Conclusion and encounter

It is madness.

Intelligent, the tarsiers charge into the hoplires' ranks. Immediately, 8 of them are gravely wounded. The second rank with intact weapons mustered all their courage and take an extra step, supporting their brethren and stabbing at those monkeys. Despite using their skills both in offense and defense, tarasiers still penetrated their formation resulting in chaos.

Cleopatra and Eve fly over the group, biting and poisoning tarasiers about to gravely wound the hoplites. Eve fired water and fire, attempting to wound or slow the monkeys.

Aries warriors charge at the group led by the yellow tarasier. Exhausted, they work in pairs when fighting the beasts.

As long as the factions and monkeys were fighting up close, the monkeys perched atop tress couldn't offer assistance. Troubles lied after that.

---

The yellow monkey was surrounded by 10 other monkeys, the others dead on the ground.

With Arthur at the lead, hoplites and Aries warriors charge at the monkeys.

The golden tarasier suddenly grinned. Its fur dizzked and lightning coated his being. Flame burst from the red monkey, Earth aggregated the green one's fists and the blue one seemed to be slippery.

Arthur, with a gray sword, launch several beams at the foes, wounding ones and making others dodge. The close tarasiers group lost its unity.

The Aries gained speed and activated their charge skills.

Tackled by 1.9 meter tall warriors, the monkeys were sent back or at least shaken by this charge.

Fighting 2 on 1, Aries warriors quickly disposed of monkeys.

--

Arthur charged straight towards the four big monkeys. 5 meters away, sharp earth spikes suddenly rose from the ground, almost empaling Arthur.

The red furred monkey threw fireballs with his massive hands, while the electric coated yellow monkey.

Wanting to create a situation where he could fight 1 on 1, Arthur sends two sword beams, one at the yellow and the other at the green monkey.

Speeding up, he slashes downward, when the blue monkey suddenly appears and takes the shot. Water spilled everywhere and the monkey was uninjured.

The green monkey creates earth spikes over a large area that Arthur narrowly dodges.

The yellow monkey, covered in lightning almost instantly appears and send Arthur flying against earth spikes. The yellow monkey follows up by sending a ray of lightning where Artur crashed.

Their cooperation was on point and Arthur could barely survive fighting them.

Brown and blue tagged in and combined their forces to attack the green monkey. Fights were still raging around.

Dodging earth spikes, zigzaging between the danger, blue attacks the monkey with his two daggers. Shielding his face with his fists, blue only managed to scratch the rocky layer of the green monkey's fist.

He kept circling around and slowly slashed the monkey, which was unable to even get a hold of him.

In a frenzy, he shouted and earth spikes were coming from the ground all around him. Blue parried then and was launched backward.

Brown jumped over the rock spiked and kicked the monkey's left knee, breaking it. Screaming in pain, he grabs her and pummels her on the ground. She was punched brutally over 12 times.

In a daze, she couldn't really muster her strenght to stand up.

Wanting to finish her, with arms raised above his head, he conjured an enormous boulder, hardening and compressing the stones. Pure earth energy was compressed in the boulder.

The monkey shouted, salive escaping his mouth and spilled over brown's face, mixing with her own blood. A barbaric grin was plastered on the monkey's face.

Then..

CRASH

---

Blue put all his mana to coat his daggers. His blade making a high pitched screech sound from all the wind energy.

Running towards the green monkey, he jammed his blades in his opponent's armpits. They pierces through his shoulders, the tip of the blades exiting through his shoulder blades.

Under the massive pressure of the enormous boulder, his arms went numb, crashing his body.

Blue quickly moved in front of the monkey before grabbing brown and rolling away, escaping being crushed together.

They narrowly escaped death. Brown couldn't move from all the hit while blue was suffering from severe shock from Mana depletion.

---

Pummeled by throwing weapons, the other Aries members had to avoid projectiles while facing the remaining three monkeys.

While Arthur could only use his left arm, Ezyze casted spatial rays in order to disrupt the monkeys from truly harming his faction.

At that point, the hoplites were powerless before these terrifying foes, unable to damage them.

Arthur charges once again. The huge fireballs almost burning him.

He jumped onto the yellow monkey, and slashes repeatedly. Without leaving him leading, the yellow monkey coated with electric energy, repeatedly and severally punched him, roasting his flesh under high intensity energy.

Wanting to harm Arthur, the red monkey channels fire into his palms creating 2 fiery red fireballs.

When he moved back his arms to throw the fireballs, he receives a spatial bolt in the face, damaging him but more importantly breaking his momentum.

3 Aries warriors quickly surround him and cooperated to bring him down.

The blue monkey was likewise hit by spatial rays before 3 other Aries warriors jumped him.

The two Aries Spearman cooperated with Arthur to attack the yellow monkey. While he took the brunt of the lightning damages, deflecting the most that he could, the Spearman riddled the monkey with holes, before eventually piercing his brain through his left eye.

The 4 buffer monkeys dead, the the fight was not over.

The hoplites were continuously shielding the warriors from projectiles.

Several of then run toward Aries warriors, which launched then toward trees.

Ezyze fired spatial rays, killing several of them. Suddenly, he blinks and found himself a tree, surrounded by 5 thrower tarsiers.

Luckily, they were weak in physical combat and, by slashing and firing at close range, he managed to bring them down.

The hoplites also made quite quick work of the monkeys and the fight was finally over, the crimson sun high in the sky.

Arthur couldn't move, twitching from electrical shock. In the trees, many hoplites had broken limbs, arms, feet and legs.

The Aries still sending all presented gaping wounds, from claw marks, burnt or bitten. The Aries warriors on the ground were not fairing better, poisoned, they were shivering.

Ezyze was exhausted. So exhausted that he couldn't climb down from the tree.

He thought:

Strenght makes might. I don't know how it would have turned out if everything didn't go exactly as it went. I am in a world where the law of the jungle apply. I don't know how strong we need to get yet, but we are far from being safe from danger.

The forest was making many ruffling sounds, a giant shadow casted on the group.

---

A giant made of wood shadowed over the group. It is not known how it got there, and how such a massive being didn't make so much noise.

Ent watchman - rank 3

This massive being was undoubtedly strong. Stronger that anyone here at the current moment. The warriors readied their stances, about to respond to any of the giant's aggression. They could try to respond but it was clear that any of them couldn't muster anything to retaliate.

Ezyze himself could cast at most 4 spatial bolts, with only 200 Mana remaining. The bees, goblins and Aries were not fairing any better. They did not sleep for more than 2 days and fought continuously for more than an hour.

They were screwed.

When the Ent opened its mouth, strong vibrations ensured. With a grave voice, he said.

Greeeeeetiiiiiiiingsssss waaaarriooooors.

Iiiiii aaaaam Aaaaaalgeeeeen, froooooom theeeee piiiiiineeee Eeeent ooooof the embeeeerwooood fooooorreeeeest. Yoooouuuuuuu slaaaaaineeeeed thoooooose daaaaamned moooonkeeeeys aaaand weeeeee muuuuuust thaaaaank youuuuu. Fooooolloooooow meeeeeee, waaaaaarriooooors.

He waves his hand and roots slowly sprung from the ground. They latched on the beasts' corpses, creating a sort of dome that encompassed all these corpses. Moreover, those injured were gently lifted and were lodged on his shoulders. He grabbed the box-like wooden sphere filled with corpses, and dragged it behind him before slowly turning.

Doooooon't woooooorry waaaaarrioooooors. Theeeeeseee spooooils aaaare youuuuurs. Theeeeey shaaaaaaall nooooottttt roooottttttt heeeeeereeee. Youuuur iiiiinjuuureeeeed frieeeeends aaaaaare noooooooot saaaaafe heeeeere.

They had few choices. Fighting was not an option and fleeing meant leaving those injured at the ent's hands. Besides seeing what this intelligent race wanted, they didn't see other perspectives.

---

Ezyze and his group have been following the giant for more than three hours now. The forest was at first quite gloomy and dark, with many beast and monster noises. The trees' bark, initially brown and dark brown were increasingly colorful, almost luninescent. Moreover, they gently swayed along the wind.

Despite not crossing a single creature, the forest was very much alive. Fireflies like spheres of light, of all colors went from one tree to the other, before changing color once they touched another tree. Only bird creatures could be seen in the trees and and the sky. The air was fresh. The blue sky seemed warm and the sunlight rays, upon hitting some leaves, were reverberated, making them feel to be under the sun and not some dark forest.

After 3 more hours of walking, they arrived in front of a sort of wooden arch, blocked by humongous trees.

The ent stopped in front of the arch, placed those injured inside and the cadaver ball after. They seemed to be transported but didn't know by what.

Gooooooo. Theeeeeey aaaaaareeee waaaaaitiiiiiiing fooooor youuuuuuu.

Ezyze followed by Arthur and the others crossed the arc. They were all more rested and had their weapons in hand, just in case.

There, they saw something fantastic. Enormous tree beings, bigger than 20 meters, were slowly walking, playing with a waterfall that fell from the sky. A river seemed to flow through the ground.

In the North, East, South and West, Ent Armour status were resting their hand on huge hammers. Their armors were made of glistening cristals and the hammerheads were bigger than the Aries warriors, without even mentioning the small goblins.

Behind the waterfall, 5 enormous trees, so tall that they couldn't estimate their height, were in a circle. Their leaves were red, blue, yellow and black, while one had big green pines. All of a sudden, the pine tree moved, scrunched and a gigantic wooden hand was on the ground.

All of the faction members heard in their head: *jump in, we need to talk*.

Surprised, they still hopped on the giant's hand, which lifted them up to the top. Once they reached more than 100 meters in height, they were brought to eye level with these grandiose ends.

Eldest gigantic thrusting pinebarkEnt - rank 5

*Welcome warriors my name is Vevznir and here are

Frazon - eldest gigantic frost Ent -rank 5

Shavurs- eldest gigantic illusory ghostEnt - rank 5

Volzir - eldest gigantic suntouched blazingEnt- rank 5

Bramur- eldest gigantic illusory lightEnt - rank 5.

We are the council of the Ents of the Emberwood forest. At rank 5, we are the most powerful of the Emberwood forest, which spans over 1/7th of the Blacksaber kingdom. I am speaking through telepathic link, as us Ents always take some time to speak openly. Algen went through the secret hollow path, which allowed you to reach us directly.*

Why did you call us here?

*I understand the rush but who am I facing here?*

My name is Ezyze, and I am with Arthur, the injured Baal here, Aries warriors, goblin warriors and Bees here.

*I can feel strange things emanating from you Ezyze, not only a strange link all of them to you, but you yourself have strange magic and a smell.. you are not like other humans here.*

Ezyze was very anxious as to what to say and didn't want to antagonize these powerful beings.

Most of us are injured and some even poisoned, we have to keep it quite short otherwise I am afraid of their future.

*Don't worry young warrior, we will take care of this*

Roots sprouted from Bramur and planted themselves in everyone's flesh. Ezyze felt a warm feeling occupy his whole body. The poisoned Aries' skin became warmer, clearer and the previous black spots were nowhere to be seen.

*See, we have all the time. Hmhhh I made my mind. You do not have the smell of Astros, neither you nor those Aries that you call. The little goblins here should be originally from the Human Empire of light. They are very rare there; are you from the Human Empire of light?*

No.

*Where are you from then?*

We came here near the Emberwood forest.

*Then, Ezyze from the Emberwood forest, did you know that the golden honeybees are from the northernmost part of our continent and went extinct 200 years ago, being chased from the honey they make?*

Ezyze was shaken.

*I noticed that she did not yet produce honey yet. When she does, make sure to taste it first. This little friend here is a very important fellow.* he paused, his eyes heavy on the group *Anyway, we are the council in charge of maintaining the Emberwood forests ecosystem. You fought deers, wolves, rabbits and tarasiers. Many other beasts inhabit this forest. The tempest blue garus for instance are the hardest to catch, while the black horned basiliks the most elusive, packs of iron feather crows and glass tarantulas are the most dangerous; consider yourselves lucky not to have crossed any of them. We are the strongest here, at rank 5, you humans usually call us legendary monsters, and would turn our bodies upside down to create gear, magical staffs and legendary bows. We are the strongest, nevertheless we cannot move from here.*

Why?