Henry drew Dawnbringer and lunged straight into the dryads. He knew dealing with these demonic dryads was a pain in the ass without fire magic, so he had gotten Jan to prepare something for him before he left.

It was a fire elemental Mana Crystal, a mineral made of pure mana that can be found in areas full of mana but with few living creatures to consume it. Since it was a fire element crystal, it was probably found and mined in a hot area like a volcano.

Henry started absorbing some fire mana from the crystal while barely dodging the vines from the dryads. The dryad queen was strangely quiet, not moving at all, which did make Henry rather anxious though.

Henry kept absorbing the fire mana into his body. It felt like he was burning from inside, but Henry had developed a high pain tolerance during these past few days.

Henry kept fighting for about ten minutes or so until he finally had enough fire mana fused with his mana.

You have absorbed a limited amount of fire shaped mana into your Demon Slaying Energy. For one hour, you will burn any enemy that touches the Demon Slaying Energy around your body, have 150%% movement speed when your energy is active, and fire damage will be dealt with each strike. You will also take 50% less fire damage.

'Finally!'

Henry's plan had come to fruition.

"Asura's Wrath Sword Technique, First Form: Cycle of Death!"

Henry turned into a spinning circle of fire and lightning as he spun into the gathering of dryads. The dryads shrieked as they got burned and electrocuted at the same time.

You have slain 35 Demonic Dryads. You have gained 2,275 Demon Slaying Energy Exp. Level Up! Current: lvl 17, 675/1700 Exp. You have also gained 175 Darkness Points.

Five dryads had survived, but Henry quickly beheaded them.

You have slain 5 Demonic Dryads. You have gained 325 Demon Slaying Energy Exp. Current: lvl 17, 1000/1700 Exp. You have also gained 25 Darkness Points.

'Alright, now this big one.'

The queen had stayed still all this time, simply watching as her children and servants were slain. However, Henry could sense strange mana fluctuations from her with Mind's Eye. He had hit her when he performed Cycle of Death, but the attack seemed to not affect her.

'What is this thing even doing? Let's try to take it down anyways.'

Henry used Asura's Descent, his strongest attack, but the dryad queen still seemed unaffected.

'What the hell?'

Henry decided to use Mind's Eye and concentrate, hoping to detect something.

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He sat in lotus position and concentrated on the mana around him.

'Hmm....what's that?'

After meditating for a while, he noticed something down underground.

He could feel what he assumed were the dryad queen's roots extending deep underground and dumping all their demonic energy into a strange spherical object.

'It's burning its lifeforce and converting it into demonic energy to dump into this thing, while using the rest of the demonic energy to create a thick shield around itself.'

Henry decided to wait and see what this thing would do. After all, no attack of his was working.

Half an hour or so later, he no longer felt any lifeforce from the dryad queen, so he opened his eyes.

He saw that the once beautiful visage of the dryad queen had now become cold, hard wood.

'Damn. Lifeforce depletion is no joke. I mean, I've used Overdrive before and it hurt like hell, but this is insane. Anyways, let's dig up that strange object.'

Henry started digging into the ground. He knew where the object was and it wasn't that deep, so he managed to find it quicky.

It looked like a peach seed, but it was purple and much larger in size. He felt a huge amount of demonic energy coming from it.

'Analyze.'

Analysis Results

Name: Fourth Generation Demonic Dryad Queen Seed

Description: As a species that is very in tune with nature and other lifeforms, Demonic Dryads can feel when their life is about to end. And while a Demon Dryad Queen can rapidly produce an unlimited amount of normal Demonic Dryads, producing another queen is a complicated, time consuming procedure. Thus, when a Demonic Dryad Queen feels her death approaching, she creates a seed from her heart and transfers all her lifeforce into it. This causes each generation of Demonic Dryad Queens to be born with much more potential than its ancestors. Of course, this chain can be stopped by killing the Queen. There are rumors that Demon King Andromalius destroys all Dryad colonies which produce a fifth generation Queen, fearing that a Demonic Dryad queen may one day overthrow him.

Uses:

-Can be destroyed for 50000 Demon Slaying Energy Exp.

-Can be used to confuse Demonic Dryads, as they are genetically coded to give their lives to protect any Queen seed.

-Can be used to brew some extremely powerful potions

-You may try to tame the newly hatched queen, but you must know that since it is impossible for a Demonic Dryad Queen to see her mother, they don't have the concept of familial love towards parents, so you will not get any favor for raising the seed.

Time Until Fully Grown:

3:5:35:56 (Suspended due to not being in soil)

'So, this is the seed of a Demonic Dryad? Hmm...Well, I'm not going to raise a damned demon, that's for sure. So, it's between the first three options. I'm not returning to the overworld anytime soon, so the third one can be eliminated too. I'll take the second option. I'll keep it as an easy way to stun the Demonic Dryads.'

Henry put the seed in his inventory and cut down the dead Dryad Queen. He didn't get any Exp, but he at least made sure it wouldn't resurrect somehow. He then started walking eastwards, where he could faintly sense more mana.

'There's probably a settlement or gathering of demons there.'