Nature Chose Me

Icy Ground for Tree to Grow

“Your Grace! Your Grace!” Along with a couple of aggressive pounding at the door, a sound of a panicked man shouting from the outside.

“Ugh... why do people always wake me up early…” Fully uneager, Staas stood from his bed, quickly grabbed the top piece of his adventurer clothing on top of his bedside drawer. “Coming!”

The boy walked toward the door, leaving Gytha who was still lying on his bed like a log. With sleepy eyes, he opened that very door, and there he found a fae, pale as a ghost, grasping heavily to air around him.

“The humans… they’ve arrived!”

Hearing that exhausted words Staas' eyes turned open wide. He immediately ran to have Gytha awake from her slumber then dressed fully to meet the chief that might already be waiting for his arrival. He also did not forget to bring the stolen spear along with him.

The thing with Staas... he doesn’t really follow the basic rule of roads and stairs. Instead, he carried his aide with both his hands and jumped around from tree to tree, house to house, until he arrived at the headquarters door.

“Your Grace! You’re here!” The chief was so happy to see Staas he almost broke into tears. He expect it would take him long to get ready, although that might be the case if he chose to take a bath first. “Quick! We need to fae the wall. I don’t know how, but the humans already neatly lined up on our west.”

“Lined up? What does that mean?” Staas glared at Gytha confusedly after hearing the chief’s word.

“You’ll see.”

This time Staas decided to run along with Nightfall and followed him to the top of the westside wall. Up there, lots of faerie archers already filling the place with bows and arrows gripped tightly on their hands. You could easily see the fear on their face, especially with how shaken and watery their skin was.

The group moved along a wooden stair and from there they saw a bunch of faes running here and there, carrying all kinds of supplies to the side and top of the wall.

“Everyone seemed so busy during war…” Staas commented.

“Of course, Your Grace. We’re not all-powerful like you are, so we need to be fully prepared for what is about to come our way.” 

After a short walk upstairs, they finally arrived at the top of the wall. There Staas finally saw what he was up against.

“Whoa, that’s…”

“A lot.” Staas finished Gytha's sentences. Both of them were struck in awe. They had never seen this many humans, or maybe even creatures, gathering in the same place.

They were thousands, lining up in formations, fully coated in cold white armor, with different kinds of weapons between each group. Although judging from their height, those knights seemed rather young, except for some.

“Is that the cannons you spoke of?” Staas pointed at the war machines the human have brought upon his eyes. They share the same shade as human armor, with cold mists screaming madness from their muzzle.

“That’s right, Your Grace. Please destroy them as soon as possible.” Nightfall pleaded.

“Sure!”

Time hasn't passed much since their chatter, and the human artillery crew already began running for their movement. From white boxes each team carried, they took away a cyan sphere which steaming ice mist all over it. They brought them close to the muzzle and put it in carefully.

After all set, a mage came forth, stood right behind the cannon with his palm close to the trigger, and an icy magic circle proceeded to show itself, slowly spinning like a spiral, while the whole cannon began to glow eerily.

“By the Goddess— Brace! BRACE!” The chief shouted on top of his lungs, warning all the fae for the catastrophe that’s about to befall them.

*Bam!* *Bam!* *Bam!*

Hell rain from the sky, but instead of fire, it was ice that burns them. Those icy cannonballs struck the town wall with violence written all over.

As soon as it hits something it’ll explode with bursting cold plasma. The fae who got caught in it got instantly frozen, then shatter like broken glasses. They don’t even get the chance to scream.

*Toot!*

The sound of warhorn cried bloody murder. As a horde, the knights started running towards the town wall, with their weapons raised high in the air. And by the Stars, their discipline is on another level. Even with how crowded they turned the farmlands, their formation is still intact without the slightest flaw.

“Stand your ground lads! Drive them off from our land!” Nightfall remoralize his troops, inspire them to fight back. “Archer!”

Now with the cannons getting busy having their guns reloaded, the faerie archers began to shoot off their arrows toward the rushing knights. And those pile of sticks came flying like a rain of needles.

Made out of stone and wood, of course they won’t even have the slightest hope to pierce through the knights' armor. But it was shot by a faerie nonetheless, whose still a spirit bathed in nature magic.

The moment those arrows hit the knights’ armor, they began to stick to it and grew at a concerning speed. They quickly pulled the knight to the ground and wrapped them as if they—the knight—and the ground are one entity.

Soon those poor knights will die from their inability to breathe.

Although... human mages can just easily freeze those grown arrows, and break them to free their comrades. However, before they got the chance to do so…

“Giant stone!”

The faerie’s trebuchets rain them down with massive rocks, which grow profusely into trees and bury the knights under their roots.

“Will I die if I’m buried like that, Gytha?” Staas Asked amidst all this chaos.

“Even if you will, you probably just gonna be reborn like what you just did.”

The knights didn’t just accept their fate being showered with enchanted arrows. Their mage and bowmen began to shoot back at the faerie archers.

Their counterattack wasn’t effective, however. The town wall was made out of living woods, that intuitively kept on fending the projectile thrown towards the fae. The knight's attempt was quite useless, until…

*Bam!* *Bam!* *Bam!*

Cannons began to pound their second shot, and those trees didn’t stand a chance against the devastation those icy machines befall upon them.

The walls are frozen and crumble, and the faeries nesting there for protection are now vulnerable to other projectiles. They were forced to abandon each side that have been struck down by the cannons.

“Your Grace, please do something!” The chief pleaded in frustration seeing Staas just observing the battlefield like a roadshow.

“Yesterday you said not to go until you tell me to…” Staas was confused seeing him so devastated. He thought it was all part of Nightfall's plan to just let him sit through all those barrages.

“Well I’m asking you now, please get rid of those cannons!” The chief realized he was not being sarcastic, he just act like a nice obedient child. Yet, he can’t help but panic about it.

“Alright!” Staas smiled and spun his spear ready.

He knew that both Gytha and Nightfall might get caught in his attack. So in order to avoid hitting them… he jumped. So high. To the point where he outmatched the twice height of the town wall.

Up there he dropped his spear gently as if he tried to make it float. During that tiny bit of time, his eyes wandered like a maniac, scouting for the correct place to start his advance. And as soon as he found it, his feet move, kicking that very spear so vigorously powerful, even a massive shockwave came out from the impact and forced those under him to kneel.

*Shoot!*

Like a clap of thunder the spear struck, crushing the ground it befell and shattered the earth till it came flying all over the battlefield.

Then, an enormous tree went to life, growing ever so large and majestic, even the town towers look like a pile of dirt compared to it. Its leaves glowed madness, their light was bright enough to turn the morning into green high noon.

Staas followed to rush in, bouncing himself in the air like a bullet, piercing through the very tree to take his spear back. The battlefield trembles as he landed his feet on its ground.

*!!!*

Everyone in this battle stopped, having their attention caught by the boy's terrifying presence. Fears ran through their spine like a series of nightmares, as they saw the horror emitted from the air around him. His aura was painted in dreadful beauty, even a dead man can feel how powerful he was.

A monster, an entity beyond mortal comprehension.

“All-father… be praised.” Nightfall loses all his strength, his weapon dropped and he began to kneel and pray. The other fae followed, mesmerized by the sheer strength shown by the boy.

“Now… for the other cannons.” Like a drill, Staas spun his spear and punched it till it punctures the ground.

Following the impact, lines of giant pointy roots suddenly grew at a rapid speed from the side of each cannon and viciously struck those war machines and their crew, flying them like feathers to the air.

Staas then hopped around to the nearest cannon he attacked, to see the damage caused by those roots. Yet to his disappointment, it’s not enough, the whole cannon is still intact with just a tiny scratch.

“This is too complicated for me…” He expected them to be hard, but he at least wished for a dent on its body. Truth be told, he already accomplished his objective which is to neutralize the cannons, he just didn't realize that it was all the chief wanted.

Though not long after, he was disturbed by loud noises around him. He quickly shifted his gaze to see what caused it, and he found all the knights rushing towards him with weapons raised.

He almost forgot for a moment that he’s stuck in a war right now.

“Those opening… I can still see it on their head.”