Heart of Tree and Bark was fighting for his life.

  ‘For everyone’s life,’ He corrected himself.

  As he quickly formed a new blade from vines and earth, using it to behead a worm that lunged too close.

  Before the worm's head landed on the desert sands, he unleashed a surge of vines and natural energy at the advancing tide of worms and flesh.

  The advancing horde was torn apart, blood and gore turning the sands red...

  But the tide was never-ending, and more worms gathered around him. Panic clawed at his heart as he glanced back at the wall that was barely holding on and the few of his kin still desperately fighting for their lives. So many had fallen—too many.

  Heart of Tree and Bark gritted his resolve, forcing back the ache of grief. He could not dwell on the lost and fallen. He needed to fight for the living and the green heaven... and for the High one.

  Their fight over the last few years had grown in scope, more than he could ever imagine. The drain on the high one had been visible. Like a divine spark she had given him and his kin new life and new forms, but as the years had dragged on, she had dimmed visibly...

  Her power was divine in nature, and she couldn’t interfere directly, not anymore. But her power could be channeled. And Heart of Tree and Bark was one of the few who could channel her power, almost unrestricted, and without consequences.

  He had been worried that tapping into her divine power would harm her in some way, but as the High One had said... it wasn't that which harmed her power and being.

  It was the sickness of the desert and the worms.

  He believed her in this.

  That was the primary factor that led Heart of Tree and Bark to sally out to the desert. That and the training with Spirit of Leaves and Wind had given him. With her expertise in the wind, it had been easy to master.

  And, it had shown to be a great boon.

  He felt a shiver at that moment, the wind warning him of an enemy from behind... the worm—a Hunter variant had jumped out of the sand, trying to bite into him. And the wind is as helpful as ever offered to kill it...

  With a flick of his wrist, the wind converted into blades around the hunter worm. Chopping it up into pieces. The power of the wind had drained him... but he channeled more of the High ones... Alda’s power, for that was what she wanted to be called.

  More of the Hunter worms emerged from the sands around him and charged. Heart of Tree and Bark started to dance with them, the wind telling for their every move... but for each one, some attack snuck through, just a graze, a nick, but it was starting to build up.

  The tide was never-ending; the worms were coming, and for the worse, the wall was buckling...

  And for the first time, Heart of Tree and Bark were swallowed by despair. Was this truly the end of them, the end of him and his kin?

  No, this could not be the—

  Heart of Tree and Bark didn't get time to dwell on his despair as he felt a fundamental change in his home taking place, and in the high one, Alda was descending to the mortal plane.

  The change was fundamental, as he could sense that the power he drew from her was not only a part of her now, but also part of the land —the land they were all fighting for.

  Dodging another attempt on his life by a hunter worm, he cast a desperate glance toward the wall. There, as Alda, now one of them, stood with her sacrifice laid bare, no longer only divine light, but flesh and blood as he was. A new hope flickered—she had joined their struggle. 'She deserves to be called the High One still,' Heart of Tree and Bark thought, sending out another wave of nature mana and vines, now more powerful and alive than ever.

  “We might have a chance now...”Heart of Tree and Bark murmured as he saw an anomaly in the distance.

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  Was that fire?

  A conflagration of fire had exploded where a much bigger tide of worms was concentrated. Killing all of them.

  Was this one of his kin? ‘It may be Embers of leaves and ash.’ If so, he would have words with them, but it didn't feel like her power. The flames were what gave it away.

  They were too... real for a lack of words.

  Heart of Tree and Bark didn't know of anyone, not even the high ones, who channeled mana that could make flames like this?

  The tide did, however, lessen, and with this, he realized that there were holes in the desert where the worms came from... and whoever had made the flame would be an ally.

  Heart of Tree and Bark made his way toward the flames, and then another one appeared, not where the current one was, but a bit further away from it, and not in the heart of a tide either... but there weren't too many worms in his way, buys attacking the wall.

  But this time, Heart of Tree and Bark spotted the new ally...

  It was a scaly creature... a red one... bathed in the same flames that were around it.

  The monster was giant in comparison to him, the same size as some of the bigger Hunter worms, if not bigger. And it was in fact currently facing one.

  Heart of Tree and Bark knew how hard most of them were to kill, and it was the reason he went all out when he did.

  But this monster was casually playing with it...

  It moved cautiously, only using enough mana to keep fire burning around itself and the Hunter worms, forcing them to stay back. When a worm tried to flee, it chased after, and the fire followed, cutting off its escape.

  It did so several times, finding or being found by other Hunter worms, the fire still following it... the Hunter worms not a match for the scaled being.

  Still a bit further away from the scaled being, Heart of Tree and Bark wondered if it was awakened, as he had been before the high one, for it was clearly intelligent in some way.

  The speech of the high one would be able to communicate with anything that was in any stage of awakening.

  The fire around the monster dimmed down as he got closer. It turned around, and their eyes met.

  “ Greetings, being of scale and fire, “ Heart of Tree and Bark said to his new ally.

  “I see that you, too, are fighting the horrors of the desert. Would you aid us?” The scaled being seemed to be concentrating on the question, as it made a very elf-like expression of scrunching its face...

  Like seeing a message from the mana?

  It then spoke.

  “Testing, testing, is this working?” The voice of the scaled one was comparable to the one he had first used when speaking... But a lot better, but not with the finesse of the High One.

  “W why—yes, I can hear you scaled one.” Heart of Tree and Bark still stammered out of surprise and... his lack of skill in the mastery of the speech.

  “Great... I needed a way to speak anyway.” It said, “And yes, we are here to help.” The scaled one smiled, the fire around it flared—some of the fire split off, forming a minor conflagration.

  It moved into a hole that he hadn’t seen, where the worms come crawling out of. The worms there started dying in the hundreds.

  Had the scaled one said we?

  “We?” Heart of Tree and Bark questioned, the scaled one gave only a pointed finger into the desert. It refocused on the horde of worms and a Hunter worm that had tried to sneak up on them.

  Now looking, Heart of Tree and Bark saw a wave of monsters in the distance. All of them were attacking the worms.

  Maybe, just maybe, they stood a chance now.

  The explosion of fire and the screams of pain from the worms were what Heart of Tree and Bark needed as agreement.