"These things are still biological creatures at their core. They're afraid of fire!" Alan, who had been observing calmly from the side, suddenly spoke up. His voice wasn't loud, but it reached everyone's ears with exceptional clarity. "The reason they're daring to charge our lines so fearlessly is likely because the abnormally high temperature of this forest is suppressing their innate, genetic fear of fire! What we need to do now is reawaken that fear in their bones!"
Alan's words struck them like a bolt of lightning!
"Alan's right!" Cassian reacted instantly. "We can't keep defending passively like this. We have to proactively change the environment here!"
The group immediately huddled together, using the brief safety provided by Cassian's water wall to quickly discuss their next strategy.
A plan was quickly finalized, and they immediately sprang into action!
Step one: Lower the temperature!
Zephyr and Cassian, the two ability users with powerful crowd control, once again displayed their astonishing synergy!
Zephyr took a deep breath and pushed his ice abilities to their absolute limit. A powerful gale, mixed with ice crystals and snowflakes, erupted from him, spreading rapidly outwards! At the same time, Cassian manipulated the circular water wall, transforming it into a fine, dense mist that intertwined with Zephyr's frigid blast, creating a wide-ranging, man-made blizzard!
The powers of ice and water combined perfectly. The temperature of the entire forest began to plummet at an astonishing rate! The suffocating, humid heat was quickly replaced by a bone-chilling cold! A thin layer of white frost soon coated the ground.
The mutated rats, which had previously moved as fast as lightning, now became noticeably sluggish and stiff in the骤然降低的 (suddenly lowered) temperature. Their speed was reduced by at least a third!
And this created the perfect opportunity for the others to attack!
"Kill!"
A glint of excitement flashed in Elara's eyes! Once these rats slowed down, they were no different from living targets to her! Her figure moved like a phantom through the battlefield, her dagger and invisible spatial blades dancing alternately. Every strike she made inevitably took the life of a mutated rat! She killed with exceptional relish, as if venting the frustration of being on the defensive earlier.
Step two: Lure and intimidate!
While the group worked together to slaughter the mutated rats that were slowed by the cold, Seraph began her performance.
She no longer released large-scale flames as before. Instead, she condensed her fire into stable, warm orbs of light, like bonfires, and strategically threw them at several key points on the battlefield.
The mutated rats, shivering from the sudden drop in temperature, were indeed instinctively drawn to the warm glow of the fire. They temporarily forgot the danger and swarmed towards the several "bonfires."
And just as a certain number of them had gathered and let down their guard, a cold smile touched Seraph's lips, and she snapped her fingers!
Several bottles of high-concentration alcohol, which she had pre-wrapped in her power and tossed into the "bonfires," instantly exploded!
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The violent explosions, accompanied by soaring flames, instantly engulfed all the mutated rats gathered around the "bonfires"! The gruesome scene, and the even thicker stench of burnt flesh that filled the air, successfully triggered the most primal fear of fire deep within the surviving mutated rats' genes!
The effect was immediate!
The previously fearless mutated rats, after experiencing this sudden, brutal baptism of fire, finally began to show signs of chaos and retreat! They let out terrified shrieks and no longer charged the defensive line frantically. Instead, they began to scatter and flee, trying to get away from the terrifying flames.
Even some of the strange worms that had swarmed in with the rats, which also feared fire, were conveniently burned to death in the explosions.
The tide of battle had been turned in an instant.
Watching the mutated rats flee in terror and turn to charcoal in her fiery traps, an unprecedented feeling of power, of being in complete control, surged through Seraph's heart!
This moment of inspiration felt as if it had suddenly cleared a major blockage in her body! She could feel the fire-elemental power within her cheering, leaping, and boiling in a way it never had before!
She no longer needed to deliberately gather or compress it. The flames in her hands felt like a natural extension of her body, a manifestation of her will! They were no longer wild, difficult-to-control energies, but obedient spirits she could shape as she pleased!
Seraph spread her hands, and crimson flames erupted from her palms, but no longer in the form of the wide, sweeping fireballs or fire walls from before. They intertwined and wove in the air, transforming into two agile, burning fire snakes! The fire snakes followed the sweep of her arms, precisely chasing down the scattering mutated rats. Every lash of their tails, every bite, accurately engulfed a target, burning it to ashes.
Her figure, amidst the raging flames, was so beautiful and deadly. Her brilliant red hair, like a burning fire itself, danced along with the fire snakes in her hands, creating a magnificent tableau filled with a cruel beauty. The entire battlefield seemed to have become her stage, and the piercing "squeaks" of the mutated rats became the perfect accompaniment to this "dance of death."
At the same time, Elara, who had remained highly vigilant, keenly noticed another abnormal detail.
As Seraph's fiery power was showcased, it wasn't just the mutated rats and strange worms that were retreating. Even the strange trees around them seemed to show a flicker of "fear"! She could clearly sense that beneath the ground, the gnarled tree roots were slowly shrinking and receding at an extremely subtle speed, as if actively moving away from the area engulfed in flames.
And among the countless retreating, dark brown roots, there was one… that was exceptionally different.
It was a "root" only as thick as a thumb, its entire body a translucent, vibrant, and tender green! Not only was it not retreating, but it was also quietly, continuously extending in their direction!
What kind of root that grows underground needs to photosynthesize? And in such a tender green, which is clearly brimming with life energy?!
Her professional training as a master of biology made Elara immediately scoff inwardly. She judged in an instant that this inconspicuous "tender green little root" was definitely not a normal plant root system! It was, very likely, the… core of this strange forest, or at least a part of the core!
Without any hesitation!
Elara's eyes narrowed. The invisible spatial blade in her hand, with the speed of lightning, struck down with unerring precision at the "tender green little root" that was still quietly extending!
"Crack—"
A crisp sound, like shattering glass, echoed clearly in Elara's psychic perception.
The tender green "root" snapped in two! From the break, what flowed out was not ordinary plant sap, but a green liquid as translucent as jade, emitting a rich aura of life!
And the moment the "tender green little root" was severed—
Just as she expected!
The entire forest began to shake violently, crazily! The sensation was like a slumbering ancient beast being viciously stabbed in the heart with the sharpest spear!
Countless shrill screams, unlike any sound a living creature could make, erupted simultaneously from all directions, from every corner of the forest, as if the forest itself were letting out a wail of agony!