?Chapter 3275 Sacrifice for Power (Part 2)


    Jirni raised her visor to flash a soft smile at the Puppet''s bark. "This is going to screw with your focus while this is going to make it last longer."


    She placed her armored palm on the main body of the Puppet and sent waves of vitality into it.


    "What are you doing?" The Yggdrasill''s voice had lost its arrogance.


    Using Invigoration on the sprout energized its wood but did nothing to sate its hunger. It only made its perceptions more vibrant, including the progressive withering from starvation.


    The worst part was that with all those nutrients right below the sprout, one sip would be enough to stop the hunger.


    One sip and the game would start anew.


    "Making sure there''s no peaceful slipping into oblivion." Jirni replied.


    "You are a monster!" Aalejah and the Yggdrasill said in unison.


    "Thanks, dear." She giggled like a little girl. "Since you know so many things and we are stuck together for a while, why don''t you start telling me something I don''t know?"


    ***


    Inside the Yggdrasill''s Fringe, at the same time as Ra''ntar turned into a Puppet.


    Free from the pain of Jirni''s torture, the World Tree found their focus again and bet everything they had to fortify their position before something else happened.


    "That crazy Ernas woman and Ripha Menadion forced my hand. I need to win and to do it quickly!'' The Yggdrasill thought as all of their Chroniclers turned into Wooden Puppets. It boosted their link with the Wood Golems, made them immune to fear, pain, and tiredness. Now, even if one of the white cores found the elf hidden inside a Golem or if the Divine Beasts destroyed one with a Silverwing''s Annihilation, the elf wouldn''t die. As long as one splinter of a Puppet remained, the World Tree could regenerate them. The Fringe was full of fertile ground the Golems could draw upon to endlessly restore their pilot.


    The Chroniclers had gained the regenerative abilities of the Fae at the price of their free will and, in time, their life.


    Bytra assumed her Raiju form and ran in circles around the Yggdrasill, becoming faster


    with every lap and wresting control of the storm with her lightning. Theseus the Meneos-Bastet pummelled at the Wood Golems three at a time.


    He regenerated as fast as them, hit much harder than them, and his Mana Body bloodline ability made him impervious to both physical and magical attacks. He crushed one Golem with each hand and breathed violet blasts of Origin Flames on another. "Cold does shit to me whereas you still burn like kindle!" Yggdrasill wood was much harder than the Bastet''s flesh but it was also vulnerable to his Abomination touch. Whenever Theseus felled a Golem, he sprouted countless tendrils from his body that fed upon the fragments until the last remnants of the Puppet piloting the construct were gone, killing it for good.


    On top of that, Origin Flames canceled darkness fusion so each one of his victims sent pangs of agony through the Tree''s hive mind.


    Nandi the Minotaur was too small to fight the Golems and had no reason to. The army of elves was a problem and he was the solution.


    "A stingy master is a recipe for failure." A mere wave of his hands deactivated all pieces of the elves'' equipment without a power core. "You should have demanded the good stuff,


    like I did!"


    The modern version of his pata crafted by Bytra mowed the elven ranks down like ripe wheat, their armor and weapons neutralized and offering no protection against the Chaos-infused blades.


    Dodging his attacks with dimensional magic was impossible as well. The bio-crystals on his body drained the earth element, creating an imbalance in the world energy that


    made it impossible to Blink.


    "Now!" Cyare and Hushar timed their Doom Tides so as to shield their allies from the brunt of the storm and drain the world energy long enough to buy the Dragons a few


    seconds of respite.


    The two Divine Beasts-Eldritch hybrid spread their Mana Aura to as many of their allies as they could, allowing them to survive the onslaught from the sky.


    Without the darkness sealing arrays, their Chaos spells crossed the battlefield unimpeded, offering cover fire to the white cores and forcing the Yggdrasill to defend their main body.