"Luca, be care—"

"GET DOWN!"

"Ful—UGH!"

However, before he could react, he was knocked to the ground by the ravis.h.i.+ng beauty beside him.

Though he was surprised by her speed – equivalent to the Hill (World-cla.s.s) level – that was not what made him unable to dodge. You could imagine Lars reaction at being tackled head on by a buxom, tantalising temptress.

Not to mention evading, even rational thought was suspended at the moment that he saw her jump towards him to cover his body, her arms and certain other appendages rising with her momentum to crash into his chest…

When her pillowy chest hit him in the face, Lars' vision turned black both physically and mentally. Because of that, even when the Divine Judgment of G.o.d rose up and struck the battlefield catastrophically, he couldn't see it…

He *did* feel the outbreak of power bursting forth from the epicentre though, causing his hairs to stand on end. Despite entering the Myth level in terms of soul, his battle power had not advanced beyond the peak-Legendary stage yet. He was still grasping at the laws that separated Legends from the world of Myths…

As such, this was the first time he saw – no, experienced a full-power Mythical attack first hand, and he was shocked by the potency. That is, he would have been if he were not shocked by something else far more *potent*.

Luca's lunge to protect Lars had carried him away from the walls, leaving them lying on the sandy streets of Fetch homestead. She lay on top of him, grasping his head in her embrace and making sure he did not receive a concussion or suffer from stray shrapnel ricocheting through the air.

It took a while for the dust to settle, and it was only when Luca saw that everything was safe that she got up off Lars' body.

She looked around while brus.h.i.+ng the dust off her white translucent dress. All around them were warriors and hunters knocked out cold, some groaning as they slowly approached consciousness.

"Lars, it's safe now. The battle is won!" Satisfied that all was well, she turned to help Lars up, however, she was shocked when she saw the boy.

"Lars!!!" Luca hurriedly kneeled beside him then leaned down over his body to wipe the blood away from his nose.

"I-I'm fine, really, I'm fine!" Lars waved away Luca's attempts to help as he rushed to his feet. Though the impact of the explosion had been widespread, the aftershocks were negligible. Only the core area of the blast was of any threat to a Legend.

As they composed themselves, Luca expressed relief that Elder Mash'noth's plan had been executed successfully. It had been contingent on Lady Zera being able to create an opening using herself as the bait to draw in the Dark cultivators. However, it had been beyond their expectations for the enemy mastermind to be Lord Seth, former head of Fetch homestead.

Lars paused to think. If Lord Seth were among those ambushed and lost 10 years ago, then these events would need to have begun far, far earlier…  It meant that there was still a grand conductor orchestrating the macabre events in the past decade and before that.

'It seems that despite our difficult victory, this was just round one, a prelude to more sinister plans to come… Tch…' Lars regretted holding himself back from partic.i.p.ating earlier. If he had taken action, perhaps the destruction to the homestead and the surrounding dozens of kilometres could have been avoided… However, he had lacked the information or the confidence to draw out the dark hand behind the curtains.

'No matter… Even if you are deeply rooted, even if you are a mighty Divine realm being… Just wash your neck and wait for me, I'll surely rip out your roots and tear you apart…!' Lars gaze sharpened as he determined to find and destroy the heinous mastermind behind it all.

"If you're ready, shall we see Elder Mash'noth...? I'm sure she'll be able to answer any questions you have. She should be heading over to see Lady Zera and the others even as we speak." Luca smiled gently at Lars and half-turned towards the front gate, that is, where the front gate used to be. All that was left of the walls and gates were piles of rubble – broken logs and cracked stones.

It was then that Lars felt the heartbeat – the same heartbeat that pulsed out from Zera's chest.

Alarms bells went off in Lars' head, raising his caution to the highest level. He moved instantaneously, trusting the premonitions of Insight.

And just in time too as just a split second later, the starry sky was blotted out by hundreds – no, thousands of dark tendrils that struck down at every creature in the entire area.

The tendrils that were aimed at Lars and Luca landed where they had been standing moments ago, causing a terrifying *s.h.i.+ng!* sound as they pierced the hard rocky ground smoothly like a hot knife sliding through b.u.t.ter.

They had narrowly avoided the sudden attack, however, the thousands of others had not managed to evade death. Whether they were human or goblin, the dark tendrils that were as thick as a man's fist had lashed out indiscriminately, reaping countless lives in an instant of death.

Surrounded all around by the tendrils that looked like purple, rotting tree roots, Lars stifled a howl of rage for each of the deadly tendrils had a corpse at the end – the remains of hundreds of Fetch homestead residents.

"No.... No….. No…!!!" Luca's eyes grew wide in horror and a tremor ran through her entire body. She swayed in Lars' arms and grew limp though she was still conscious – her mind could not bear the scene of carnage all around them.

"What in the world is this…?" The hairs on Lars' arms were standing on end as he sensed a puissant, oppressive might exuding from where Zera, Viru, Lord Seth and the rest should have been.

If earlier the Judgment of G.o.d had been a single and one-off blast of Mythical power, this presence was an adversary who had genuinely stepped into the Mythical realm. Even if it were only in the beginning stages, a Myth was still a tyrant able to dominate a country and not something he could face head on.

The only comfort he had was that the presence seemed to be slumbering right now. The attacks by the tendrils were sharp, fast and heavy, but lacked the power of laws, and thus only threatening to those below Legends.

'A Myth… This could be my only window of opportunity – before the creature gains full consciousness…' He hesitated for a moment in the face of such a formidable presence, but steeled himself and decided to confront the unforgivable perpetrator.

Lars' figure flashed and he soared into the air with Luca in tow, buoyed by Earth Pulse-controlled currents of air. He cast out a wave of soul-sense and found to his relief that Elder Mash'noth's location was saved by a thin veneer of Divine energy that warded off the tendrils. This s.h.i.+mmering barrier looked flimsy and like it were about to crack at any moment, however, it still continued to hold up under the weight of dozens of dark vines.

On the other hand, Zera, Gatyon, Katya and the rest were nowhere to be seen…

He had to forcefully blot out the sight of the thousands of lost lives all around him as he identified the source of the dark tendrils and zipped towards his target – a nearly 30 metre tall humanoid animated tree.

'A corrupted treant…?'

On the top of the tree were silvery branches that protruded like spiny hair, and just below that, the jagged and rough tree bark on the surface of the treant's body was broken by two black pits where the eyes should have been. Unlike the earlier Lord Seth where the darkness in the eye slots was malevolent and sentient, these pits were completely empty, seeming lifeless.

However, this lifelessness was belied by the fact that every now and then, the bark on the surface of the tree would vibrate before a new layer slowly emerged to continually grow the girth and height of the creature.

The barren treant's legs were intertwined, connected to the ground by a great tree stump and with colossal roots snaking out around it. Moving upwards, the immense tree trunk of the treant's body split off into two gargantuan branches – the treant's arms. The dark tendrils that claimed every life around them emerged from those arms that were outstretched motionless into the air.

Lars could see that these tendrils seemed to pulse like veins carrying nutrients from their tips to the main trunk. He could sense that the life force and blood of the slain was being sucked by every pulse of the tendrils. And with every pulse of the nutrients being drawn in, Lars could feel the consciousness awakening. The tree trunk began to tremble more and more actively and every now and then, he could even hear the same threatening heartbeat that had triggered this disaster.

Lars suddenly began to feel like he were watching a dragon rouse from it's slumber, every breath it took one that breathed out death and despair. Though it was unsure how long it was until the beast would awaken, it was just a matter of time.

As Lars considered his options, some tendrils that were unoccupied raised themselves up and began waving in the air. Then, like a defence system that had sensed an intruder and a target, they lanced over in Lars direction at shocking speeds.

However, these speeds could not elude Lars' eyes. At the sight of incoming branches, he casually gestured with his free hand, releasing a wave of runes and light like a curtain before him. The vines blindly pierced through the runes that did not seem to hold them back at all, charging forward towards their prey.

However, no matter how many tendrils attacked or how much they pressed forward, it seemed like the tentacle-like roots could not advance. The roots would begin to decay the once they came into contact with the curtain of light, disintegrating and dissipating before they could come within 10 metres of Lars' body.

That lasted only until the next second when the creature roused from it's slumber.