Chapter 132: Art of Emeralds

Taryn was puzzled, as he was a wizard and felt no magical movement, but it didn’t change the fact that he was suddenly attacked by a plant element spell and needed to act.

Quickly, Taryn put several barriers around him to cushion the fall, but….

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh

Several arrows made of green mana destroyed some barriers. Still, they didn’t manage to destroy them all. When she landed, Taryn looked around for the attacker, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see anything.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Again, several fast arrows attacked him, but his defenses were tough and did not destroy them all. Taryn immediately conjured up several earth spells and cast them in the direction the arrows were coming from.

She didn’t worry about being vulnerable, she believed in her barriers, but in the end her earth stakes found no targets.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

The arrows kept coming from various places, the arrows were precise and lethal, as if they hit a single point, one after another, efficiently destroying the magical barriers he had set up.

He looked around, but saw no one he did not understand if the attacker was very fast or if she had something to hide her. Still, she couldn’t lose against a girl not even half her age.

Taryn activated all the perception and search spells she had learned throughout her life, but still couldn’t find her. All she felt around her were trees and nature.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Taryn began to get annoyed and used his blessing. He had been blessed by ’the God of mud’, a god with pseudo-authority over water and land, and obviously, mud.

So all the land around him became soft. No matter where he hid, as long as he stepped in his mud he would know right away, he was confident.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

But still the arrows kept coming, he couldn’t detect anything. At this point, he thought it was some high-level skill, but he kept his attention and detection to a maximum.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a small movement, and in reaction, and with a wave of his hand he circled the area quickly with his mud to trap the girl.

But again, there was only a tree trapped in his mud, nothing else.

“damn… girl come out, you can’t beat me leave the useless resistance ”

Taryn destroyed it tree, wanting to understand what was going on. But there was nothing to give him any clue, his patience was running out.

The girl still didn’t show up, she didn’t even answer and he knew that talking more was useless, the arrows continued to fall on him.

Annoyed, he decided to get rid of all the obstacles. And since they were in his mud, he separated all the trees. He didn’t know what the girl was doing, but she definitely had plant element mana, so he thought it might have something to do with the trees.

As if spitting them out, the mud separated all the trees and threw them into the sky with the intention of clearing the area. Taryn observed everything in detail, looking for traces of the attacker.

“Lala… zippity… bop… whee…”

At that moment a small murmur or rather a song was heard, and the trees that were being thrown out of the area began to intertwine with each other, creating a kind of tree-like structure.

Taryn felt no use of mana, she concluded that the girl was definitely using her blessing, a blessing related to an arboreal god.

Few gods of that type are part of her gods’ faction, so she probably wouldn’t be useful, for his organization, so he had to get rid of she , he quickly made a decision…

But he could think no more, as the trees began to take action, it had only been a few seconds since they were expelled until they formed that large structure.

Now, united as one, they spread branches and vines around it, burying themselves deep in its mud and taking root. This allowed the structure to propel itself in his direction, approaching him sharply, as if seeking to crush him with its weight and inertia

“girl don’t think that would be enough.” However, he cushioned the blow easily with his mud.

But as if adapting to the situation, or perhaps the plan all along, the structure restructured and surrounded him like a wall of intertwined trees.

Taryn was now surrounded by that pesky tree-like structure, which he could not throw because it was so firmly rooted to the ground.

Branches spread out from that structure and pierced through the mud he controlled, attacking it from all directions.

The trees moved as one great entity, attacking and surrounding him. Taryn did not stand still and did the same with his mud, countering the attacks from the branches, but he was still in the center of the confrontation.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Not only that, arrows kept falling from time to time, and Taryn still couldn’t identify the attacker. Finally, a branch passed her mud defense, and just as she was about to take care of that, from said branch, as if growing from it, appeared a blonde girl with green eyes, Alice.

“Art of Emeralds: Wild Growth.”

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

From his bow flew many arrows, which did not hit Taryn directly, and impacted his surroundings Taryn, at first thought he missed, but then realized that on his feet grew vines that held him tightly, it was a restrictive art, this caused him to lose his concentration for brief moments.

This allowed more and more tree branches to overtake his mud defense. Not only that, Alice disappeared in an instant and, the next, appeared on another branch from another angle.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Repeating what she had done before: more arrows landed near Taryn, and out of her came vines that began to slowly bind him and squeeze him until the multiple barriers he had were being broken and pressed down.

Despite his superior rank, Taryn was feeling overwhelmed. Although he moved the sludge at will, without expending mana, casting spells to get rid of the restraints and bolster his defense drained his mana and took his concentration away from the sludge.

Allowing Alice to continue to launch her arrows and bind him even more making a maelstrom in which he was slowly being more and more suppressed.

But that was only for now Taryn knew she was superior to Alice as far as amount of mana was concerned, which would eventually give her the advantage. She just needed to defend herself.

But Alice knew this, so, saving her mana, she controlled the plants solely with her blessing, ’Nature’s Song (Ω)’, which allowed her to control the plants without using mana.

Moving with the art Seraphina had given him years ago, it was an art that combined perfectly with his innate ability ’Forest Assimilation (C)’, which allowed him to assimilate with plants.

But that alone was what made that skill; his ’Art of Emeralds ’ was what allowed him to move fluidly through them. It was a perfectly crafted art for someone with her ability, not to mention that she had an ’affinity for plants (S)’.

Not for nothing was she immediately blessed as soon as she set foot in a temple of the plant deity. The deity didn’t take her as their agent, but she was a promising potential for them and already marked Alice as their property, giving her their blessing

Slowly, she bound Taryn, who constantly reassembled her defense, which was destroyed again and again. Even the sludge concentrated only on defending as Taryn had no room to control it, giving Alice time to concentrate.

Until now, she used arrows made of mana or quickly created from branches molded at will with her blessing. But this time, she pulled a special arrow from her storage.

It was green, made of wood from an extremely rare tree called Verdalia was a tree with a very hard wood and had the peculiarity, at certain times of the year to have emerald-like leaves.

They were given to her by Elena before. These objects were gifts that Seraphina had previously given him, but that he asked her before this test to keep them and use them in an emergency situation.

Even Alice, who faithfully believed in Seraphina, did not believe that anything would really happen, in the end when she realized that Seraphina was serious, she believed in her as always.

Alice temporarily gave her back many things, and as always, Seraphina was right, which further strengthened Alice’s belief in Seraphina.

Alice drank a recovery potion. Although it could not cover the entire mana expenditure, it was still effective. She began to imbue the arrow with various spells that improved its piercing, edge, strength and speed, in addition to other spells she had practiced as a magical archer.

She concentrated and also activated her art. She could do all this while still attacking with tree branches, as she had acquired an ability during her intimate interactions with Seraphina: ’Parallel Thinking’.

Thanks to this, he was able to perform his most powerful attack technique without interruption or loss of concentration, he even had time to recall a conversation he had with Seraphina.

[“Big sister, why are you shouting out the number of the attack move, does your art require it?”

“Huh, that’s your question, doesn’t the name bother you?…?Well, you know, Alice.Saying the name is only to stimulate the art and complete it, due to inexperience.”

“Yes, sister, but you also told me that it helps to increase the power, right?”

“Exactly, that’s why I add it.It’s not necessary, but, for some reason, it stimulates in me a kind of…..how shall I put it?Will… yes, will is the word… it’s not at all a ’chuni’ thing.”

“What is ’chuni’?”

“ehemm… No, see, the point is that you can add or say whatever you want, even nonsense unrelated to art.The important thing is that you feel it awakens in you the power that you have dormant inside you.Like I said, it’s like a kind of will or creed that brings out the best in you, the power that you don’t use correctly.”

“So that’s the ’chuni’ thing.”

“No, Alice, I told you to forget that…”]

Her older sister Seraphina was a bit… unique, and had a lot of quirks that made Elena speak to her or look at her harshly. But when it came to combat, she was a serious person; she would never give bad advice.

Well, ignoring that at that moment Seraphina who was teaching Alice was wearing a bamboo hat , with narrowed and barely open eyes and a drawn mustache, the reason? Only she would know.

..

’Will’. Alice searched for her inspiration and what path to follow. After that, whatever would stimulate enough to bring out the best in her. She didn’t have to look far; Seraphina, her older sister, was, to begin with, her pivot, her example and guide, her truth.

If her sister said that saying the number made them stronger, she believed her and would do so as well.

Immediately she finished circulating the mana to perform the art, she took the correct position of fingers, arms and body, pulled the bowstring as never before, with the arrow on it and said at the top of her lungs

“!!!Art of Emeralds, Fourth Stance: Thorn of Blood !!!”

SWOOSH!!!!

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