BD - Chapter 358 - Bee-hold the Might of Flowers!

The wounded Tower Guard swung for the bee on his back, but the monster bee assassin had already retreated. Finnakynne hit him with another blast of Mind mana again, giving the monster bee assassin a chance to get safely away. The Tower Guard snarled and spun around, unleashing another dragon breath in all directions, but the Firstborn had ordered all her monster bees to retreat, while Finnakynne convinced the bumblebees to fall back now that the bee army wasn’t under threat.

And now that the area was clear of bees and allies, the monster bee archers could start their own attack from a safe distance. The Tower Guard started surrounding himself with dragonscales…but then he began coughing. His eyes widened and he pulled his mana inward…leaving himself with no protection save his armor as flying stingers approached. He growled and began to swipe them out of the air…and he started to retreat, flying away from the lighthouse back in the direction of the entrance.

At this point, the Third of the Sixth arrived and started spreading her fire to the bee army, coating them in flames that would protect them from the enemy’s own. Thanks to that, monster bee sprayers could now venture closer to the retreating guard, adding toxic sprays to the barrage of stingers. The Tower Guard hissed, the archers’ stingers hadn’t penetrated his armor, but the sprayers’ toxins splashed over it and then seeped into the gaps. He let out another dragon breath at the new threat…but the sprayers flew right through it.

The hive of hives then discovered that the Tower Guard’s flames were stronger than the Third of the Sixth’s. The dragon breath burned through some of the flames and some of the sprayers fell from the sky…but not all of them. Some of them managed to endure and pass through the fire, allowing them to unleash even more toxins on the Tower Guard.

Back in the command tent in the nexus door room, Belissar’s face twisted in agony. A single Tower Guard had wounded and killed more soldier bees than any shade before him. Even the Third of the Sixth’s fire coat, the Fire-Resistant Bees perk, and the pixie armor combined wasn’t a complete defense against the guard’s dragon breath. And even though he had already been stung by a monster bee assassin, the guard was still alive and fighting.

But Belissar could not give himself over to distress, because the First of the Fifth’s First Daughter was dancing before him.

“King…bee army wants to catch strong hive-burner, but Third of Sixth can’t stop fire, so bees will be hurt. Should?”

Belissar nearly choked on his next words.

“Y-Yes, do it. Chief Rohsuak, the Third of the Sixth can’t stop the Tower Guard’s fire, can you help?”

Chief Rohsuak nodded and quickly began eating swirled honey.

Belissar shut his eyes for a moment. He knew that Juosiutik had developed antidotes to her own poisons and that the bees had raised antidote bees as well as toxic bees. The Tower Guard was still alive after being stung by a monster bee assassin, if he returned to his side then there was every possibility they might be able to heal him. If that happened…then all the bees that died would have died in vain.

Belissar…knew what the bees needed to do. And they did too.

With his permission, the hive of hives ordered the reserve formations to fly in and cut off the Tower Guard’s retreat. The Tower Guard grimaced and dove down towards the forest…only to be greeted by arrows from the green elf rangers. He was about to be surrounded on all sides…

At the front of the room, the three stronger Tower Guards who had been securing the Fairy Grove’s entrance leapt up above the canopy. The Fairy Grove attempted to stop them, but they cut through the branches of the trees with blade, claw, and ice. With dragon wings of mana on their back, the three of them raced across the skies of the room, charging at the bee army surrounding their wounded companion in the distance. Wyverns, both with riders and without, followed along, though many found themselves caught when gaps in the canopy suddenly closed.

Belissar’s eyes shot open.

“The Tower Guard are sending reinforcements!”

Belissar’s face fell. Was the Tower Guard going to escape? Were all the bees going to die in vain after all?

But neither Belissar nor the bees were alone. Wardmaster Varilold’s voice calmed Belissar’s growing panic.

“Understood, we’ll handle them, Tower Keeper.”

She turned to the communer bee keeping her in touch with the wardens on the frontline.

“Tell the wardens it’s time.”

While she and Belissar were talking, the canopy of the Fairy Grove suddenly opened below the incoming Tower Guard force…revealing a company of silver elf warriors that had been moving into position. The Tower Guards blinked in surprise…but the silver elf warriors had sensed the movements of the Fairy Grove’s mana and so already had their bows strung. A barrage of arrows launched from the gap in the canopy, showering the three Tower Guards and their escorting wyverns.

Wyverns cried out and fell from the sky, but the three stronger Tower Guards quickly shielded themselves and took no damage. One of them dove down towards the silver elves while the other two tried to continue on their way.  

Deeper in the Fairy Grove, groups of wardens gathered around several fairy circles. They passed their mana into networks of mushrooms that sprung up and around the circles.

At that moment, the entire Fairy Grove lit up. Fairy Circle burst into bright swirls of mana that traveled along lines of mushrooms that crisscrossed the entire room.

And at a fairy circle at the center of the room, Tarwantrad stood among the wardens. One of the wardens nodded to her and she smiled.

“Don’t worry, Belissar! I’m going to protect your Tower and your bees, if it’s the last thing I do!”

With that, she stepped forward and thrust her hands into the glowing fairy circle.

The light across the Fairy Grove turned into combinations of greens, pinks, and purples. Flowers began to bloom on every single tree, bush, and stalk of grass across the entire forest.

Belissar gaped at the sight. Wardmaster Varilold made an amused smile.

“Let me guess, she made all the plants flower? To be honest, I was limited by the time we had and the number of wards I needed to make elsewhere, so all I was able to do was set up a network to let someone connect to all the nexuses in the room at once. But…when you have a dungeon-made wild magic forest already intent on protecting your home and we have a Nature aligned dungeon master who wants to do the same, perhaps that’s all that’s needed.”

Tarwantrad wasted no time using the Fairy Grove’s mana to cast spells as only a follower of the God of Flowers could. The entire forest unleashed a burst of pollen into the air, obscuring the Tower Guards’ view and causing them to hack and cough. The pollen around the bees, however, was full of motes of light that landed on scorched and wounded bees to heal their wounds.

A wall of a flowering vines then dropped from the canopy near the silver elves, twisting into the path of the stronger Tower Guard diving towards them. The Tower Guard held a sword that seemed to be made of bone and sliced down on the vines, cutting through them with ease. But the vines burst, covering the Tower Guard with mana-laden poisons that started eating away at his own mana protections, all while more vines grew to replace them. The Tower Guard took some distance and let out a dragon breath…but by that time, the silver elves had retreated.

As for the wounded Tower Guard…he received a face full of pollen as he no longer had his mana scale coating. And the moment the pollen hit his lungs, he hacked violently, coughing up blood. His eyes widened as the Venom-Poison Mixtures perk activated and intensified the monster bee assassin venom already in his veins, even as a new poisonous pollen assaulted his lungs and throat. His retreat slowed as he clutched at his throat and coughed, allowing the bees to finish their encirclement.

The remaining two stronger Tower Guards stirred up their mana. The dragonscales made of mana around them now grew into full dragon-shaped coats like the one used in the Abyssal Trench. One was a pale, nearly white blue that started causing mist to condense around it, while the other created gusts of wind with each swing of its ephemeral wings. The two mana dragons then resumed their advance, flying through the pollen without harm.

Tarwantrad grunted and directed all the mana of the room she could muster towards the two dragons. The fairy circles themselves followed her lead, sending their own mana flowing in that direction so that Tarwantrad could gather even more.

With her next spell, a gigantic wall of vines rose up into the sky, completely barring the path of the two dragons, then countless orchids bloomed along them. The two Tower Guards scoffed and didn’t even bother to change course, intent on barreling straight through the wall. Indeed, the vines offered them no resistance, easily giving way to the fangs and claws of their dragon coats.

At least, until the mist around the white-blue dragon coat touched one of the orchids. That was when Belissar learned Tarwantrad could grow different kinds of flowers that she knew of via spell, much in the same way he could form different kinds of spell bees.

He learned that she had chosen to form combusting orchids, the kind that normally only grew near volcanos, in areas with very low humidity…because the volatile compounds they emitted would combust on contact with water.

And he learned this all because…the entire vine wall that Tarwantrad had made now exploded on contact with the mist around the white-blue dragon…with the two Tower Guards right in its center.

Author’s Note:

Ah. Flowers. The non-bees that are not silly, because they inherently help the bees. Like now, where they help the bees…with explosions?

…Tarwantrad, are explosions flower related? I mean, dangerous one would say so, but she’s dangerous one so we expected it from her. Is, um, flower one also dangerous?

Anyways!

Will the bees and their allies trap the Tower Guard? Will the bees’ sacrifice prove worthwhile? Are explosions flower related? Tune in next time, to find out!