99 Chapter 98
A group of Treants, led by a fifteen-metre tree monster, finally reached a completely empty clearing, in the centre of which stood a huge, lush tree spread over the entire open area.
And as soon as they crossed the "line", then two green lights lit up on the top of the trunk. Severus himself was not particularly worried and quite calmly met the eyes of the Treant King.
After all, these creatures were not aggressive, but on the contrary, they tried not to get into conflicts while observing complete neutrality. But if this tree does not have the best thoughts and it suddenly has thoughts of attacking him into its wooden brain, then Snape will burn them all without any problems.
"Young man, I will have a request for you, " a calm, old voice sounded, which caused a bit of surprise in the Prince. "Request? And from me?"
"You are the strongest person I have ever met in all my seven hundred years, and only you will be able to help us cope with the catastrophe that has befallen us ..."
"Catastrophe? May I know first what the problem is? And why can't you deal with it yourself?" Severus asked a few more questions.
"A creature with intelligence has appeared in this place, if it entered the forest, I would have a chance to cope with it, but it is too cunning in sending fire controlling animals, constantly setting fires in our territory," the King of Treants replied dejectedly, the rest also looked sad "We can't leave the forest, except for me, but if I do, then there won't be a sentient enough being left to run this place, and if I die, our species may die out."
'Now it's clear why they still somehow answered easy questions, but they simply remained silent on more difficult ones, although I thought they were as taciturn as in my world.' Snape thought in his mind.
"I understand you, but what do I get for this?" Looking up at the Treant King, Severus asked.
"I will allow you to visit this place at any time and take whatever you want."
"This is certainly an interesting offer, but I have to refuse."
" Why?" the creature was sincerely surprised, because many people over the centuries tried to get inside this forest, blinded by greed, and even this person came only for the sake of herbs, but the fact that he would refuse his offer, from the "mountain of gold" that he could get by selling everything, really surprised him.
"I can buy herbs outside at any time, so I'm not interested, but I have another suggestion," the edges of his Snape's lips turned up, "I'll help you if you give me one thing…"
"Hmm… and what is it?"
"Heart." In the next moment, the earth trembled, and the tree shook and began to rise right in front of our eyes.
At first, massive arms consisting of roots and small branches appeared, followed by legs... And after a few seconds, a huge, almost forty-meter-high, humanoid creature stood in front of the young man, from which earth and pebbles were falling, and his eyes, shining with a faint green light, flashed, and a little lower, a mouth appeared, emitting a light green glow, covered with roots.
"What? From where did you know about this?!" a sullen, senile voice sounded, and with terrifying force, his fist crashed into the ground, right a metre away from the man, creating a powerful shock wave that should have thrown Severus, but he didn't even move a millimetre.
He still looked calm, but the same could not be said about Nagini, who was "drenched in sweat" from the magical pressure emitted by the King of Treants.
"From ancient treatises, do you agree? Yes, and if it is written correctly, then you always save the hearts of your ancestors, I do not ask for the very first, but for the one who at least lived five hundred years, you see, a small fee…."
"Watch your language Human!"
"Old man, are you threatening me?" Narrowing his gaze, the figure of Severus was surrounded by a red, burning aura, at the sight of which, the creature pulled his hand back at the same moment, "If I wanted to, I could burn this entire forest without any problems, or don't you believe me?"
"I… believe… " a hint of fear slipped through the giant's voice.
"All right, then," the aura disappeared at the same moment, and a smile appeared on Snape's face again, "Do you agree? I understand that the Heart is a very important thing for your species (memory), but it is completely useless for you, and I will help you get rid of those dogs and snakes, and there seem to be no other fiery creatures here, if I'm not mistaken, agree?"
"Let me think." A tired sigh escaped from the mouth of the Treant King, because even though it felt the power of the wizard standing in front of it, even at the moment when Severus entered the forest, it was surprised by such amazing control over the flame.
Of course, the creature was frightened of Severus, but this fear was not for itself, but for the forest and relatives, because if the battle starts, they all might not survive, which it simply could not allow for any outcome, and deep down, it wanted kill the wizard in front of it, even more than that snake.
Snape didn't really care about the tree monster's decision, because even though he wanted to get such a precious ingredient as the Heart of the King of Treants, if he didn't succeed, he wouldn't be too upset.
He needed it, for the development of his own core, to quickly reach the top of the Master rank and become a real Archmage.
Although the wizards in his old world usually used the Heart of a three hundred years older than the number of years he announced, but for him, who, managed to materialize the core, but is still at the rank of "Master", this would be too much and the core could not withstand the incoming magic, and would just explode.
Also, another use of the Heart was to create an elixir of life that could extend the life of even an ordinary person by a thousand years, but of course this also depended on the quality of the ingredient itself and mainly for this reason he wanted to get it.
After all, even from one it was possible to create up to ten potions. The reason why the Prince simply did not want to grab all the Hearts at once is a condition, as well as a curse. If someone decides to steal it, then he will be cursed by magic: the Heart itself will rot, and the thief will follow it, only the thief will rot very slowly, right from the inside, and at the same time the sensations will be unforgettable.
This was also another reason why they were called the darlings of magic. Nagini, especially tried not to glow at all, hiding under his cloak, because even from the Basilisk, she did not feel such pressure as from this creature, and only the fact that Severus was next to her calmed her, but the snake was still in no hurry to stick out.
Finally, after nearly ten minutes, the Treant King's eyes focused on the man.
"Alright, I accept your condition…
"That's wonderful, I propose to fix this with a contract," a blank sheet appeared in his right hand, and a pen in his left hand, and Severus rather quickly sketched out a standard contract in which Severus undertakes the vow to help deal with the bloody wolves and the snake, and the latter (Treant King) in turn, will voluntarily give up the Heart, of one of the past kings.
He also listed out the punishment for failure to fulfill the above obligations,
"Take and pour in a little magic," Severus handed him a simple A4 sheet bought in the Muggle world.
The Treant King grimly did what Severus asked, and then Severus himself did the same. As usual, the contract burned down and both of them were marked with a contract sign in the form of a flame sign.
"Then I'll take care of that today, and I still didn't ask, why did he attack you?" putting the pen in his wallet, Severus asked it with interest.
"He wants to become the true King of the Jungle and my existence for him is like an eyesore, so he is trying to force us to act in this way, leave our territory and go after it, where we will be weakened and will not be able to give a worthy fight" the tree monster replied angrily, barely able to contain its anger at the mention of his enemy.
"Then why did you move directly to the bloody wolves?"
"I was deceived… we, the Treants, are a peaceful species and have never interfered in the life of the creatures living in this place, but one day this snake crawled to us in the company of more than three dozen bloody wolves. He was afraid of our strength …" a pathetic laugh escaped its lips, "... he offered me a choice: either we move closer to the bloody wolves so that they can suppress us if we suddenly rise up, or war ... I believed him, because I was worried about my relatives, who had not yet gained "full intelligence" and we moved here. At first, everything was fine, he did not touch us and we lived peacefully, and mastered the new land, but after five months the fires started, and then the damn snake himself appeared, demanded that several of my brothers and sisters follow him and serve him …"
"And you allowed?"
"…Yes. And after a few days, I felt how they died at once, and then he came again, demanding a few more, and I refused him ... most of all, I regret that I let this bastard go then," bloodlust wafted from Treant's body, and its voice became much gloomier "And from that day it began …"
"I see, then show me where it lives, you can separate a small piece of your root and control it from here, right?" Severus looked at the Treant King with the same indifference, he was not very touched by the story of the King of Treants, in his past life, he heard more tragic ones, and he did not want to pity such a stupid and pitiful creature.
"How do you know about this ability?"
"It was written that way in the treatise, so I asked, but from your reaction, I understand that you can, and if so, then let's go, I need to get to the safe zone before evening …" And after finally a small root landed on his palm, he turned around and headed back from where the Treant had brought him earlier.
"Wait ," the creature suddenly called out to Snape. "What? I'm in a hurry."
"His lair is on the other side…"
" …" Silently turning around, while without a bit of embarrassment, he went back.
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As the Treant King had said, the blood wolves really lived nearby, some five kilometres from the tree monster forest.
They lived on a small slope, in which there was a huge number of holes and from which wolves entered and exited, a small part of pack stood at the bottom and basked in the sun, and the other watched the "fight" between their two relatives, and at the top of the slope stood a especially large wolf, the size of a small truck, having a bright coat with orange symbols all over the body.
Severus, who was watching the wolf, only silently nodded, and then tried to use magic to detect the snake, but unfortunately, it was not nearby, and that wolf on the top of the hill was the strongest monster present.
"Do you know where the snake is?" Severus asked, glancing at the small root in his hand as he calmly walked towards the blood wolves.
«In a cave, three kilometres from here.» came the voice of the Treant King in his head.
"Alright, I'll finish here and go." Leaving the forest, Severus came out onto a slope empty in terms of trees and bushes, it was covered with soot and scorched areas.
And at the same moment, the eyes of predators focused on him, they began to growl angrily in his direction, showing sharp fangs and slowly heading towards him, gradually surrounding him.
"Still… I don't like to kill animals…" Raising his palm to chest level, several wind blades appeared on it.
"RRR! Raar!" and in the next moment, two of the slightly more than five dozen wolves that surrounded him jumped on him.
But in flight, one of the blades sharply rushed forward and two animals did not even have time to understand anything, as their heads separated from the bodies, irrigating the ground with a bloody fountain and the bodies landed at the feet of Severus, and the windy blade, like a boomerang returned back to his palm.
"Why are you frozen?" And as if by magic, the wizard's mocking voice brought them out of their stupor and with a wild roar, they almost simultaneously rushed towards him, looking with hatred at the man who dared to kill their relatives.
The edges of the wizard's lips lifted up, and the blades rushed forward again and the massacre began ... Not one of them, could enter the range of 1 metre around him, and with every moment, the rest of the pack, watching this massacre, felt panic and even the King of Treants, seeing all this through the root, could not help but feel fear in relation to this man, who from the moment the "battle" began, did not even take a step from the spot, with what indifference he took lives, it was horrified.
Deep down, the being was happy that it hadn't provoked this monster. And finally when the thirtieth headless body sank to the ground, a stream of flame rushed from the top of the slope at Snape, but he only put out his palms indifferently and easily managed to stop it, and then dispelled it without any problems.
And at that moment, the leader of the pack landed in front of the wizard, angrily staring at the figure of a man, while the Prince saw some kind of reason in his eyes, which surprised him a little, because the animals at this level should not have had it at all, except for the Treants.
And after a few seconds, the Slytherin finally understood how the snake was able to crush the wolves under itself.
"You understand me?" Severus asked him with a smile, noticing how six more slightly smaller ones appeared behind the leader, but with the same signs on the coat and from them, Severus felt an especially large amount of magic, whereas the rest were more like simple wolves, but with more developed physical abilities.
"Rrrr …"
"It's nice that you understand, I recently began to think about getting a dog to guard the territory, what do you think, don't you want to work? I promise to feed, walk and scratch your belly."
"Rrrr…" flames began to burst out of the leader's mouth, and his gaze became even sharper.
"You don't want to? It's a pity, then I'll look for someone else …" and after these words, his smile faded, and a blood-red aura began to surround him, from which the hair of all the wolves stood on end and almost simultaneously those standing in front of him jumped back, and the most nervous ones immediately lost consciousness, only one third remained on their legs and even then, most of them had lost the will to fight,
"Not bad," He examined the seven still standing wolves, which, even under the influence of an aura of fear, were still ready to fight, a smile played on his face again, "And now?" from his voice, the animals flinched and retreated a couple of steps back, although the leader still showed fangs, but without the former aggression, this time only to scare him.
"You won't kill them?" said the grim voice of the Treant King in his head.
"Since when have Treants become so bloodthirsty?"
"A lot of my brothers and sisters died because of them!"
"Hmm… it's logical, but in general, they were just manipulated, I feel, albeit weak, but the influence of mind magic on the leader of the pack, so they are only indirectly to blame for their death," Severus did not lie, it really was, back in the moment he met his eyes, the wizard noticed alien magic right in the region of the wolf's head, which was one of the main signs of the impact of mental magic.
"Why should I believe you, and what?! They still…!"
"It seems like even after seven hundred years you still behave like a child, my task is to save you from them, but it was not stated how, so stay silent, or you can deal with them yourself." after that, the tree monster said nothing more, Snape also did not chat with it anymore and, baring his teeth, concentrated his attention on the startled wolves, who retreated another step, and the roar of the leader became much quieter, "It's time to finish with you …".
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