263.2. When Roots Crack the Mountain [DOUBLE CHAPTER DAY 2/2] (Patreon)

[Don't miss the earlier chapter]

Maelga. Pride of the human lands, home of their lord and protector, the Crystal King. One of the Three Hegemons of the land, there was never a time where the Captain Onyx of the Crystal Guard ever felt that Maelga would be attacked outside of a demonic event.

Even when demons spawned in their world, when the demons invaded, Maelga stood. Maelga was home to so many magical enchantments and defenses, that in the era of legends, it once withstood the might of even a demon king, and had enough firepower to counterattack, and injure it significantly.

In Captain Onyx’s mind, that was the truth, even if it was untested. Because that was what it felt to live in Maelga.

To walk the city streets was to walk near the power that lived within the Great Crystal Mountain.

To live under the overwhelming presence of the Lord of Crystal.

In the minds of Maelga’s defenders, an attack on Maelga was impossible. No one ever tried to attack Maelga. Even the other two forces never ever managed to march forces beyond their inner ring of defenses. Even when this new force, this- this upstart pretender called Aeon sent an army burning through their defensive lines, just to help the heroes destroy the demon king, it never ever occurred to them that Maelga would be attacked.

After all, who dares attack a deity?

Well-

Other deities, naturally.

***

Onyx ran, as the defensive bells rang. It has never rang in a real emergency, not once in the past fifty years. All previous ringing of the bells were all for drills. Entirely for practice purposes, and publicly declared.

“Is it a drill?” One of the civilians asked as Onyx ran towards the tower.

He shook his head. There really was no need to answer when they all felt the air feel heavy, as if the heavens itself pressed on them. Their mountain pulsed, and they felt a familiar force rise from below to resist it.

The soldiers were not sure what to do, either. In truth, only the elite guard would be able to stand against whatever dared attack the Crystal King. The lesser soldiers are nothing more than flies, if such a hypothetical enemy existed.

There must be some great illusion. An army somehow snuck past those lazy defenders and scouts.

Onyx climbed up the stairs and reached the walls, expecting an army outside.

All he saw was four individuals and a terrain he did not recognise. A man with a wooden staff, a woman in knight’s armor, and two archers. In normal cases, he’d laugh them off, but all of them emitted an aura not unlike their own deity.

Their ripples of power caused the air itself to seemingly churn in defiance. The grass seemed to sway violently. The ground trembled.

The entirety of Maelga’s surroundings were almost entirely dusty, rocky land. When did it all turn into grasslands?

“Crystal King.” The voice was soft, and came from an older man with a beard and wrinkled face. He sounded older than he looked. “We have found your attempts to sabotage our preparations against the demon king appalling.”

Onyx frowned. He wasn’t aware such a thing happened, but if it did, it must be one of the high crystal priests’ plots. The elite forces of the King, and magical golems, all emerged from their barracks and waiting areas, ready to fight.

He looked and saw one of the Elite Guards, Commander General Somun, take the stand and shouted something. Despite the Commander General yelling at the top of his lungs, he heard nothing.

Instead, all he heard was the voice of the older man. “Consequence.”

Huge towering roots shot out of the ground around the city, akin to the tentacles of a kraken pulling down a giant ship. There were so many roots that emerged out of nowhere, they emerged outside of all the walls, and they slammed into the defensive shields.

The shields wobbled.

Onyx prayed the shields would hold, but they didn’t.

The roots didn’t even have to try very hard. He watched the roots cut through the shields as if it was like soft butter.

The citizens panicked, and screamed.

The Commander General yelled, activating some kind of ability. The walls of the city glowed. Magical blasts of all kinds looked ready to be fired, and as they activated-

Then half of them were snuffed out instantly, like a fire that ran out of oxygen or fuel.

Even Onyx felt the effects of the anti-magical aura. “-anti-magic?” He cursed, as he watched the enchanted weapon in his hand flicker, as if magic was drained out of it. “-how?”

He could even sense it in the air, as the air itself felt as if mana was sucked out of it.

The other half, the higher tier spells slammed into gigantic wooden shields. It didn’t do any damage. The soldiers panicked.

One of them, horrified, and then begun to run. The rest of them realized the same, as did so.

“Wait- what are you doing?” Onyx shouted at the soldiers, some of them clearly weren't ready to fight them. “We are the guards of the Great Crystal City. We do not run!”

“Captain! This is madness! We’re not fighting them. No way!” The soldier countered. “Not those gigantic roots, and not without magic-”

Onyx looked at the soldiers. They stood unmoved. “But-”

“Captain. There is a time to be brave. Now, is not that time. Can you not feel their power pressing down on us-”

He couldn’t continue the sentence, as the entire magical defensive network of Maelga shattered like glass. Not from an attack, but from the weight of the enemy’s presence.

Onyx looked back, and his eyes gazed on the gigantic silhouette of a dark, shadowy tree. It was big, as if he was looking up a tree the size of a mountain, and some.

A shadow. A silhouette. A distortion in the air in the form of a tree. Just merely glancing at the strange apparition in the air made Onyx feel as if he was looking at a thousand forests, and somehow, a single tree.

His fingers trembled. The soldiers couldn’t even run. Their knees went weak.

“-what in the mountains-”

He felt his legs buckle. Not just them. All of the soldiers felt a weight of fear that suddenly crashed into the entire city. The panicked citizens turn even more panicked and delirious. Chaos turned into insanity, as they screamed and shouted.

Only the Crystal Guards managed to stand in defiance. Onyx couldn’t see who, but it was one of the great Generals of the Crystal King shouted. “[General’s Rally]!”

A wave of relief flooded the entire city, and Onyx felt his legs regain just a wee bit of strength.

Then, came the word of the enemy.

“Run.” The old priest spoke, his voice seemed to be carried by the land itself. The wind seemed to carry his message, that it felt to Onyx like the priest said those words beside him, whispering into his ears. “Run or feel our wrath.”

The roots surrounding the Crystal City suddenly opened to reveal two openings.

“Flee.”

The citizens ran. The soldiers ran. The servants ran. The lesser priests fled. Onyx ran, and he looked back at the mountain. Would the Crystal King answer their slight?

Then the Crystal Mountain cracked.

“YOU HAVE A LOT OF GUTS COMING HERE!” A gigantic crystal golem emerged from the Mountain, as they felt the King’s crystal presence push back against the four. It certainly tried. “YOU DIE TODAY.”

Onyx thought that they were saved, but the feeling didn’t last.

The Crystal King’s presence was overshadowed.

The old man smiled, as the shadow of the tree that seemed to be around the man grew even larger. The buildings of the city trembled and cracked. Onyx couldn’t believe it, but he saw segments of the magically enchanted walls crumble, not from an attack, but from the weight of the Tree’s presence.

Even the Giant Crystal King staggered. “-YOU!”

The voice that followed was thoroughly alien.

It was not the old man, even if it was spoken through him. The voice that emerged, that all of them heard clearly in their minds, was spoken as if it passed through the rustling of leaves and the whispers of the land. A million ancient trees spoke at once, it’s voice echoed in every one of their minds.  “-you once said we would come as invaders.”

The crystal king raised a spear of crystal so large that it could have been a tower of crystal.

“Your prediction is correct.”

The towering spear of crystals was thrown towards the old man. With it, the weight of the Crystal King’s history. Everyone could feel the immense magic of the Crystal King, condensed into a single strike.

But roots emerged from the ground, and the roots intercepted the spear midair, entangled it with its roots. “I was keen to let you be. But here we are. Do you feel delighted that you predicted correctly?”

The Giant Crystal King rushed ahead, stepped on the buildings and crumbled walls, and pushed at the spear. Even more magic was channeled into the spear, but the wall of roots that held the spear did not move. The Crystal King struggled. “I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU THERE AND THEN!”

The old man’s chuckle could be heard throughout the land. The land itself laughed with him. Little rocks, bits of sand, the grass, all shook as if laughing together. “Killing my avatar does nothing but enrage me. My fury arrives eventually.”

It was a clash of power, all in a single move. The king’s spear, and the wall of roots. “INVADER- I WILL NOT SUBMIT.” The crystal king roared, the crystal’s magic glowed. Yet, Onyx swore it looked like the spear’s magic was sucked about by the roots.

“So be it.”

The roots emerged from all over the city. It broke through the rocky tiles, it broke through the ground. They wrapped around the Giant Crystal King. The lesser golems, the elite guards all wanted to attack-

But the two archers fired a rain of paralysis arrows that stunned all of them. Those that managed to dodge the arrows were wrapped by the roots, and those roots paralysed them as well.

The Crystal King’s power wobbled. “MY DEATH WILL SHATTER THE PACT.”

“Death is too easy for a hardheaded fool.”

The roots wrapped around the Crystal King’s arms, and everyone screamed when they saw those roots ripped the left crystal arm off the body.

Onyx couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible-

Then the roots wrapped itself around the right arm, and it ripped it off as well. It flung the crystal arms to the side, throwing them away as if it was trash.

“YOU-” The crystal king’s energies glowed, as it regenerated both arms. “-YOU THINK THIS WILL HURT ME?”

The roots wrapped around the entire body of the Crystal King. “Then this will.”

The entire city shook as they felt a huge amount of magic was sucked out of the world around them. The roots drained magic, even from the crystal king. Yet the King was defiant.

Onyx watched, as a root emerged from the ground, far larger than any others. The root transformed into a spear embodying the world, and in a single, loud thrust, it pierced the Crystal King’s golem body.

The sound that followed was as if the entire world had cracked in half.

“May this pain be eternal.”

Onyx wasn’t sure what happened, but there was a huge amount of mana flooding the Crystal King. It wasn’t demonic, but instead-

It reminded Onyx of the dark nights. “Your domain protects your soul. But your body remains vulnerable. How ironic. I was just in your position not too long ago.”

The gigantic golem of the Crystal King crumbled. The citizens and soldiers of Maelga watched, dumbfounded and in horror. Many have fainted. Onyx stared at what remained, held by the roots. A spherical crystal no bigger than a basketball.

“So this is your true form. A spherical crystal that gained a will.”

A wall of roots that emerged, and encased the spherical crystal.

“For the crimes of tampering with our preparations and attempting to assassinate a hero, I, Aeon of Treehome, imprison you for the next hundred years. You shall remain a watcher of the world, while your empire collapses around you.”

A giant tree grew on their mountain of crystals, and this giant tree held a single object in it’s canopy, surrounded by vines and roots.

A tree, made into a prison, to hold the spherical crystal core of the Crystal King.

A beautiful prison for the King, on what was once their Crystal Mountain, and turned the rocky, crystalline land of Maelga into a verdant, blooming hill.

[Note from the Tree : I know this feels a bit too much power fantasy and maybe a little wanky, but I've been really, really wanting to write this. Let it slide, ya?]