Chapter 96

As the army advanced, Varrus took in the scenery. 

The city of Deatholme was a chaotic mess of crushed buildings, and repainted nonsense. It seemed that with their new unlife, many of the Darkfallen had spent their free time repainting buildings a combination of black, purple, and green. Lastly, skulls and other boney iconography were painted upon these structures. 

Varrus could only cluck his tongue. It seemed that once you became Undead in this universe, your aesthetic taste completely shifted as well. 

But besides the half ruined buildings, there was something different about Deatholme. That of course, was the copious amount of Undead treants clogging the streets! 

Tens of thousands of tree-based creatures were charging at Varrus's line in a hurry. Some were massive beings of wood and fury as tall as a school bus was long, whilst others were tiny beings made of leaves no larger than a human hand. 

This tide of unholy nature collided with the front row of iron golems in an epic clash. 

Metal shrieked as it bent at unnatural angles, and tree limbs snapped as the golems stomped, and tore into them with the strength of a vice-grip. 

Varrus watched on as Rho'dan cleaved through a leg thick like a pillar, downing one of the treants, he then cut it in half with the help of his blades' fire enchantment, and dodge rolled the strike of another treant all within seconds. The spot where he had been standing a moment ago caved in, and Rho'dan got to work dispatching his new opponent. 

Similar cases of dangerous close combat were being undertaken by warriors and paladins every second. Enchanted swords cleaved into thick wooden bodies, and blasts of Light came down upon the diseased trees, dealing super effective damage.

Mages rained constant Arcane Barrages, or led with Firebolts. Their AOE attacks proved instrumental in claiming the lives of the tiny foes running between everyone's legs. Already, Varrus had seen one complacent Elf getting swarmed by the hand-sized leaf monsters, and had directed a message via scrying orb for the soldiers to pay special attention towards these seemingly harmless foes. 

Continuing on the warfront, Rangers coated their arrows in a special potion, granting them fiery effects. Their massed missiles were then powered by their own mana upon release, and were able to penetrate deep within these wooden bodies, then explode inside with a fiery payload. 

The tens of thousands of Undead treants were instantly reduced by a few thousand from this initial clash. On Varrus's side, he also lost about a thousand iron golems, but he found the cost well worth it. Elven lives were precious, each one was the accumulation of a lifetime of skills, and was responsible for raising the next generation once he finally got a handle on the fertility crisis. He could not squander them. 

However, mindless automata made of iron were the ideal cannon fodder. He wouldn't mind if every single golem perished during this conflict, so long as Highborn casualties remained low. On the plus side, each and every one of them was recyclable! 

Varrus looked on in pride as House Vandercross, armed in their thorium gear, and equipped with Common Soul Stone tier enchantments plowed through their superior numbered foe like it was nothing. 

It was thanks to the army taking the lead that Varrus didn't have to be worried about being surrounded by enemy Elites while he countered the constant pollen drifting on the wind. Whilst in an ideal world, he could bombard Tha'salah, the World Tree, from a distance like a WW2 howitzer, he was in a hurry to investigate, and put a stop to whatever ritual Lana'thel was cooking up. And so, his strategy was to advance alongside the army. Once they had dealt with the treants, he planned on using coordinated attacks to cut down this thorn in their side, and rush the former Queen. 

The training, and superior equipment of House Vandercross was put to good practice in this conflict. Unlike Kael's Sunfury, House Vandercross had remained largely at Silvermoon. There, they had been studying old tomes, learning Light-based magic under Dawnbringer, and were drilled by Heroes such as Rho'dan in the arts of war. As such, almost all of the combatants who took the field with him were Elites. 

Even when faced against overwhelming numbers, House Vandercross maintained the line, and without Varrus's direct interference were slowly, and steadily pushing up the hill towards their objective. 

However, that pride in his people was quick to transform into worry as he heard a great rumbling shake the ground. 

Massive roots began to emerge from underneath, and several mages were not quick enough, and were pierced from their backside up through their throats. 

Plate wearing warriors and paladins survived thanks to the nature of their quality gear, and rangers dodged due to their nimbleness, but the mages/priests were unarmored, and unaccustomed to dodging. As a result, a dozen of Varrus's backline were caught completely off guard by this development! 

The blood in their veins was swiftly exsanguinated, as greedy vines supped upon their life's ichor. 

Varrus watched on in horror as these former colleagues-now little more than dried husks-become covered in vines and branches in some macabre ritual as they were transformed into freaky Elf-plant Undead hybrids! 

A dozen mouths opened as one, and the creatures spoke in a creepy monotone. 

"Become one with the soil. Join us." 

"Join us." 

"Join us." 

Before they could prattle on any further, and turn their former allies, the Illidari Council cut them down in a flash with both blade and fire. 

This was little comfort to Varrus, because hundreds of roots were repeatedly going in and out of the ground, like some sick game of wack-a-mole. Already, Varrus had lost 24 men to this dangerous onslaught. All the while, the treants had renewed their assault on the front! 

To make matters worse, the rumbling on the ground wasn't stopping, but in fact, was increasing! 

Ears twitching, Varrus picked up the sound of rushing water. 

Glancing on the horizon, Varrus saw a golden surge of liquid pour from the deceased World Tree in a torrent. 

No, not water, sap! 

A tidal wave of sap was flowing down the hill, and would collide with his army within a minute, two at most! 

"Syra, help with the roots! I have the syrup!" Varrus hurriedly told his wife. 

Syra flashed him a smile, then jumped off the flying carpet, and dive bombed on one giant root. Her sword gleamed with purple-gold as she easily cleaved through the massive appendage. The unique brand of Holy Void burnt away at the root, causing it to ash within a minute of being sliced by her blade. 

Her strength and speed allowed her to dodge every root strike coming her way, and within a few seconds, a dozen of the ambushing roots were demolished. 

The rest of the roots seemed to take her as the primary threat, and about 200-300 blackened plague filled roots attacked her at once. Some were coated in slimy black gunk that had melted a handful of iron golems, and two Elves, others were bendable like rubber, and flung themselves at her at insane speeds. 

Syra danced like a ballerina. Her every step was measured, and placed at the perfect spot to dodge the worst of it. 

A front flip here transitioned into an overhead slice, clearing a dozen roots at once. A side roll there perfectly placed an iron golem in the direction of some black goop, buying her a second to reposition herself, and counterattack. 

After some careful maneuvering, Syra had twisted and turned in such an odd way, the majority of roots had tied one another up! The World Tree was so focused on killing her, it had lost its way! 

The roots began to tear at one another as they tried to escape the entanglement, but Syra wasn't going to give them a chance! 

Holding her buster sword like a baseball bat, she sliced into the massed group of roots, and then diced them into a fine puréé. 

Varrus saw all this go down whilst he was in the process of fortifying the front line in preparation for the wave of sap. 

He spared Syra a smile while he was casting Raise Wall like a madman. He stacked the earthen works atop one another, and formed a dam that would hopefully halt the oncoming stream. 

Varrus then created a gap in the wall, so that the liquid would have an outlet, and go down hill towards the toxic moat outside the city. 

It wasn't a moment too soon either, as the amber gold sap came crashing down upon the conjured earthworks. But what shocked Varrus, is that the virtual river's worth of sap seemed to have a life of its own. The sticky substance clung to the earthworks, and began to scale up the vertical wall going against Varrus's idea of physics. 

What Varrus thought of as a clever plan to divert the stream had turned into a momentary setback. 

Amorphis slimes with base intelligence were crawling out of the syrup like some sort of horror movie. The amber colored goo-men were flanked by hardened shells. 

Varrus instinctively dropped a Forbidden Sun into the massive puddle, but it didn't not achieve the desired result. Perhaps only 1/50th of the enemy pool sizzled out of existence as it was cooked by the massive fireball. He tried tossing a Mana Stone inside to see what happened, but it couldn't absorb a thing. In fact, the goo devoured it, and not only healed itself, but grew larger than the damage he had dealt with Forbidden Sun! 

During his worry over the surge of syrup, Varrus was still dealing with the pollen in the air, by constantly casting Twister, and now he also had to dodge razor sharp magical red leaves coming down from Tha'salah. The leaves were like bullets, and ranged from the size of a palm to that of a sedan. At first, they were gently fluttering in the air, like any normal leaf, then they took upon a sharp edge, and slightly ominous glow as they flew at him with a vengeance. 

Thankfully the Twister spell disrupted most of these leaves, however the constant distractions made dealing with the sap situation more and more difficult! 

Already, some of the lake of goo had spilled over his wall, and a few hundred iron golems had been caught up in their attack. 

Arcane Explosions rocked the battlefield, as the golems fried and sizzled the goo-men, but the tidal wave of amber was just too much, and clogged up the golems' joints, then hardened, making movement all but impossible. 

Several golems self-destructed, taking out piles of goo, yet it wasn't enough. 

Fire and Arcane rained upon them, yet it seemed to have little effect. 

Varrus saw that his line was in serious trouble, and didn't believe anyone else in his army group could handle such a large, liquid based attack. 

It wasn't until he saw a mage cast Frost Nova, that Varrus saw the solution to their current predicament. All the goo around that mage had frozen solid! 

'Excellent! If I can't burn my way out, I'll simply freeze them!' Varrus happily thought to himself. 

Without wasting any time, Varrus cast the Master tier Destruction spell, Frozen Orb a dozen times. 

The orbs moved with a mind of their own as they hovered in and around the syrup. They radiated an aura of cold, and sprayed exploding ice spikes in all directions, freezing the surface level of the sap, and greatly slowing down its momentum.. 

This served as a stop gap measure intended to slow up the sap, and was soon followed up by another icy spell: Howling Blast. 

Howling Blast was much shorter range than Frozen Orb, and served a different purpose. Where the orb was more of an aura, or active debuff, the blast was a relatively short range, wide area attack. 

When Varrus unleashed the blast, he had to fly his carpet within a few feet of the oncoming tide. Thanks to the orbs slowing the goo down, Varrus was free to unleash blast after blast of concentrated cones of frost magic. 

Ice shards formed on the sap, then became crushed into powder as his perks took effect.

Varrus breathed out a chill whoosh of air in appreciation for the cold. Snow blanketed the ground, and the sap had been halted. 

Glancing down at his forces, they-with the help of Syra-had crushed the roots, and most of the treants. 

Within this small victory, they were almost within spitting distance of the top of the hill. 

There, both Tha'salah, and the fortress containing Lana'thel awaited. 

He then took in both flanks, and saw that Kael and Nightsong/Lor'Themar had not met any serious setbacks. All 3 forces were preparing to collapse upon the World Tree as they continued their advance. 

Syra took that moment to jump up on the flying carpet, and took Varrus into a hug from behind. 

Varrus turned to appraise her, and made sure she was free from fatigue or injury. 

His hands felt up her body, and he scowled as he saw a bruise on her palm. 

Syra was quick to hide her hand behind her back, like a naughty child caught stealing a cookie. 

"Ack, you're going to drive me to an early grave with worry, woman." Varrus muttered as he healed her with a spell. 

"Someone told me to deal with the roots~" Syra playfully replied, and poked Varrus in the side of the ribs. 

Varrus recoiled, as she touched upon one of his ticklish spots. 

"Hey now, we have to focus. We're already a little behind Kael and Jan'alai. If we delay anymore, they might get to the summit before us." Varrus deflected another poke, and took Syra's hand up to his lips for a kiss. 

"Then what are we waiting for?!" Syra ripped her hand away, and pointed forward.

Varrus wiped some saliva from his lip as he missed his target. 

He wanted to say something smarmy, but it really was his intention to speed things up. The blood red sky was really fucking creepy, and he had a weird feeling about this. The entire time they fought, they didn't see a single Darkfallen, or even basic skeleton. 

Just what in the hell was Lana'thel cooking back there? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN: Read 25 chapters ahead at: patreon.com/KarpQQ