Ascension of the Sylvan Cosmos

The ambush time arrived, and as expected, it was slightly off the expected hour. This mission was the first, but also one of the most important. After this mission, the whole quest chain would start, and every choice would matter.

"It really took us by surprise back then."

Obsidianis fiddled with a small knife as she glanced at the group of three starships. Their numbers were fewer than theirs, but by no means negligible. The whole point of this was to attack a smaller but stronger group of individuals.

Basically, a recreation of what truly happened.

Seraphina glanced at them and spoke through the communication device. "Move the trap to the new coordinates (-4, 2, 3) using the original point as a reference. Once you do that, reunite with the main group and await further orders."

After she stood up and looked at the others, she nodded. "Let’s move. We will start our attack."

***

Meanwhile, the High Sun Empire starship group, led by a powerful Sylvan, asked around. "Any sightings? This zone is dangerously close to Lady Sunflower’s edge."

"Nothing, General Skyla. Everything is clear."

"We have not detected anything in the ternary essence sector."

The woman nodded and stood up. Her long, blonde hair and eyes shone deeply. Her hunch told her that something was wrong. "Lady Sunflower, can you check the surroundings for us?"

A powerful World Tree’s voice spread through the control room. "I can’t focus. For some reason, the Dark World Empire has started a fierce attack. Give me a moment to clear an area and look your way."

The woman nodded, but as she was waiting, something went terribly wrong.

Some structures drifted, their trajectories barely missing their vessels. Therefore, the detectors didn’t trigger. Once the structures were close, though, the Sylvan noticed. Her face turned serious as she spoke sharply. "Dodge the incoming structures!"

It was too late. The second Seraphina and the others noticed the engines of the starships lit up, they activated the trap.

BOOM!!

A silent explosion lit up the dark void, creating a massive fireball. What they used were explosives. Items Seraphina and the others had taken from the Golden Sap Empire.

Usually, these explosives were not that useful because they could affect one or two starships at once, at most. Setting them up was also not easy. So, they were considered good for clearing stragglers or setting up on certain warfronts as a kicker in a large battle.

Seraphina ordered, activating her Sylvan Transformation. "Attack as planned!"

Skyla, inside the trembling starship, ordered with a tense look. "Defend! We are being ambushed!"

Skyla moved swiftly, leaving the starship despite the explosion damage still affecting the surroundings. Skyla had the BOSS Sheet of an Ultra Rare monster, so she could be considered a mini-BOSS. However, underestimating her because she was "only" an Ultra Rare would be a terrible mistake.

Once she was outside, Seraphina and the others bee-lined toward her, already transformed, their faces as serious as when they fought the Legendary Class Astraelis.

Skyla glared at them. "You dirty Sylvans. How can you side with a power that hates us and targets World Trees!? Die, ."

The Sylvan, gleaming with light and enveloped in an aura of space Aether Mana, raised her hand and summoned a massive, greyish sun. Cinderielle snorted. "You are not the only one who can do that."

Her staff and orb channeled her Aether Mana, creating a massive, fiery sun above her and sending it to meet with Skyla’s.

BOOM!!!

The two suns rushed at each other and exploded right in the middle, causing tremendous damage to the surroundings. Thankfully, Seraphina and the others had already ordered that no one approach them, so nothing happened.

While they fought Skyla, their elites took charge of the surrounding battlefield. Skyla’s battle style was truly terrifying. As a Sylvan who mastered both space and light, she moved unpredictably, and her attacks were lethal and almost unavoidable.

Still, our six girls were far too strong for her. Therefore, they closed the battlefield, attacked fiercely, and quickly shaved off her Phoer Body Stars.

The girls, though, became increasingly tense, even as they won their battle. Their senses were stretched taut, and when Skyla showed signs of heavy injury, what they had been waiting for manifested.

Massive, white roots tore through the dimension as they rushed toward the girls. Twelve large roots manifested in this cornered area, along with a few hundred small ones, but even those were incredibly sturdy and powerful.

"You lot are truly annoying! Scram!"

Heat surged within the roots as the World Tree’s Aether Mana created massive balls of fire. The World Tree’s specialty was both Fire and Light Aether Mana,

Seraphina shouted. "NOW!"

The girls had been prepared, and once Lady Sunflower appeared, Seraphina, Obsidianis, and Verdantia summoned three massive armies of creatures that went head-on against the roots.

Lady Sunflower was slightly startled, but her roots were incredibly powerful. At least in the early stages of the , they were almost undefeatable. So, the best tactic was to delay her, complete the objective, and then escape.

"These pests! How dare you! Skyla! Escape!"

Skyla knew that she was in deep trouble, so she wouldn’t just stay behind to become their victim. Her ternary essence surged, space and light twisting to her whims.

Seraphina, though, would not let another being in her presence use light so easily. "You are not going anywhere."

Obsidianis’s darkness surged forward as well, engulfing their battlefield as she grinned. "Snuffing out light is what I do best. You, Skyla, can’t compare to Seraphina."

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

𝕗𝕣𝑒𝐞𝓌𝖊𝙗𝚗𝙤𝔳𝑒𝔩.𝐜𝗈𝘮

Explosions and clashes occurred between them, and Lady Sunflower could only watch as her roots were held back by their summoned armies.

Eventually, Skyla fell, dying under Tempestria’s sword.

SLASH!

"Ugh... Lady... Sunflower..."

"SKYLA!"

The World Tree roared, but she didn’t go berserk. She couldn’t. The main battlefield was now at its peak, and if she lost control, she might lose a massive portion of her central army.

The girls didn’t rest. Once Skyla was killed, they focused on Lady Sunflower’s roots to avoid any extra casualties in their own limited army and managed to clean everything up quickly.

Tempestria asked, breathing slightly roughly from tiredness. "How many casualties?"

A subordinate spoke up. "None from the Dungeon Divers. As for the DCs, we lost around 5,400 Level 199s, and around 6 powerhouses. The were lost to Lady Sunflower."

It was not a bad result. They had heard better and worse results in the past. "What about the beasts we dragged? Were they helpful?"

The subordinate nodded. "It was because Lady Sunflower focused on those instead of the army that so many survived. In truth, Lady Sunflower managed to create quite a bit of chaos, so the casualties should’ve been worse. Instead, she was cautious of the giant corpses and struck a few of the common ones away with her roots."

Verdantia approached. "How many did we lose?"

"Eight of the common Astraelis. The mini-BOSSes and the BOSS creature are still with us."

Obsidianis chuckled. "It worked as intended, then. Perfect. Let’s return and get our rewards. I am quite excited. With an completed right off the bat, we will have a massive advantage."

The girls smiled faintly, happy as well. As expected, the rest of the dungeon went smoothly, and the early advantage snowballed until their unit became nearly unstoppable.

***

The girls finished the dungeon and stepped outside with zero casualties once more. This marked another achievement in their already legendary list. They also made sure to comment their new findings to the Explorer Association.

"We should go and see if something happened while we were away... Never mind."

Tempestria caught herself as she recalled that the dungeons ran at a very different time rate. "How much has passed since we first left?"

Cinderielle chuckled and answered. "Inside the dungeon, we took around five years to defeat Lady Sunflower. Outside... I believe not even an hour has passed since we left."

They couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity.

Since nothing much happened, the girls went to a nearby restaurant and entered a private room. The Lignified Restaurant saw her mommies and became excited, preparing food herself. The chefs chuckled at her enthusiasm and helped by assisting with a few things. Not that they could do much, since the restaurant could literally move the building to cook.

The girls patted the walls and praised her food repeatedly, making her wiggle her roots with happiness. After that, they took out a few and asked them to prepare it for them.

Verdantia leaned back comfortably and took a sip of the tea. "Five years..." Verdantia commented. "After much trial and error, the says that you should rest around one week per dungeon year inside before you dive again so that there are no time ailments."

Obsidianis tilted her head. "But... We’ve never really felt them, did we? What are they like?"

Seraphina had investigated in depth because she found the theme interesting. "It’s the worst type of ailment. You can suddenly age tremendously, or have your very sense of time altered. There are people who ignored the warnings and suddenly became frozen. Not because they couldn’t move, but because their sense of time became linked with the dungeon. It can get pretty terrible, so everyone who enters the with the quality needs to show their dungeon-diving reports."

The girls had an inkling of it, since there were quite a few stories about it, but hearing it from Seraphina caused them to gasp. "That bad?"

Seraphina nodded. "What’s worse is that you can’t heal it... Well, at least not in the past. It seems Saintesses and Avatars have recently learned a few new skills that help ease some of the lighter symptoms. Still, it’s something that we have to be careful about because you can’t even sense it coming. It’s not like a bad fever, where you feel the chills before the worst part hits. This one happens suddenly, and then you are done."

Obsidianis clapped lightly. "Let’s not talk about this. Instead, how much left do you girls have before you reach Level 299? I am three levels away."

Harmonixia raised her eyebrow. "We are catching up, then. Your only advantage, being higher level than us, is slowly slipping away, haha. I am Level 291 right now."

The rest of the girls were in that range as well. "Level 300 soon..."

Harmonixia muttered and laughed. "I remember when Level 30 felt like a big achievement. Now, we are almost ten times that, and it still feels like the start of the journey."

Verdantia took out her phone and raised her eyebrow. "Oh? Liu’er is calling us. Let’s go to the main Town Hall. She is with Flor and speaking about a few important matters."

The girls finished their and stood up. Obsidianis stretched. "Ah... I missed my big, little girl."

"Big, little girl?"

"Isn’t she both? Hahaha."