Ascension of the Sylvan Cosmos

When they arrived, the girls had to be careful. The group here was led by a very powerful BOSS-class monster with a few mini-BOSS monsters. This BOSS monster was a Legendary Rank creature, so it was incredibly strong.

Worse, because of its BOSS , attacking it with the entire army would be suicide, as these creatures grew stronger the more people challenged them.

So, they had to strategize to slowly cut down the herd of 40 beasts. For that, they used the starships, since they were the closest match in size.

The Mothership attacked the BOSS Monster with its cannon, a beam of light bridging the distance between the creature and them. The gigantic space creature, resembling a long-limbed, armored hamster, took the attack like nothing and roared back silently. The silent burst from its mouth caused the surrounding ternary essence to ripple.

Seraphina and the others left the ship and spoke to the 60 elites behind them. "As planned, we will take care of the big one. Coordinate with the rest, and 30 of you will each take the two Mini Bosses. As for the rest, let the starships and the army slowly tire them out."

With those words, the six of them chanted as one. Their voices boomed around the void through ternary essence resonance.

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The ’s ternary essence churned into a gargantuan hurricane as they all grew in size to well over three meters, their bodies changing deeply. The four girls became much more humanoid, but their bodies were like flowers following their elements, a faint, dizzying aura surrounding them.

Seraphina and Obsidianis reached a similar height, their bodies much woodier as their elements coated them like armor.

Tempestria and Seraphina took the lead as the frontal melee fighters, and each of them chanted their skills.

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Tempestria’s body was instantly coated in a massive, yet perfectly controlled storm. Her Wind Aether Mana merged and summoned dark clouds around her body, her grey-colored eyes leaking faint energy.

Meanwhile, Seraphina’s body was coated in deep light while the world opened around her and hundreds of armored tree knights manifested in all kinds of shapes and forms. Seraphina followed it up swiftly.

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Several rays of light burst from Seraphina’s back like massive wings, striking all the knights. When the light struck them, the hidden eyes beneath their helmets glowed like awakened beasts.

"Go."

Like white streaks in a black canvas, the hundreds of knights rushed forward toward the gigantic .

The stomped the void, its gigantic body lunging forward and ready to collide with the combined charge.

Verdantia’s voice boomed out from behind. "Not so fast. ."

Gigantic roots burst out from nothingness, entangling all the giant beast’s limbs. The Enormous creature glared at the roots coiling around itself and pulled against them.

Crraaaack...

SNAP!

When it freed itself, Seraphina’s army was already attacking. Their combined melee attacks became rays of light, striking the giant creature’s armored body.

Damage numbers appeared in Seraphina’s eyes one after another, but none exceeded one , causing her to click her tongue.

Obsidianis’s husky and charming voice reached them from behind the creature. "Hehe. With those attacks, you are just tickling it, Seraphina."

Manifesting from the void and tightly gripping her giant scythe, Obsidianis swung.

Dark elements coated her, causing even the stars around her to lose their shine. "."

A black line, so dark it stood out against the already obscure background, sliced across the giant beast, making it roar in pain.

[-45,120,000,000]! (-451,200)! (-4.5)!

Seraphina snorted. "It has a few hundred stars, Obsidianis. If you continue hitting it like that another 1,000 times, it might die."

Cinderielle’s cold voice spread out. "You both are too relaxed."

The void around them suddenly felt warmer, and they looked behind them to see Cinderielle raising her staff. A massive, star-like object floated above her as her hair flailed around wildly.

Harmonixia giggled. "Really, you two are sometimes so childish." Her elegant fingers moved across the zither strings, creating a short and sweet melody. ", ."

Cinderielle pointed her staff forward. "."

Harmonixia’s melody enveloped Cinderielle, and as the massive star larger than the lunged forward, it swelled and then multiplied three times.

Tempestria, who was about to close the distance, cursed lowly. "Warn us before you throw your skill! Do you want to kill us together with the BOSS?"

They all, including the summons, backpedaled quickly and widened their distance from the giant creature. This time, even the BOSS monster looked at the giant Heat Stars with a bewildered expression.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The void warmed up as Cinderielle’s attack took over. Cinderielle was not done, though. Swinging her staff once more and gripping the blue-and-red orb in her other hand, she chanted. ", ."

The very laws of heat were rewritten for a moment, and the sea of fire shifted from the edges.

WHOOSH!

In an instant, the flames transformed into red ice, reflecting the beast roaring in pain inside.

Obsidianis’s lips twitched. "Truly, in terms of raw firepower, I think only Flor can compare to you."

Crack... crack...

Cinderielle hummed. "That did a little over 12 Phoer Stars of damage in total. Don’t get distracted."

Tempestria raised her eyebrow. "Only twelve?"

BANG!

The ice shattered, and Cinderielle nodded. "Yeah. We don’t have Liu Shu’s buffs inside the dungeon, so this is quite a lot, you know?"

Tempestria nodded. "I guess you are right. Verdantia, Seraphina, support me. I’ll entangle it in my ."

Verdantia first waved her staff as she chanted. "."

Healing life energy enveloped the battlefield, affecting all allied creatures. When Tempestria was close, she waved her staff once more. "."

A string of orbs rushed and circled around Tempestria, binding each other with chains. Then the orbs followed like an aura around Tempestria, constantly pouring healing power into her.

Tempestria swung her sword horizontally. "."

With a single gesture, Tempestria transformed into the center of the battlefield. The massive storm and her Pressure Edge skill combined to pull absolutely everything toward her as if she were a walking catastrophe. For instance, her next skill verified that claim.

"Good. Now become entrapped in my domain. ."

A storm of cosmic proportions kicked up, and Seraphina arrived at her side, unleashing other skills alongside Tempestria. Meanwhile, Obsidianis and Verdantia summoned their armies and began swarming the giant beast.

The fight, while dangerous, was honestly not something that could stump our girls. The constant harassment of the summons, their skills, and the support were far too overwhelming.

The giant fell in 20 minutes. They even finished before the other groups killed the mini-BOSS monsters and the rest of the swarm. So, they moved to help there as well.

The battle ended with about 100 unfortunate casualties among Level 199 people who became far too valiant and became victims of collateral damage.

Verdantia approached them and shook her head. "They are dead. Their souls are gone. I can’t heal them."

Tempestria sighed and looked back, her voice cold. "When you receive orders, it is for a reason. As powerhouses, you are here to help us block theirs so we don’t get swarmed. The main fight is meant to be borne by us, individuals, so that unnecessary casualties like these don’t appear. If you’ve learned your lesson, go back and begin preparing to drag these along."

Seraphina was not too sad. If this were outside the Dungeon, she might feel differently, but here, she thought otherwise. "Less annoyances. These people can mess up badly at important times."

Obsidianis burst into laughter. "If our soldiers outside heard you speak like this, they would be horrified that their caring and upright Seraphina could talk like this."

Seraphina tapped Obsidianis’s head with the shaft of her spear. "You know that, and that is completely different. Anyway, let’s move. Do you think we can use what you spoke about before, Obsidianis?"

The Darkness Sylvan rubbed her chin, her black eyes swirling like the dark abyss. "Say, Verdantia, if I cover them in Darkness Aether Mana, are they detectable by a decently strong person?"

Verdantia pondered deeply. "At least, I would be able to tell. I believe that, since the ones we are ambushing are quite high-level, they will have people who notice."

Her lips arched cruelly. "Perfect. The most important are the BOSS Monster and mini-BOSSes, right? We can use a few of the normal as bait. Hide them, but leave them visible for those at the very top."

The girls understood what Obsidianis wanted to do and chuckled. "Insidious."

***

It took around one day to tie them up as they pleased and for Obsidianis to create the few traps she wanted to prepare. Once done, they set off toward the Ambush point.

One of the 10 starships was now dragging quite a few giant corpses behind it, so their advance speed was slightly slower. Not because they couldn’t accelerate, but because breaking would be the true problem. In space, without friction, stopping took as much effort as, if not more than, accelerating.

With veteran control, they arrived at the choke point just two days in advance. In space, that was barely cutting it. Seraphina was a touch worried that they might’ve missed them. "Are there any signals of starships moving along this zone?"

"None, General."

Seraphina sighed in relief and glanced around. "This place is already within the High Sun Empire’s territory, right? Did we detect any World Tree activity?"

The final objective of this was to defeat and kill the World Tree, or help it win the war. Since defeating it yielded the most resources, that’s what they chose.

"There is some, but it is very sparse. As long as we don’t cross certain lines, we won’t be detected."

Seraphina frowned. "Keep up a stricter lookout. The High Sun Empire’s World Tree is much trickier than you can imagine."

Since this resembled the war, the girls knew the High Sun Empire’s central World Tree was incredibly abnormal. It needed to resemble Liu Shu somewhat, after all. As mentioned before, this wasn’t their first run, and they had already fought it.

Its strength, as a Mythical Class BOSS Monster, was terrifying.

’Not as terrifying as Liu Shu’s, though.’

If it was something even close to Liu Shu, forget other groups. Even our girls would have marked this as unsolvable. The girls knew Liu Shu’s personal strength deeply, and they didn’t even want to mess with something that could resemble it.

Tempestria nodded. "Everything’s in place."

"Good. Now, we wait. Turn down the engines. We are entering stealth mode."

"Understood."