29. Complete Defeat

"What is happening?" Guntur was swinging his sword, covered in aura, with all his strength. It wasn't just his sword covered in aura; his entire body was.

If it weren't for the aura perfectly covering his body, those roots and the vines would have gotten hold of him long ago. It wasn't just him. Most of the soldiers had the same problem.

The auraless servants were already torn apart by the vines or dragged underground by the tree's roots.

The white aura user wasn't too useless but wasn't too helpful either. Most soldiers were white aura users, and the number worked to their advantage. However, the longer the fight went on, the harder it became for them to survive.

Five of them took military formation, fighting against the vines and roots. A momentary lapse of concentration was enough for the enemy to break through the formation and drag them away. 

The number of losses continued to increase.

It wasn't that they didn't try to escape. Moving alone was out of the question. A white aura user couldn't fight against all this while moving towards the entrance. 

The groups who had a violet or stronger aura user were better. But the closer they moved to the edge, the stronger the attacks were.

If possible, Guntur wants to help them. Alas! He had a more significant responsibility. I.e., to protect the prince.

Guntur, ten indigo aura users, and four mages were protecting Thomas. Of course, Agnes was with them.

"Don't worry, we will be outside soon," Guntur said.

"That is the least of our worries." Agnes sighed, adding, "Most of the horses are dead. How are we going to leave this place?"

"What do you mean by leaving this place?" Thomas frowned. He could understand what they were trying to say, but…

"We will leave the desolate land as soon as we leave this place."

"Guntur, you might have forgotten who the troop commander is." Thomas paused, adding, "There is no way I would leave all of them to die and flee."

"You are not commander anymore, Your Highness." Agnes threw a wind spell, severing almost half of the vines attacking them.

"What are you talking about?"

Guntur's swords glowed in Indigo and sliced off the rest of the vines as they ran through the gap that appeared in the vine net that was obstructing their path.

"Your Highness, you must understand. The situation is not in our favor. More than half of the soldiers are weak from the poisoning. Not many could escape the tree maze even if they could fight."

"That is why we should help them as soon as possible," Thomas added. Although he held his word, the soldiers around them didn't give him any chance to fight.

"No." Agnes was the one who added. "The safety of Your Highness is the number one priority. We have to get you back to safety as soon as possible."

"What are you afraid of? They are just goblins and wolves. At most, they have just one troll."

"Your Highness, do you don't understand how serious the situation is? Or you don't want to believe it?"

Of course, Thomas understood. Even if the attacker's group consisted of goblins, kobolds, and wolves, there might be much more sinister hiding behind the curtain. It must be someone with both intelligence and patience who can gradually reduce their number.

That was what made him more frustrated. Thomas was sure they would have won if it had been an all-out war, but how could they fight against the enemy they could know nothing about?

"What is something so intelligent doing on the edge of the desolated land?"

"I don't know." Guntur continued fighting against vines. He had never thought he would miss the dried land with somewhat dead grass so much. As soon as he sighted the land, he poured more aura into his word. "It might be because of the war."

"War?"

"The war had destroyed the hierarchy of this side of the desolated land. The number of the goblin and kobold tribes here had decreased a lot. Whoever left is the weaker one."

"If they are weak, why were we sent here to clear this place?"

"It is because of the things we are fighting against. The war had dispersed the stronger beasts throughout the region, and now they are attacking the human settlement with the help of the weaker ones."

"Right after the war, a greater goblin took control of the forest around Aurgrad. They lost almost 50 experienced adventures and mercenaries just to kill one greater goblin."

"There must be other goblins too." Thomas was sure of it.

"There was." Agnes added, "Your Highness, what you don't understand is we don't have 50 experienced adventures and mercenaries. More importantly, we don't know if the leader of these creatures is a greater goblin or something far more fearsome."

The barrages of wind sliced through the vines that were barring them from leaving the forest. The attack didn't just tear off the vine curtain. It also sliced off one of the trees.

"Can't you just cut down the entire forest?" Thomas asked with expectation. Yet, all he received from Agnes was a head shake.

"If it were a normal forest, I would have tried. But it is a forest…" Agnes paused, not knowing how to explain it to him. "The forest is blessed by light mana. The trees won't die even if I cut them down. The roots will continue to attack."

As the group came out of the tree, they found they weren't the only ones who had escaped the tree area. Quite a few soldiers who were close to the edge were able to escape. A couple of mages were with them, too.

"What are you doing?" 

It was not until Guntur yelled out that the others realized they had emerged from the woods. Instead of answering, they simply pointed in a specific direction.

"What is that? A gnoll?" 

"Looks like it."

"Could it be the one who is controlling others?"

"A gnoll controlling a mountain troll? I have never heard about such a case."

While Guntur and Agnes were trying to understand its intention, one of the mages came forward, adding, "It is standing there with the beast from when the troll destroyed the first watchtower. It didn't move an inch. I think it is just observing us."

"A gnoll patient enough to wait, not to indulge in blood and meat." Agnes turned towards Thomas, adding, "Not just it has high intelligence; it must be following the order of something far more fearsome than itself."

"We can't leave this place like this." Thomas' words attracted the attention of others. 

Thomas was the fifth prince of the empire. Including the first princess, he was fourth in the line for the thorn. Losing all the soldiers would surely put dirt on his reputation. It might not be a big problem, but his brothers and sisters will try to use this failure against him.

"Your Highness, the more we wait, the lower our chances of survival will be."

"Please think about it. Your survival is our top priority. We can't take chances."

Thomas' eyes were glued to the gnoll standing on the top of the small hill with the moon on his back. Even if he didn't want to agree, he knew what they were saying was true.

While he was contemplating, the soldiers Guntur had sent to look for horses returned with four horses. Guntur found the best one and brought it before Thomas.

"Your Highness, please."

Thomas had made up his mind. After him, Guntur, Agnes, and another mage climbed on the horse. 

*Awwwoooooo*

The wolves started howling as soon as they began to ride in the opposite direction of the gnoll.

They didn't know what that meant, but they started to ride faster. The gap between them and the soldiers stretched to the extreme. 

"Don't attack the one on the horse. For those on the foot, tire them out as much as possible. I don't want to lose any more of the wolves."

*Awwwoooooo*

With his words, Scar charged down the hill as they continued to charge in the direction the soldiers had vanished into.

HP: 141.36/144.25

SP: 72.12/85.4

MP: 15.79/159.55

"If it isn't for those trees absorbing the energies from the body that had been pulled underground…" Hilda couldn't help sighing. 

She had checked her status many times, but Hilda didn't notice if one of the changes was hidden in her status.

[Breathe of Bodhi

Type: Passive

** Recover 18% of MP every hour

** Recover 8% of HP every hour

** Recover 8% of SP every hour

** [Domain]

** ?????]

One of the abilities that was inactivated before was activated when her aura went through the change. 

[Domain

Type: Active

MP Cost: 100

** Turns the tree in the designated area into sentient beings.

** The trees could absorb energy from living creatures.

Cooldown time: 24 hours]

If it were for the fact that once the spell is triggered, it could sustain itself, there was no way Hilda could maintain it for so long.

However, Hilda was most surprised that the [Domain] could differentiate between friend and foe. The tree could feel who contained her aura in their body. 

Scar and Boros had Hilda's aura inside their bodies, as Hilda had used it to inscribe the mana formation on their core or heart.

Regardless of whether they were humans, beasts, or deer, every woman with whom Hilda had mated had a tattoo on her abdomen due to her mysterious skill, which she had in her status from day one.

Hilda had yet to understand what type of effect it had, but she knew it had somewhat the same effect as the slave circle, which may have been even better.

However, two more effects intrigued Hilda more. Hilda wasn't sure what the probability was, but the first time she had sex with the women, there was a chance that she would be able to absorb one of their skills.

Like she got the [Dominance] from Black Mane and [Herding] from one of the humans. But it was Wani who found out another effect of the tattoo.

For some reason, she could use [Tangle]. She didn't know how, nor was it as effective as Hilda's, but it does work. And it wasn't just that. Her physical ability improved, and so did her mana. Hilda had also noticed that a skill had appeared in her status.

This was also why Hilda had sent Wani and the others to the enemy camp. As a result, it worked like a charm.

While she was looking down the hill, a couple of people came out of the camp. Even from a distance, Hilda could see it was Wani and Mosree. Although she had sent a couple more, they weren't usable. 

"Let's go." With Hilda's words, the gnoll and the gnoll beast climb down the hill.

Before they could meet, Boros came while riding a wolf from a different direction. "Master, I have talked to their leader. They want us to surrender."

"Surrender?" Wani snorted as her body came out of the veil of darkness. She was about 20 meters away from them a moment ago but appeared in front of them in a blink. "Have you met their leader?"

"It's a gnome. I am not sure how many gnomes are there, but their leader is a gnome warrior. When we met, he was wearing full metal armor."

"Gnome? Huh! It must have been old. It must have lost to a stronger gnome and came here to survive. Does it really think he could defeat us?"

"Wani!" With Hilda's words, Wani fell silent. "Boros, how many gnomes have you seen?"

"Seven, with the leader."

"Seven! That is far more than I have expected. Considering that there are more, there must be at least ten. Even if it lost the duel for the chief's position, it doesn't make sense why so many gnomes would follow it."

"Isn't master worrying too much? Even if there were many of them, they were weak."

"Even if they are weak, they are weak against their new chief, not against me."

"But you defeated the humans."

"It is because they were fighting on my turf. They lost because they had fallen into the trap I had laid for them."

"Master, I am waiting to ask. Why didn't you kill them all?"

"Because I can't." Hilda shook her head, adding, "Even if I fought them inside my [Domain], I am not sure I could defeat all of them before the effect of [Domain] ends."

With her words, there was silence around her. Hilda turned towards Boros, asking, "Have you spread the seed around their base?"

Boros nodded. 

"Good. Let's go. Let's have a meal now." Hilda led, and others followed her into the forest.

Wani turned toward the gnoll, asking, "What are you waiting for?" 

The gnoll shook its head and came running towards them.

"I don't understand why Master keeps such an idiot beside her."

"It is because I would need it to become a gnoll." Hilda, who was still a hyena, explained. "I don't know why it failed last time. But I will soon hit the two-year mark. After forming the fifth core in the last subspace, I will try to evolve again. For that reason, I am keeping it beside me."