Chapter Thirty-Nine


    Moonlight like crushed pears, played amongst the swaying leaves like a faerie out of a fantasy. An eerie breeze kissed his skin, and he could see his breath. A long time ago, when Ambrose was just a child, he liked to pretend he was a dragon out of myth, able to breathe frost to devastate his enemies.


    Raylen had told him to quit acting like a fool.


    The wyrm hoards what it should nurture.


    Ambrose rubbed his face, shaking himself from the memory. Raylen hadn’t allowed him to have a childhood, this was true. Except Ambrose knew why, now. He had been preparing him for what was to come. Somehow, Raylen knew the System would descend. He had known his Mother was integrated, and had promised her to prepare Ambrose.


    There hadn’t been time for a childhood.


    Did Ambrose lament that? How can I grieve for something I never knew?


    He brushed aside a tree branch as he walked. He was headed into the heart of Leshi territory, and he could feel it. Silence could be a physical thing, sometimes. There was a weight to it, a subtle edge of wariness that all humans felt at some point.


    Taking out the trash at night, that sense that warned you something was out there and to get back to safety as fast as you can. Walking into a bad neighborhood, shooting furtive glances because you know predators are nearby.


    There was a tingle across his neck, like a light touch. Ambrose constructed the flame in his mind, feeding all of that to it. Calm focus replaced those feelings, his mind becoming a blade, a weapon he wielded and controlled instead of it controlling him.


    Before him was a truly massive tree. The tree was a study in contrast with the tree of Avalon Ambrose knew so well. The tree of Avalon was a fantastical, otherworldly sight. You would find it in a world of light and beauty.


    This tree was altogether different.


    There were people in the world who carried with them a presence of wisdom. It was there in their eyes, in the way they walked, in the set of their face. You could tell that here was someone who knew a thing or two about life.


    The tree before him was like that. Old. Wise.


    And much like Avalon once had been, corrupted. Not in the same way, of course, but a wrongness hung around it. Permeating with that ancientness, it radiated around it like a spirit of its own. Seemingly carved into its trunk was a dark entrance that descended.


    This tree was the heart of the Incursion. Months prior, a few parties had scouted it and attempted to infiltrate its depths and find a way to end it. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    They had not succeeded.


    It was a simple yet deadly plan; Ambrose thought it a little crazy at first. While the main attack was underway, a small team would infiltrate the tree in the hopes of finding it less guarded and finding a way to close the Incursion.


    He had felt it was a dangerous, crazy idea because the few that remained were sure to be powerful. Fighting the enemy on its home turf was just a bad idea. He volunteered to go it alone because for this to work, the less people involved, the better. Further, he was the most powerful among them.


    He had the best chance of success, and more importantly, he could portal out if he needed to.


    At first, the original plan had been to go beneath the tree, kill any Leshi he came across, and find a way to close the Incursion.


    As he looked at the tree, a different idea was occurring to him. You could cut a tree down if you wanted, but a tree’s real weakness was something altogether more devastating.


    Fire.


    A fire could wipe out most of the forest, and Leshi were, from what Tina had told him, creatures made from nature. If it didn’t work, he could still descend into the aftermath and enact his original plan. Either way, he didn’t have much to lose.


    Rubbing his hands, Ambrose held them out to the side. In his mind, he held the image of what he wanted to happen.


    Using his core, Ambrose called on his skill [Hellfire Manipulation] and on each side of the tree, hands the size of huge boulders appeared.


    Flames the color of crushed red berries, blood and spitting acid served as the flesh of the hands. As if Hades himself were reaching out from his realm into our reality, the hands of fire clasped the tree.


    Up until now, Ambrose had used his skill in a straightforward way, creating weapons, infusing objects, and creating portals, but this was a mythic level skill for a reason. He could do so much more with it than he did. He was limited by a few things, his imagination being one of them.


    A sound like tearing wood and hissing flame filled the air as the tree was set afire and the hands attempted to pull it from the ground like ripping up weeds from a garden.


    All around him, the forest floor groaned as roots strained. Moonlight danced in the dark embers that flared in the air. The flaming hands tightened, yanking harder in response to his will.


    Not unlike kindling, the bark of the ancient tree was set ablaze, and a howl of rage, and pain split the air like  the sound of a chainsaw roaring to life.


    In that moment, he knew that what he had done hadn’t just hurt the tree, it had hurt the Leshi connected to it. Leshi were made from nature, and thus they were connected to it. Connected to the tree they had bound themselves to, they all felt what Ambrose had done.


    And they were coming for him.


    From the ground beneath the tree, vines shot up, forming into abominations with gleaming eyes of glowing green. He had flash backs to the root knights he had fought so long a go, but these things were more than that. They had an intelligence, and a connection to nature those root knights hadn’t had.


    Howls echoed in time with the rage and pain of the burning tree and the Leshi that poured from it.


    Wolves bounded into the area, snarling, fangs gleaming with saliva in the light of the full moon above. Their amber eyes reflecting the dark fire of the flaming hands that even now tore at the tree.


    A wolf leaped at him, claws flashing. Ambrose manifested Noelle who roared, sending out a claw of lightning that struck with wolf, turning its snarls into rage.


    In the same instant, Ambrose pulled Akaroth out from his infernal dimension and cut a wolf in half, viscera raining onto the ground, the two halves of its body splooshing to the forest floor like limp, soggy meat.


    Through it all, he kept a part of his focus on ripping up the tree. Leshi sent lashes of sharp vines toward him, and Ambrose activated [Infernal Sanctuary] sending out spectral chains of black fire to repel the attacks.


    A sound of tearing thunder, sundering earth and a burning tree boomed across the forest as Ambrose’s hands of hellfire succeeded in ripping the tree up from the ground.


    With it came the wrath of the forest itself.