Sote felt the ground beneath him shaking more and more violently, seemingly anticipating that it would split open.
He voluntarily ended his spell, dodged, and hurled the incomplete ice sphere away.
“Take this!”
“ALL THINGS HAVE SPIRIT: GUARD!”
That spell was nowhere near fully formed, and its power had been drastically reduced.
But Yiluo Enya refused to be outdone.
She actively intercepted it head-on, unwilling to let anyone look down on her.
With a massive explosion, the ice sphere instantly shattered and burst apart.
Yiluo Enya blocked it with ease.
“Impossible!”
Sote wore a look of utter disbelief.
“This isn’t right. It must be because my charge was interrupted that this happened. Yes, that must be it.”
But Yiluo Enya didn’t care whether he was charging or not.
She just needed to end this fight quickly.
“ALL THINGS HAVE SPIRIT: FOREST OF TREES!”
She summoned a swarm of tree ents on the spot.
Not only had their branches morphed into hands, but the leaves atop their heads had also become armor protecting them.
Soon, those tree ents, as if reading her mind, formed a sealed circle and completely enclosed Sote and his group inside.
Furthermore, every single tree ent could use Grass Element Magic, launching attacks against Sote and the others.
Sote conjured ice spikes and stabbed them at the wood.
But the trunks were abnormally hard.
They were nothing like ordinary wood that could be pierced in one strike.
Instead, the ice spikes ricocheted back and successfully struck Sote’s teammates.
One team member was lucky enough to dodge.
However, another was most unfortunate and couldn’t react in time.
An ice spike pierced straight through his body, leaving a massive gaping hole in his chest.
“Captain! Don’t hit our own people!”
“No!”
Watching another team member fall, rage surged into Sote’s head once again.
‘Second kill. There was no way he could survive this now.’
“Urgh…”
He created an ice pillar on the spot, attempting to escape the tree ents’ encirclement from above.
But every time he rose a little, the trees also rose a little.
He sped up, yet the trees always managed to stay a bit higher than him.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t get out, leaving them completely trapped.
“These damn trees!”
Just as he was complaining, the trees shot upward at lightning speed and finally sealed the top completely.
Now, Sote and his two remaining team members were thoroughly trapped.
No matter how much herculean strength they possessed, they couldn’t get out.
“You behave now!”
“You humans in there, remember, you made the first move. I didn’t force you.”
Yiluo Enya shouted from outside through the trees.
But no sound came from inside because Sote was thinking.
‘Impossible! I am the Human Race’s greatest archmage, the most talented disciple. There’s no way I’m inferior to some Elf!’
Recklessly letting her release him would make him look even worse.
To that end, Sote began trying every kind of magic he could think of to break through Yiluo Enya’s control.
“FREEZING SPELL!”
“ICE SPEAR SPELL!”
“ICE BURST!”
Sote tried virtually every spell he had ever learned in his life.
The only result, besides completely draining his Magic Power, was making the already cold environment around him even colder.
His two remaining team members were also huddled in the corner, clinging to each other and shivering.
“C-Captain, it’s so cold. Why don’t we take a break? We can’t freeze to death on top of everything else!”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve already lost two of our best. We…”
The two team members wailed in misery.
But Sote paid them no mind.
He just had to get out quickly.
Outside the trees, the soundproofing was excellent.
Sote’s commotion inside produced almost no noise at all, making the pitch-black night seem incredibly quiet.
Yiluo Enya wasn’t in a hurry either.
She simply waited outside to see when the humans inside would finally cave.
But just then, Mi Wenni and Mi Wenna, who had been lurking not far away, suddenly burst onto the scene.
“Sister! It’s now! They’ve already worn each other out. Let’s hurry up and grab the kills. Charge!”
“Charge!”
“WATER DRAGON’S ROAR!”
Mi Wenni summoned a water dragon by the lake, aiming it at the dark, bulging mass ahead.
“Water dragon, use skill, High-Pressure Water Gun! Spray!”
At Mi Wenni’s command, the water dragon briefly charged up before beginning to spray water.
Yiluo Enya was still waiting off to the side when she suddenly heard a strange noise nearby.
She immediately whipped her head around to look.
The water splashed right onto her.
Because a High-Pressure Water Gun was nothing like ordinary spray water, its pressure and speed were immense.
The completely off-guard Yiluo Enya was blasted several meters away.
Yiluo Enya: ‘??? What’s going on? An ambush? Or wait, did those humans’ reinforcements show up?’
After picking herself up from the ground, her first move was to summon vines and lift herself into the air.
“AHHHHH! I am truly angry now! You dare attack me! I’ll make sure all of you pay dearly!”
“ALL THINGS HAVE SPIRIT: PARASITE!”
The spell activated.
The two sisters who were still running, along with Sote, who was tied up and still struggling, were all simultaneously entangled by grass and unable to move.
That water really was something else.
It stung terribly when it hit.
Yiluo Enya stormed off in the direction where the water had been sprayed at her.
Upon getting closer, she realized they were familiar faces.
“It’s you?”
“I-It’s you two! Late at night… don’t you sleep? What are you doing here? And why… why did you spray water at me?!”
“Ah? It hit you?”
Mi Wenni looked completely at a loss.
“I-I’m sorry. I really didn’t know you were here. Because it’s so dark out, my sister and I just wanted to take a stroll.”
“We happened to end up here and saw people fighting, so we thought of the saying, ‘The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.'”
“But… that person just happened to be you. I’m truly sorry.”
Mi Wenni gave a sincere apology.
After all, this was her own fault.
An apology was the bare minimum, and it was both proper and necessary.
Besides, hadn’t this person given them a place to stay?
‘A dragon couldn’t be heartless, right?’
“Alright, alright, it’s fine.”
Yiluo Enya, who had been furious moments ago, saw how sincerely the other party apologized and chose to forgive her.
“By the way, what are you doing here?”
“I was just chased by a group of humans, and now they’re all trapped by me.”
“H-Humans?”
Mi Wenni was a bit surprised.
“This is Dragon Race Territory. How could there be humans here? How did they get in?”
“I don’t know either, but everything I said is true. I was just thinking about how to deal with them.”
“Come on, I’ll take you to see.”
“Okay.”
With that, Yiluo Enya led Mi Wenni and Mi Wenna to the prison cage formed by the trees.
She placed her hand on the trunk and gave it a pat.