowing and she collapsed onto Boreal.

⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻

Zalia woke up, blinking bleary eyes at the canopy of leaves overhead. She didn’t remember going to sleep, where was she?

Memories came back, a tunnel, the cave, fire burning.

It all came back in a flash and she sat up straight, her head pounding still.

“Boreal?” she called out telepathically.

A head popped into sight from above her, Boreal looking down from a little icy perch a little behind her own piece of floor.

“Zalia!” Boreal exclaimed.

She hopped down and circled around in front of Zalia, sitting calmly.

“Thanks,” Zalia said, scratching at her arm a bit.

Boreal exhaled sharply, like an exasperated breath.

“Zalia out of control,” Boreal pointed out.

“Yeah, I… yeah,” Zalia conceded.

She didn’t know where it had come from. It was the first time she had ever actually used so much mana that she had passed out. Usually her abilities didn’t use quite enough mana, especially with her having the attribute that increased her mana pool significantly, to cause it. Nature’s wrath was able to burn through it all now, apparently. In a very literal sense.

She frowned. She hadn’t felt out of control at the time but thinking back to it, she definitely had been a little… overzealous. She’d turned those two Bronze rank demons to ash in moments. That shouldn’t have been possible for someone of her rank but, well, her abilities were a little different to most.

She looked around, realising she was in one of the treehouse homes that were a part of her Grove. The little bird that had first warned her of danger flew through the doorway, landing on Zalia’s arm.

“Hey there little friend, how are you?” Zalia said to it.

It chirped a few times, inspected her arms, then flew off again. It was cute, only palm-sized with red and blue colourings. Zalia particularly liked the two little horns it had.

She stood up with a groan, Boreal stepping up next to her in case she needed help.

“Oh, don’t worry about me, just getting into my later years now,” Zalia said jokingly.

Boreal bumped her gently with her shoulder, then walked outside.

Stretching her arms, Zalia followed.

“How long was I out for?” she asked.

“Two days,” Boreal said.

“Two days!?” Zalia exclaimed.

“Sleepy Zalia,” Boreal informed her.

“Yeah, apparently,” Zalia agreed.

She walked out into the light, looking out across her Grove and was struck by the changes that had happened.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of birds flitted through the treetops, singing their songs. Far below, various animals were grazing, from Ironfur rabbits, suspiciously not attacking anything, to one of the magical deer creatures she had hunted once. Something akin to a badger was digging a little home in the ground.

“What happened while I was asleep?” Zalia asked incredulously.

“Friends!” Boreal said.

Zalia slowly walked down the stairs to the forest floor below and was shocked by the sheer amount of life she found. The farmers had obviously been busy as many rows of sown ground already had plants sprouting from them. A few Ironfur rabbits looked like they were helping sow more earth further along as the farmers worked using various magics.

A large cat, one like she had seen on her first day down from the north hunting an Ironfur rabbit, sat contentedly in the boughs of a tree, keeping an eye on the entrance to the Grove. Zalia, in a daze, wandered over to where Mate was.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

“Was hopin’ you’d tell me that,” he said.

“Where did all the animals come from?” she asked instead.

“They just wandered in the day after you came back all unconscious, and started helping,” he told her.

“Started helping?” she asked, still confused.

She knew the Grove description said that animals may form bonds and help but this was… odd.

“Yeah that’s what I said. Some help us farm, the birds ‘ave been bringing us seeds from all over, others help us sow the earth. Some like that one in the tree there seem to keep watch. I dunno what you did but they certainly seem grateful to ya,” Mate explained.

“Huh,” she said.

“That’s all the explanation you’ve got for me? Huh?” Mate asked, some incredulity entering his own voice.

“Yeah,” Zalia said, still looking around in wonder.

He just stared at her with an odd expression on his face.