Chapter 351 Ray’s Plan
The head nurse's tent,
Tim looked as Aliya went inside to wake the head nurse and inform her of the current situation. He looked around as he noticed the forest around him stirring. As if life being breathed inside them, the trees started to gain a pinkish tint to them. Their leaves and trunks got sturdier and thicker while their branches started to move.
"Man, Ray and Kashish really pulled it off," he mumbled, knowing full well that it was the result of the spell Kashish had been casting and with how Ray had drove his hand inside that formation, Tim was sure that it had to do something with him as well.
"What the hell!!!" The head nurse's shout pulled his attention back to the tent in front of him but all he saw was the tent gone and in its place was the head nurse, standing in the middle with her hair flying in air as a whitish energy surrounded her body.
"Let's go," her aura seemed to have calmed down but it was clear that her anger wasn't gone. She had just decided to take care of the situation instead of playing the blame game and waste more time. Time she liked to utilize and gain something out of the situation and not get crushed by being caught unprepared.
"Follow me you idiots," her shout pulled both of them in as they hurriedly followed behind her.
This was another part of Ray's plan as he had left both of them to help out the rest of the army. With Tim's superb defensive capabilities, he was the best tank anyone could ask for while Aliya was a healer who couldn't be put out of her role in long term battles.
Her mana pool was enormous while her healing skills were second to the best. Hence, with Aliya and the head nurse being on the same battlefield and fighting on the same side, they were like a mobile healing unit which would allow their troops to fight on for as long as they held on.
Meanwhile,
Ray and Sirius were sitting together, more like crouched together as Ray winced in pain. He had used the telepathic connection he shared with his teammates and asked Sirius for help. He wanted to now pull his hand out of the formation since he had given enough life force for the spell to keep running until their purpose was fulfilled but it was not so easy to do so.
The spell lived true to its name and as a forbidden spell, there was no limit to its hunger for life force. So what if the life force was enough, the spell didn't know it and its intended purpose was to suck the life force out of the sacrifice as long as it could and that was exactly what was happening.
Ray had already given a lot, even considering his unique blood and life force which made up for enough quality than it did so in quantity and right now, Ray had other things to do and neither was he a fool to let a forbidden spell steal more than he was willing to give.
Therefore, Ray pulled his arm out but it wasn't of any use. The formation was strong and whenever he tried to pull his arm out, the formation sucked it back in. Resulting in a tug of war between him and the forbidden spell.
Knowing he alone wouldn't be enough, he had asked for Sirius's help who obliged happily and that had led to the current situation. With both of them crouching together, Sirius pulled as hard as he could but the arm just wouldn't budge while Ray felt more and more of his life force slip away.
"Sirius, you gotta help me out on this. If this goes on for much longer, all i would be left with will be withered skin and powdered bones and I don't want that. Dude I haven't even married yet," Ray cried out in pain as he felt his life ending in front of him.
"Dude shut up and try harder. Quit this emotional act and get yourself in the game," smacking some sense into his friend's head, Sirius called out a few of his shadows and formed them into big hands that held Ray in a bear hug. Then with all his physical and magical might, Sirius pulled Ray's arm as he felt the formation pull weaken for a bit.
"We are making progress," Ray shouted in ecstasy as he called for more help, "Noah, please help a bit instead of staring me and Sirius do it all,"
His words were rude but his tone was sweet. The contrast clearly showing his anger and helplessness at the same time.
Rushing forward, Noah controlled his spirit needles as they pierced through his body. Using his spirit energy, he injected himself with it as a sudden surge in strength made him appear right in front of Ray.
Grabbing him from the only free side, he also pulled with all the force he could muster as Ray's arm was released bit by bit. The to and fro tug of war between Ray and the formation went on for another five minutes as finally, Ray's shriveled up arm was free from the spell.
Looking down at his arm, Ray audibly gulped; fear evident on his face, Ray thanked the gods for being set free from the harrowing fate that awaited him.
"What do I do now?" He asked in his mind as Aurora's annoyed voice replied back, "Circulate your mana and essence through it and try drinking some potions to charge you. Best be that you rest a bit to recover the loss," her voice flat and uncaring, pissing Ray off even more and on top of that, he knew that Aurora replying like that wasn't just anything; it was a sign that she was even more pissed off at him than he could be on her and therefore, Ray shut his trap up before he got an earful from her.
Nodding, he thanked Sirius and Noah as he sat down on the ground. Closing his eyes, he started focusing and checked up on the damage to his life,
"Damn, twenty five year and that too with Phoenix and Dragon blood flowing inside my veins. If I hadn't awakened my bloodline, i would be nothing but a shriveled up corpse and the spell wouldn't have worked even then," Ray shuddered at the thought as he looked at his arm slowly healing thanks to the dragonic bloodline's super regeneration speed.
While Ray took a rest for himself, the formation had closed up. Having no target for life force, it focused back on the spirit crystals that lay in it while Kashish used the excess power she had gained from the spell to control more and more parts of the forest.
While doing so, she was also fighting a battle of control against the tree and that made her consume even more mana.
"If this goes on for long, I wont be able to sustain the spell till the end," she thought as the tree turned out to be much stronger than they had expected and hence it drained more energy from her.
The mana circulated through her body as finally her body started to show signs of wearing down. Blood started to trickle down her nose as she knew that she had to give up on either resisting the tree or controlling more of the forest.
"The tree it is then," making her decision, she left the other regions of forest and focused on the parts she had taken control of already and started fending off against the tree. She knew that giving the tree more resistance would come in handy for what she wanted to do.
As Kashish did her part, Emma did hers. She continuously sent off her aura mixed along with a bit of Ray's mana as the tree let it go through it's unimpeded. After all, now the tree was more busy than it was before and its focused was also more branched while the frustration and anger caused by the sudden attacks on it's territory had led it to make mistakes. Mistakes that Ray wanted it to make and thus, those mistakes started to tip the battle into Ray's favor.
Of course not in a way that Ray would outright win but in a way that Ray would at least get what he wanted and that was in the form of Aella.
Ray's mana signature was something Aella's body reacted to given the strong feeling both of them had for each other and right now, it was exactly what was happening. Aella's body was slowly awakening within the tree's trunk and her consciousness was also coming back.
That was something that usually wouldn't have escaped from the tree's notice as it always kept its focus inside its body but right now, it was none the wiser given so many distractions and thus, it failed to keep track of the only being that could have saved it later on.
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