Cherry Blossom Dryard

Leon had not seen the Cherry Blossom bud for about a week. Most of the time had been spent on traveling and such. It was still early so he wasn't hurrying to back.

Along the way he stopped at cities and towns and bought some materials for the dryards proper birth. Leon also spent the time training with his beasts, having them kill beasts for runic core to earn more money and so on.

He had spent a month traveling and made it back to the Cherry Blossom forest. He had a week left till the gathering Oren had been talking about.

In front of the overlord Cherry Blossom tree Leon had the beasts help him dig holes. He placed all the corpses he had collected and covers them back up.

The tree seemed to notice the energy and it's roots grew out more and started absorbing the energy.

Leon sat in front of the Tree and took out the materials he had bought, they were a Pure Nature Soul for three million gold and the blood of a very rare beast, The peaceful soul deer, a nature and holy element beast for a million gold.

The bud had grown even larger. With the corpses added it was now growing faster. It grew until it was just above Leon sitting on the ground. Leon reached up with the blood of the Peaceful Soul Deer and drew a formation. He then put the Pure Nature Soul in it and then gave the rest of the Peaceful Soul Deer blood for the bud to absorb.

This was that method of giving a birth to a stayed in his past life.

He sat down and cultivated. While the other beasts had sat down and watched what was happening.

Soon the bud above him broke open. A thin petal peeled up. Slowly the whole flower opened to reveal a women sleeping on a floating disc made of petals. The women stretched her body and yawned as she woke up. She then hopped off and looked at all the beasts.

Leon got out from underneath the floating disc and got up. He turned to the Dryard and looked at her. She had long pink hair. She wore a pale pink dress that went to her knees from the front but had a long trail on the back. The dress had long sleeves and a frill to it. Around her neck was a golden choker, it was beautifully made of golden strips that intertwined to form a flowery pattern. She looked completely human other then a thin vine that could be seen coming out from underneath the dress connecting to the Tree.

The women looked at Leon and bowed, "I am The Dryaed of the Overlord Cherry Blossom Tree, I am right to assume you are the person that contracted me?"

"Yes it is me." Leon said.

"Very well, good to see you." She turned to the beasts, "Good to see you all as well." But from the beasts she saw the Angel and butterfly and walked towards them.

She hugged the Angel in her embrace. It looked like a mother hugging her child. "I felt your warmth as a child and your gift was well received." The Dryard said as she released the Angel and pointed at the choker.

Ariel nodded, "I'm Ariel, you will be our new friend so I had to make sure you were properly raised."

The butterfly also landed on the Dryard's head. It released its warm glow and said hello. The Dryard picked the butterfly onto her finger and gave it a kiss.

She then turned to look at the other beasts. The Dragon with the Phoenix sitting on its head moved to introduce themselves first.

"I'm the great and mighty Phoenix, welcome younglings. You can always come to me for advice."

"I'm Zen." The Dragon added.

The Bow gave a deep bow to both of them and then looked at the other three beasts. The Lightning Griffin landed and gave a bow to it and she returned the bow.

The Ifrit waved as it sat on a tree and the Chimera ignored it completely.

The Drayard waved back to the Ifrit and went back to Leon.

"Now that you have been born, Let's go we have a gathering to attend at Rose Thorn City soon."

The beasts got ready to leave however the dryard shook her head.

"I am connected to the Overlord Cherry Blossom Tree, I cannot leave it. The furthest I can go is the edges of this whole Cherry Blossom forest." She showed her wrist which had a thin vine coming out of it.

Leon looked at it and had a confused face. "Are you sure?" Other then the birth method he didn't know anything about Dryards.

"All Dryards cannot leave the Tree they are born from. They are connected to it and live to protect it." She said in her soft voice with a powerful smile.

"But we have to go, What would happened if you cut the vine?" Leon said while pointing at it. It wasn't particularly strong.

"I don't know, however I don't think I should cut the line, it would be like abandoning my family." The Dryard said shaking her head.

Leon thought about this and said, "I don't think they'll mind to much, look at all the brothers and sisters around you. They'd all be happy to see you leave and explore the world. You can grow stronger and even replant them to a better place or protect them from future dangers." Leon said as he pointed at the trees around him.

The Dryard wasn't convinced. "I don't think I can still just leave..."

"How about this, we'll come and visit every two years."

The Dryard didn't like it.

"One year. That's as low as I can go. I'll even help more of your siblings grow into dryards."

The Dryard nodded.

"Very well, I'll leave with you." She held the vine and said, "I will come back meet you all again soon."

She then formed a thin kindle out of petals and cut the vine.

The vine broke and a crack could be heard. Something had broken.

"Now let's go-" Leon looked at the Dryard. She was holding her stomach and crouching on the ground as if in immense pain.

Leon turned to look at the Overlord Cherry Blossom Tree. It shivered up and died.

"What?!"

Soon some nearby trees started to due as well. The Dryard, seeing this slammed her hand to the ground and released waves of pink flower petals. They all flew and started healing the trees.

All the outer beasts freaked out as well. The Chimera however continued to sleep in its black lotus.

Ariel used holy spells to stop what was happening while the Butterfly flew to the shivered up tree and used its life energy to heal it.

Zen flew up into the sky before the Phoenix on his head had a chance to do anything stupid. It watched from a far.

The Ifrit and Griffin also left and joined them.

The Dryard shrunk, her womanly body turned to an adolescent then to a young girl.

The butterfly flew on to Leon's head and cried for the death of so many trees. While Ariel just shook her head in disappointment.

The Dryard got up. She was no longer a Dryard. Her skin had turned pink, her head had a flower growing on it. Her hair had shortened and turned into a few long flower petals.Her dress had shortened and turned brown. The choker had also lost its luster and turned brown.

The young plant girl stood up crying. She rubbed her hands across her face to wipe her tears but it wasn't working.

The girl looked up and saw Leon standing in front of her. The sorrow she felt turned into anger.

"It was you! This was all your fault." Even though she devolved she didn't lose her ability to speak.

She formed a sword out of Flower petals and launched herself at Leon.

All the beasts entered high alert. Even the Chimera woke up, it looked towards the girl attacking Leon however didn't make a move. It knew Leon would be fine with Ariel next to him.

Ariel formed a blood sword and blocked the attack. She had a frown as she fought, "Calm down, Their is no use in killing. It's better to think of a way to save-"

"Save! You think you can save the whole forest! With the overlord cherry blossom tree gone soon this whole forest will die!" The former Dryard furiously shouted, "Let me kill this bastard so I can avenge my fallen family and sacrifice myself to save the rest."

The Dryard waved her free hand and thousands of pink petals rose into the sky and formed into the shape of a wingless Dragon. She then waved her hand down and the Dragon went for Leon.

Leon was surprised, "She knows Dragon slayer magic? Did she learn it because my blood contains small amounts of Dragon energy?"

As the spell attacked Leon two ice dragon swords formed and blocked the attack. The petal dragon was mostly superficial as it didn't have time to from completely. It was easily cut into two.

Ariel a slow had blood chains bind the girl.

"Stop, wasting energy all of the beasts are as strong as you or stronger and they all won't let him die." Ariel then asked Leon through the blood oath. "Do you know of a way to save the forest?"

Leon thought for a second, "The only way I can think is using a lead from the Tree of life. With it the whole forest will recover and flourish for a thousand years more."

"How hard is it to get the leaf?"

"Well it isn't impossible..."

"Good, then you'll be getting the leaf to right your wrong." Ariel said to Leon. She then spoke to the girl, "Leon said he knows of a way to fix the situation but he'll need your help-"

"Me! help him-"

"So you are willing to let your forest die? If you aren't, you can sacrifice your life and see how many more days you can extend its life."

The girl understood what to do. "Fine, If he can save the forest I will forgive him."

"Good." Ariel said.

Leon nodded he looked at the Butterfly, "How fast is it dying?"

It told Leon that the forest was losing life energy fast. It would take seven to eight months for the whole thing to die.

"That's enough time. With the method I'm using I'll be able to bring everything back to life as well."

Leon looked at the girl and said, "I'll save your forest, but after that you must not back out of your bet."

The girl looked back at Leon with ferocity. Ariel also told Leon to shut up.

Leon shook his head and unsummoned the Former Dryard. He looked at the fifth page on his soul book to see her. She was in a withering forest crying. Her species was shown to be a Cherry Blossom Treeling.

Leon closed the book and started leaving. "I planned on trying to get the branch of Life Pandora would steal anyways so this won't change my plans to much."