"Aah!" Jay groaned and laid on the forest floor as Rick rushed over.

The Ent-Lord's attack had left a wound the size of his palm on Jay's abdomen. Carefully, Rick tore out the vest near the wound. The tissue around the wound was rapidly turning sluggish green.

“Rick, something is wrong. My Vitality isn't healing it up man,” Jay said over gasps, panicking.

“It’s the Bleeding Poison. It stops the wounds from healing. Just stay awake, okay. Don’t fall asleep. Sam will be over pretty soon, she will have a solution,” Rick reassured him.

Rick took out a shirt from his Storage Ring and held it over the wound. He lifted Jay's hand to hold over the shirt. He was losing blood constantly and there was a chance he would go into hypovolemic shock.

“You no. Leave,” a voice resounded throughout the forest. It was the Ent-Lord, his voice carried over like the wheezing storm.

Rick walked over to stand between the Treants and Jay, hands apart. There were a dozen and one tree-monsters before him. He knew he could not defeat them in combat, that was out of the question.

“Let us go and I promise we will never return here,” Rick pleaded, sensing an opportunity.

“No leave? No leave die,” the Ent-Lord roared and whipped its arm-branch at Rick.

“Come on,” Rick damned the Treants under his breath, readying himself.

The Treant's arm stretched out and lashed out towards, but he waited. He waited for as long as he could and laid flat on the ground at the last moment. The branch slid off a few inches above his head.

Standing back up, he took out an Earth Golem core and a Scaled Otter appeared before him. It was one of last earth golem he had remaining.

“Just cover me up,” Rick instructed. The low-level golems had no attack strength and the only way to use them was as meat-shields. The Otter stood on its hindlimbs covering Rick as instructed.

The Ent-Lord swung its branch at Rick again, and dutifully the Scaled Otter took the full brunt of the damage. The one strike cut off the golems head and limbs but missed its beast core. The Scaled Otter immediately formed its body again for a second time.

‘This won’t do. We will be dead before Samira even arrives,’ Rick realized. This was just a single branch attack had left the Otter Golem almost destroyed. Another attack and it would probably crush the beast-core. He needed to escape.

Just then the Treant attacked again with its branch and struck the Otter golem again, spraying soil and dirt all over him. Rick was right. The Otter's Golem core had been smothered to pieces, only its legs remained intact like an ancient ruin.

Rick immediately flung over two dozen more Beast Cores of different elements and instructed them to form a barrier to hide both of them from the Treants as long as they could.

“Aah!” Rick groaned, a sudden pang of headache set in as twenty mental links with the golems formed at once. Next, he summoned his dog Golem, Holmes and helped the barely conscious Jay on it before climbing up himself.

“Run run!” he ordered in a hurry, rushing off into the forest.

He held on as Holmes raced between the trees, racing to get out the forest.

‘Ten, six, three,’ Rick gulped. One by one all the mental links with the golems disappeared. It had been less than fifteen seconds and all golems had already fallen.

As soon as the link with the golem disappeared, the ground rumbled again. The trees creaked and the leaves rustled, growing louder with every passing second. But Rick did not dare look back. He rode as fast as he could without a glance back.

A branch hit out and zoomed past his head barely missing him and snapped the trees around him. Holmes lost its footing on the fallen tree and sent Rick sprawling on the ground.

He stood back up with a groan. He didn't feel like anything was broken and that was good enough for the situation he was in.

“Jay! Jay! Where are you?” Rick called out, scanning around him.

“Aah,” a grunt sounded. Rick quickly looked back to see Jay still atop a limbless Holmes.

The golem replaced its broken legs and stood motionless, with no instruction to run.

'Thank goodness!' he prayed, Jay was still alive. But it was too late now. The Treants were already here.

“Move away,” the Ent-Lord roared walking closer.

“I wish I could but I can’t!” Rick gulped, with a melancholic smile. 'Maybe if I block them and send Holmes off with Jay,' Rick analysed looking at the Treants encircling them, 'No that won't do. They will ignore me and chase after them instead.'

With that out of the picture, and Samira nowhere to be seen, Rick was left with only one option now.

‘I have six golems left and I have the Fire Spell,’ Rick calculated. He realized that he had not added anything to his strength ever since his fight with Eira. “I am an idiot!”

Resolving his plan, he used the only effective attack in his arsenal and threw three of the six golems towards advancing Treants

“Immolate,” Rick instructed and simultaneously turned around and ran towards Holmes. He felt the mental links with the golems disappear. But there was no explosion.

"What happened?" Surprised, Rick looked over his shoulder just in time as a sea of branches, roots and veins rush at him. He could not take another step before a root first caught his leg, tripping him over, and then the vines took over, binding him in a secure hold.

He struggled with all his might and even tried using the Hot-Hands spell, but nothing worked.

A large shadow drifted towards him with thundering steps. Rick looked up to see the Ent-Lord walk. The beast creaked its head and glanced over at Rick with its deep tree hollows.

“Annoy,” it growled at Rick before walking past him towards Jay.

“No stop! Please!” Rick screamed and pleaded, but the Ent-Lord did not stop. Rick shut grip his teeth in anger and desperation. He could not have Jay’s blood on his hands.

But the Treant did not pause for a moment. The Ent-Lord extended its branch-arm towards Jay and started coiling it around his body. From his legs to under his jacket, the branch wrapped Jay in a cocoon, holding him in a vice.

Just as Rick thought, Jay would be crushed, the Ent-Lord made a satisfied grunt. It retracted the branches back and turned around to walk away.

"Ugh!" Jay groaned in agony, as he fell back down on the ground.

"What did you do?"Rick screamed at the retreating Treant. Jay was alive, but the Treant must have done something sinster!

The Ent-Lord stopped and looked back for a Rick.

“You Very Annoy!” it droned before walking away along with the rest of the Treants. Soon enough trembling earth regained its calm.

The veins holding Rick down withered away as well. He immediately sprung up to check on Jay.

“Jay are you there?” Rick called out, shaking his face. There was no response. He pulled Jay's collar and put his fingers by the neck trying to spot the jugular-vein. After seconds of fumbling around, he finally found a small beat. Jay was still alive.

At least for now!

------

Discord