Luna appeared within the group of Horrors, as her Arctic domain expanded the monsters momentarily recoiled from the biting chill. However, this did not hold them for long, enraged by the appearance of a foe in their midst the Bark Horrors unleashed a swarm of limbs towards Luna.

Her figure blurred as she dashed towards the monster before her, her illusion joining her. Ducking and weaving through the sea of false limbs Luna swung her blades with decisive precision. She had already built up a decent stack of chain strikes so her blades cut deep into the offending limbs. The corrupted icor splattering out as she severed the first of many.

As the icor sprayed in her direction Luna was already moving on to the next one, the liquid freezing before it had a chance to even touch her skin. Several of the encroaching limbs diverted to try and strike down the illusion, not realising their mistake till they had already struck nothing. Screeching in rage at being deceived the monsters redoubled their assult in the lone woman.

Yet Luna was not an easy opponent to pin down.

She moved with grace, her movements beguiling her foes into missing seemingly easy attacks. The frantic battle looking more like a choreographed dance, with Luna being the conductor and the Horrors being the unwilling participants in her deadly dance.

The domain of frost ever expanding, slowly freezing the very ground beneath the monsters that she fought. The movements of the nearest creatures being slowed down as their limbs froze to the ground, forcing them to either stay stationary, or forcibly rip the appendages off the frozen floor, leaving strips of their bark like skin and pools of quickly freezing blood.

Not to be left out of the fun Rhyana crashed through the group, her body turned into lightning allowing her to shock 3 of the monsters at once. Luna did not let her foes momentary loss of bodily control go to waste. She dove in with renewed fervour, cutting through limbs and leaving deep cuts into the thought hide of the creatures.

Dematerialising on the other side of the contained battlefield, the blue dragon unleashed a barrage of small electrical jolts, each one struck a monster before jumping off to one of the other nearby foes. Each jump did diminish the damage dealt, yet the shear quantity of attacks launched allowed her to overcome that weakness.

Then with her claws coated in both lightning and ice thanks to Luna, she lept at the nearest monster. Her razor sharp claws shredding through the nearest one, the monster staggered due to the sudden and vicious assult. Luna joined in and together the two brought down the now injured Horror. All the while they dodged and parried the incoming assault of its brethren.

Susan still worked to hem the monsters in, her field of frozen bubbles slowly expanding, slowly encircling the creatures. Any time one of the Horrors bumped into one of the frozen bubbles it would crack, then explode out in a hail of frozen shards.

The dogkin was limiting her own involvement in the chaotic battle, having already spent a considerable amount of mana just holding them off till her reinforcements arrived, Susan was eager to play things passively for now. Or at least until things eventually turned south and she was forced to step in, because by now she already knew that things would inevitably grow more dire than she may have previously thought.

And Susan had a worrying realisation, that moment might be arriving sooner than she expected as she just bore witness to two more of the Bark Horrors arrive in the clearing on the other side of the pond, and begin to make their way over.

Violet was struggling, the corrupted tree was both powerful and held a rudimentary intelligence.

The tree may have once been a truly intelligent being, sadly it had long since fallen into corruption. Violet did wonder how a tree like this suddenly became corrupted, was it maybe always corrupted? Or did it suffer that fate after being attacked by something else that was corrupted? Based on the innumerable scars that marred its trunk, Violet was inclined to believe it to be the latter.

But that then posed the question, what exactly had managed to corrupt a tree? Along with that what would happen if Violet was forced to fight such a being, would she be in trouble of being corrupted herself?

She snorted and shook away her idle thoughts, she couldn't allow herself to be distracted right now. Not with said evil corrupted tree was trying quite hard to kill her!

Jumping back, Violet avoided yet another root that stabbed up at her belly from beneath her. Then with a swipe of her tail she smashed it into the now exposed root, the impact produced a loud crack, a muted burst of pain shooting up her spine from the blow, yet her tail held. The root did not.

By now her void cannon was almost ready, she had been forced to halt its progression a few times now when a particularly nasty series of attacks was launched her way. From the shooting roots, to needles and leaves being flung towards her, to bullets of icor that exploded when they came in proximity to her. The tree had quite the range of attacks, she didn't want to rosk getting closer and finding out what it could do with its dropping willow branches.

Still Violet continually unleashed a barrage of void bolts, never stopping that assult, less that a quarter of all of her bolts actually managed to strike the tree. Yet every small bit helped out, each time her bolt impacted yet another chunk of wood was destroyed, the corrupted willow tree slowly getting closer and closer to defeat.

Violet chanced a glance back behind her after dodging another salvo of Icor bullets. She saw Luna dancing through a onslaught of limbs and splinters, numerous cuts and nicks coated her body. Her leather armour marred with the various close calls that she had narrowly avoided. Rhyana circled around the group of Horrors, stunning them and taking pot shots at the monsters when the opportunity presented itself.

Then looking back at her for Violet smiled in satisfaction as she felt her void cannon be ready to cast.

She upped the ante of her assult, putting multicast through the works. Spears and bolts rained down on the tree, not giving it a chance to respond to the barrage and forcing it on the defensive. Violet kept this up for a few seconds before halting the assult, then she blinked out of exsistance. A barrage of needles and leaves crashed into the spot she previously was.

Then a fraction of a second later Violet arrived on the exact opposite side of the tree to her previous location.

A blast of void shot forth, the tree failed to respond appropriately in time, a couple of branches did try to swing down in defence yet it was too little, too late.

BOOM!

The blast impacted with bone shaking force, the concentrated blast of void managing to punch straight through the scarred trunk, connecting to the already existing wound from its other side.

The pond writhed as the roots of the tree thrashed madly in pain or rage, yet Violet somehow thought that she sensed a faint feeling of gratitude… but it was gone before she could even truly process that fact. Still that impact marked the end of the corrupted tree.

As the tree snapped in half and began to collapse under its own weight, Violet received a notification, assuring her kill.

[Your group has defeated Grove Willow (Corrupted) lvl 84 exp rewarded]

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