“Now!”
Mingyue had already leapt high into the air, raising her scythe over her head. She slammed it down with all her might onto the crack they had repeatedly targeted.
The blade struck the center of the crack. Spiderweb-like fractures radiated outward from the point of impact, and the entire barrier shattered like broken glass.
The moment the barrier shattered, the giant tree at the mountain peak shuddered violently.
All its vines reared up at once. Dark green mana gushed from the cracks in its trunk, and the suppressed mana fluctuations surged outward like a bursting dam.
Mingyue landed on the nearest rock, holding her scythe across her chest to block the oncoming magical shockwave. Her long hair whipped wildly in the wind.
“It's angry.”
“Everyone, scatter! Get into our standard formation—”
Before she could finish, Seina's arrow of light was already loosed, pinning the vine closest to Snowrealm to the mountain wall.
“Roger that,” Seina said with a soft chuckle over the communication channel.
Snowrealm didn't reply. She had already used the cover of her ice dust to slip into the flank of the writhing vines.
Mingyue lowered her center of gravity, dragging her scythe to leave a deep groove in the ground as she dashed toward the roaring giant tree at the peak.
Further down the mountainside, the battle was rapidly unfolding.
Seina's light arrows blasted gap after gap in the mass of vines, Snowrealm's ice-dust chains sealed off the entire left slope, and Mingyue's scythe carved a path along the frozen vines.
But Qiluo felt that something was off.
The severed vines falling onto the slope did not dissipate into black mist like the remains of ordinary Erosion Bodies. Instead, they piled up on the ground, a thick sap oozing from their cut ends and soaking into the soil.
A faint rustling sound echoed in the air, like something slithering slowly deep within the earth.
Star-trail stared at the piles of severed vines. She had seen this before.
Last summer, in her original world, a wood-attribute magic instructor had given a demonstration to the students, using a severed piece of Mana-Devouring Thorns for a regeneration experiment.
The severed stem had taken root and sprouted in a short time, growing even more branches from a single cut.
The mechanism behind it was that wood-attribute magical beasts stored their mana in a core located at their roots. Even when the core was damaged, every severed vine could serve as an independent regeneration node to continue growing.
The only way to completely kill it was to apply a strong enough suppression mana to the cut ends at the exact moment they were severed.
Why was there magic from her original world here as well?
“Wait—” Star-trail's warning left her mouth, but it was too late.
Mingyue had just sliced through a vine lunging at her. As she turned to retreat and reposition, the soil beneath her feet suddenly burst open. Three even thicker vines shot out of the ground, aiming straight for her wrists and ankles.
Mingyue had no time to block with her scythe. Accustomed to fighting alone, she simply lowered her center of gravity, bracing herself to take the hit.
A wall of ice rose abruptly from the ground in front of her.
Snowrealm rushed in from a distance. Her ice spikes shattered the vine wrapping around Mingyue's wrist, while Mingyue herself snapped the one around her ankle and leaped backward.
Her back slammed against a protruding rock on the mountain wall. Before she could catch her breath, a shadow loomed overhead.
She looked up. A vine was raised high, its tip casting a long, thin shadow that blanketed her face.
Nuomi moved.
All that could be seen was a milky-white blur launching itself. It was so fast that Mingyue couldn't even see how Nuomi had jumped.
It collided with the vine midair, twisting its body as two shockwaves exploded from its tail.
The golden ripples forced the vine off course. It scraped past Mingyue's shoulder and crashed into the mountain wall beside her. Rubble sprayed everywhere, and a few sharp stone shards nicked her cheek.
The vine wasn't destroyed; it was simply too massive. The shockwaves had only thrown it off trajectory.
Infuriated, the vine swung toward Nuomi, who was still suspended in midair with no footing. Having just released the shockwaves with its twin tails, its ears were blown back by the recoil of the blast.
Mingyue snapped out of it, leaping up and slicing the pursuing vine in half.
She caught Nuomi in her arms and flipped to land on one knee amidst the rubble. She shielded Nuomi against her chest, the creature's front paws gripping her collar tightly.
“Nuomi,” Mingyue said softly, as if afraid of startling the fluffy little thing in her arms. “You just—”
“Nuomi is fine!” Nuomi poked its head out of her arms, its ears standing straight up. “Mingyue, are you hurt? Your face—”
It reached out a front paw, gently brushing the back of it against the bloody scratch on Mingyue's cheek.
Mingyue pulled it a bit closer.
Kneeling in the rubble, she held Nuomi tightly in her embrace. She held her scythe out to block the twitching remnants of the vines behind her, seemingly having no intention of standing up just yet.
“Mingyue!” Seina's voice rang out from above.
Two light arrows rained down, pinning two small vines creeping toward her precisely to the ground.
Snowrealm also appeared by her side, blocking attacks coming from the flank.
“Senpai, are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you still stand?”
As Seina spoke, she loomed and loosed another arrow, pinning a vine that was trying to ambush Snowrealm from the side to the mountain wall.
“...I'm fine.” Mingyue stood up from the rubble, placing Nuomi on her shoulder and wiping the bloody scratch on her cheek with the back of her hand. “It's just a scratch.”
“Mingyue! The ground—”
Mingyue looked down and saw the soil beneath her feet churning.
Unbeknownst to them, the vines had already spread beneath the soil, stretching from where she stood all the way into the distance.
She immediately kicked off the ground and leapt. Almost simultaneously, dozens of vines burst from the soil she had just occupied, their sharp tips scraping past the soles of her boots.
Snowrealm had already flown up to Seina's side, her right hand resting on her sword hilt.
The light arrow on Seina's bowstring was still charging, her breathing not yet fully settled.
“How are they growing back? We clearly cut them all down just now.”
“Severed vines won't die,” Star-trail's voice reached everyone's ears. “This Erosion Body's core isn't in the trunk; it's underground. It's a complete Mana-Devouring Thorns. Every single vine you cut just now will take root again from the severed ends. The more you cut, the more they will grow.”
Mingyue tightened her grip on her scythe's handle. In all her years of fighting Erosion Bodies, this was the first time she had encountered an opponent that completely defied common sense.
“Mana-Devouring Thorns?” Seina hovered in midair. The light arrow on her bowstring remained lit, but she didn't rush to fire her next shot. “What is that?”
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