Chapter 282 - Chilly March
Plants were all surprisingly versatile. That was because they were all living things and most living things did not fall under a single category. Thus, it was no surprise that Balin’s pouch contained many seeds from many categories. It was a magical tool belt that held a fix to many problems ranging from food to terraforming.
Though terraforming was perhaps the wrong way to describe it. Plants could be invasive and invasive plants were destructive. When planted in just the right spot some plants could destroy the foundations of buildings and if built poorly, maybe cause the building to collapse.
That was because plants knew nothing more than to grow and survive. Balin however could control this invasive growth. He could make them grow in just that right spot and go even further beyond that. Plants could be scary, the Bosque kingdom was betting on this.
With this thought in mind, as soon as Balin threw in the seeds he intended to have sprout, he backed away from the hole. Ray obviously also did the same.
“Gather the others” Balin said briefly before focusing back on the hole. The way he scattered the seeds guaranteed that some would stick to the walls and others at the bottom. There was no way for him to control the ones at the bottom.
“Let’s see…” Balin closed his eyes and started to channel his mana into the ground. It was a natural mix of earth mana and water mana, it created a deep green fog. This green then soaked itself into the ground disappearing out of sight.
As the plant-pseudo mana soaked through the ground, the seeds he littered about which were already budding were struck by a sudden wave of growth.
The sprouting weed grew rapidly and latched its roots into the tunnel’s wall like a leech hungry for blood. The plants that Balin carried were no ordinary plants, as the pioneer of the path of a druid, Balin had access to all sorts of modified plants.
These destructive weeds were one such plant. As if it were ingrained into their genes the plants serpentined out and intertwined with one another from all sorts of directions. Some shot upwards and others downwards, some shot out diagonally but ultimately they were all connected.
Balin had made it so. He would continuously feed the ground mana filled to the brim with intricate instructions on the positioning. The wave of mana would carry the position of the top and nearest seed to the one below forming a sort of one-way communication. Balin quite honestly had no idea how all of this worked, he only chanted what he was taught.
Eventually, there were leaves growing out of the hatch. These leaves were naturally attached to the branches of a weed-like flower. Shortly after this, the ground around the hatch sunk. It was starting to collapse.
Cracks webbed out from this sunken portion until these portions themselves also began to sink. Soon, the unconcealable sound of earth tumbling down resonated the entire barracks and the cavern underneath it.
“Phew….” Balin said in relief. The spell was quite destructive on his mana reserves too. If the hole was too deep there was a chance for him to end up nearly empty. Fortunately, he was still left with more than half.
By this point, the racket was noticed by all. Ray’s work became much easier as everyone started to gather around naturally.
Upon doing so they would find the fully geared Balin standing next to a gaping hole.
“That’s deep…” A mage approached the hole and said before shooting a fireball into the pit. It didn’t take long for the fireball to turn into nothing more than an illuminated dot.
Balin didn’t mind this small probe as he was now only considering whether sprouting them an entrance was beneficial.
“Earth mages, come forward” In the end, he decided to delegate the task to the mages. The mages’ alley of attacks would be limited by the cavern walls and ceilings so them expending their mana a little early was not disadvantageous.
With his elite mages at the helms of making a safe stairwell down, Balin and the others didn’t have to wait for long to be overcome by chilliness. Each step closer to the bottom the lower the temperature.
Eventually, they were all atop a mountain of rock and plant rubble peering into the dark depths of the tunnel. This created an eerie silence.
“Knights forward, defensive formation” Balin broke this silence with a stern expression as he commanded the knights to get into position.
The knights under the watch of their respective squad captains got into formation in an orderly manner.
The defensive formation was nothing more than proceeding shoulder to shoulder with shield-bearing knights at the front. Basic yet functional. While traversing the narrow cavern it also made sure that no enemy could escape without breaking through them first.
“Mages, watch the flank. Bronze squad, you are in charge of aiding them” He also commanded the mages to protect their flank and a knight squad to assist them. Mages couldn’t face physical onslaught after all.
The mages were already at the back so for them, this was nothing more than a reminder to stay alert. After this, they started moving forward. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Their march was monotonous. The cavern seemed to hold no life and the nooks and crannies formed by who knew what were equally repetitive. The frigid air that assaulted them on their march was also not something to appreciate.
Thankfully as knights of the royal family, all of their armor came with some heat and cold resistance. Just enough to not be hindered anyway.
After many minutes of trekking, they did not come across anything. But Balin was still expecting a trap, in his mind, it was impossible for there to be no trap.
“Hm?” So when they finally came across something unusual the first thing he did was reach for his sword hilt. He narrowed his eyes and saw… nothing really… just a wall of ice.
But on closer look, there seemed to be a hole inside the ice. The cavern was much too dark to be able to tell at first glance but it wasn’t like they could light up the environment carelessly either. When covered in light, it was easy to fail to see into the darkness in front of oneself.
“Stop” Balin then made the call to stop. Many things could come out of a hole, he wasn’t going to dumbly press forward with his company.
“Siar, come forward. Cast some light into the cave” Balin said to the captain of the mage scouts, Siar. He stepped forward and aimed his arm forward. The distance between the cavern and the company was large enough to merit careful aiming. This clearly demonstrated Balin’s caution.
But before Siar could finish chant and toss a brilliant flame bolt towards the wall of ice, the immediate vicinity of the ice wall became illuminated. This wasn’t his deed, Siar’s face became ghastly.
“A trap!” Siar shouted wanting to stop his casting but there was no way for him to stop this bolt of fire and replace it with a shield.
“Ah-” That was when a hand grabbed him from behind and pulled into the wall of shields. Shortly after that…
“Brace yourselves!” Balin shouted after pulling back Siar. The shield holding warriors instantly clenched their muscles.
“Wha-” But doing such a thing was futile when the enemy they were facing was a hot torrent of flames.
The arrays which whirled with a firey red color were the ones responsible for these deadly flames. They eventually seeped past the formation like water parting into rivers and the knights who were taking the brunt of this heat could do nothing but stay still for the sake of those behind them.
“Aaah!” “It F*cking burns!” Some hiding their head behind their shields. The shields some of them were using were not full-body shields, however. These unfortunate souls were subjected to intense burning as their legs were inundated by the scalding heat.
“Urgh-!” Some could try to resist the urge to fall, but the wild torrent was unyielding!
Balin could no longer stand idly behind the shield formation watching as the bright flames continued to wilt at his soldiers. Unfortunately, his specialty of the plant-pseudo element could not serve as help here.
He instead erected a wall of earth in front of them. This would buy them time.
“Earth mages, come forward…” Balin said through gritted teeth. He had made them spend some of their mana to build a stairwell down, but how could he have known there would be a fire trap inside of this cavern?
Balin knew he had failed to live up to his role but he also knew that this meant no more mistakes were allowed.
“Push forward!” He told them while referring to the wall of earth. They would push it forward to destroy the damn arrays!
“””Yes Sir!””” The earthen mages who still had much mana leftover responded. They channeled their mana and started to manipulate the wall of earth made by Balin closer to the wall of ice.
On the other side, this torrent of flames was being watched by none other than Sharog. The orcs behind her ended up flabbergasted.
“What the f*ck!?” One swore in surprise. Weren’t they supposed to mine the ice to help Ed beat back his enemies? Why the hell did Sharog activate that thing then!?!?