The roaring flames erupted into a towering pillar of fire.
It was only natural—the tree dominating the clearing was enormous, and Rei's magical fire engulfed it entirely, feeding on its colossal frame.
The vines stretching from the trunk were likewise consumed within the precise boundary Rei had designated.
They could only regenerate from the point of severance, bubbling forth new heads along the cut surface. Since the vines had been severed at the edge of his designated zone, the severed tips beyond that line could not survive.
...Though whether "alive" was even the right word for heads that had been absorbed into the tree was debatable at best.
And so the moment a vine regenerated at the boundary, it was instantly incinerated.
"Well, let's just hope it doesn't turn into another Slime-in-the-lake situation."
"Guru."
Even as he said it, Rei doubted that a creature of similar size in this world would take nearly as long to burn as the otherworld Slime had.
And yet... what still gnawed at him was that despite being consumed by flames, the overwhelming presence radiating from the tree hadn't faded in the slightest.
As long as that presence endured, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.
(Though what exactly we can do in this situation is another matter entirely.)
The spell Rei had unleashed was devastatingly powerful.
With it already in effect, if someone asked whether the enemy could still act meaningfully... Rei honestly couldn't bring himself to nod.
What kind of move would the enemy make?
He was curious about that, to be sure.
It would be a lie to claim otherwise.
(So—how will it respond? Ideally, it'll just stay put and let itself burn to charcoal. Whether it'll allow that is another question.)
Rei kept his eyes on the burning tree, maintaining complete readiness to react the instant it moved within the inferno.
The very next moment proved his vigilance had not been misplaced.
"BUOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"
Rei couldn't pinpoint exactly where the sound had come from.
It had undoubtedly originated from the burning tree, but as far as he could see, the thing possessed no organ capable of producing a voice.
And then... the burning tree twisted its trunk in a way visible from a distance.
Not writhing from the heat of the flames—no, it looked more like a wind-up before an attack. Once again, Rei's prediction hit dead center.
Whether "body" was even the appropriate word in this case, he wasn't sure.
Regardless, the tree torqued its trunk and used the recoil to unleash a devastating blow toward Rei and Set's position.
They had been keeping their distance well beyond the reach of the branches, so under normal circumstances, such an attack shouldn't have come close.
But the ability to defy common sense was precisely what made it an A-Rank Monster.
"Whoa!"
What the tree hurled at them was a flaming whip—more precisely, a single strike formed from multiple vines braided together.
Naturally, the tips of those vines still bore the severed faces of various monsters, but the tree clearly couldn't have cared less about that detail.
Rei had stayed on guard precisely because the tree's behavior had been off.
Thanks to that, he managed to dodge the moment the attack came.
"Set, watch out! It's still got plenty of fight left!"
"Gururururu!"
At Rei's warning, Set chirped in acknowledgment and immediately activated Wind Arrow, summoning twenty near-transparent arrows of air.
Set chose Wind Arrow over Ice Arrow—whose power was enhanced within the Forest of Magic—for one obvious reason: the tree was already burning.
The fire was doing its job, likely inflicting continuous damage.
Using ice or water skills now would only be counterproductive. Set had clearly reached that conclusion.
He had other long-range attack skills as well.
But aside from Wind Arrow, they were all low level.
...Though even Wind Arrow was only at Level 4 and hadn't reached Level 5, where skills gained a dramatic boost in power.
The wind arrows streaked straight toward the burning tree...
"Guru."
They struck home, but had no visible effect. Set let out a disappointed rumble.
"Don't sweat it. You handled all those vines on your own, right? My turn now."
Keeping a wary eye on the tree in case it lashed out with its whip again, Rei drew a disposable spear from his Misty Ring.
This was a throwing spear, nothing more.
Normally, against a High-Rank Monster like this, he would have used the Twilight Spear.
The reason he wasn't this time was simple: hurling a spear into those flames would deal considerable damage to the spear itself.
The fire consuming the tree had been born from Rei's magic—a strike packed with an enormous amount of magical power.
What would happen to a weapon thrown into that kind of inferno was painfully obvious.
The Twilight Spear was an extraordinarily powerful Magic Item—arguably one of the most powerful not just in the Kingdom of Mireana, but across all of Elgin.
But whether even that could withstand Rei's own magical fire... honestly, he couldn't say with confidence.
Hence, the disposable spear.
The goal was simply to deal damage to the thrashing, burning tree.
And if that was the case, it was far more effective to hurl disposable spears—ones that would break after a single use—with everything he had, rather than gingerly tossing the precious Twilight Spear. More damage overall.
The concern, of course, was whether the spear would burn up in the flames coating the tree before it could reach its target. He'd decided to throw hard enough to make sure it didn't.
"Eat this!"
The spear left his hand.
Its chipped tip flew straight toward the tree. The moment it entered the magical fire, the shaft began to char and the point started to melt.
But Rei's throw was fast enough. The spear punched into the trunk before it could be consumed.
"WOwoWOwoWOwoWOwoWOwoWO!"
The instant the spear struck, that cry erupted from the tree.
It sounded almost like a scream—but threaded through it was something unsettlingly like laughter. Even joy.
"What the...? With that thing's Regeneration Ability, I figured damage on this level wouldn't mean anything."
This was an enemy with regeneration so absurd that attacks from Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear had been healed instantly.
For it to react like this to a plain, disposable spear—Rei couldn't make sense of it.
"Gururu, guru, gurururururu?"
Noticing Rei's confusion, Set tugged at his Dragon Robe with his beak, then rumbled while staring at the flames engulfing the tree.
Rei looked at Set, then at the fire—and it clicked.
"The difference between then and now is that the tree is burning. Its Regeneration Ability is already fully occupied."
The tree was channeling its Regeneration Ability across its entire body just to keep from being consumed by the flames.
With the fire constantly eating away at it, there was no surplus capacity left to heal other wounds.
That explained why the damage was registering—though the questions of why its voice carried what sounded like joy, and how it was even producing sound without a mouth, remained unanswered.
A grin spread across Rei's face beneath his Dragon Robe's hood.
He'd had no idea how to bring it down before. But now the path was clear: keep attacking while its Regeneration Ability was tied up fighting the fire, and it would eventually fall. That realization was worth savoring.
The real question was how much damage it would take to finish the job.
"...Actually, there's no need to stick with spears. Any attack works as long as it hits the tree and deals damage before the flames eat it. Set, we're taking to the sky."
"Guru?"
Set tilted his head—why fly now?
From his perspective, Rei could just keep hurling spears from the ground and the tree would eventually hit its limit.
But Rei had decided it was better to land one devastating blow than to chip away slowly.
"From up there, I've got more than just spears... well, more things I can use as weapons, anyway. So take me above the tree—good and high. We'll have to watch out for anything flying up there in the Forest of Magic, though. ...You good?"
"Gururururu!"
Set rumbled confidently—no problem.
Rei stowed Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear back in his Misty Ring, climbed onto Set's lowered back, and Set launched into the sky.
As they climbed, Rei got a true sense of the tree's scale.
It dwarfed everything around it—not even comparable to the surrounding forest.
Until now, it had hidden itself through some unknown means, concealing its presence from outside and even within the forest. But Rei's attack had stripped away its camouflage, leaving its colossal form fully exposed.
Perhaps because of that, no monsters in the skies above the Forest of Magic came after them.
Many of the forest's creatures were highly aggressive, but even they seemed to sense the danger of a suddenly revealed giant tree—one that was also, incidentally, ablaze—and chose to keep their distance.
Rei counted that as a blessing. No problems at all.
Set climbed to an altitude above the tree where the heat was bearable.
"Gururu?"
We're here—now what? Set rumbled, glancing back at Rei.
"Thanks, Set. ...Like this."
Rei pulled an enormous boulder from his Misty Ring.
Naturally, he couldn't hold something that massive one-handed. It dropped immediately, plummeting toward the ground below...
"WOwoWOwoWOwoWOwoWOwoWOwoWO!"
The boulder smashed into the tree, and another shriek tore through the clearing.
Rei confirmed the effect with a grin and started pulling out boulders one after another, sending them plunging earthward.
Each impact drew another scream from the tree.
That said, the supply of boulders wasn't unlimited. "Not unlimited" by Rei's standards as the owner of a Misty Ring still meant he had several dozen massive rocks on hand—but even so, he couldn't honestly say it would be enough to bring the tree down.
"Which is why I also brought these."
Rei lobbed a small barrel toward the burning tree. The instant the flames swallowed it, a deafening explosion ripped through the clearing.
Not just once.
He threw another. And another. And another.
Flame Ore.
A magic ore Rei knew well. It exploded when exposed to fire or strong impact.
Daskar had promised him some as a reward, and he'd obtained it once before—but his supply was far more limited than his stockpile of boulders.
Which was exactly why he'd rather not use them. Still, against an A-Rank Monster with such extraordinary Regeneration Ability, spending a few here was perfectly justified.
Between explosions, he continued dropping the remaining boulders.
They were running low, but replenishing rocks wasn't exactly difficult.
In fact, seeing how useful they were here, he made a mental note to stock far more of them in the Misty Ring going forward.
Once the boulders ran out, Rei switched to spears.
Disposable ones, naturally—not the Twilight Spear.
Thrown from altitude, they had less force than ones hurled from the ground. But Rei's spears still pierced the tree one after another, each one gouging fresh wounds.
Individually, a spear's impact was overwhelmingly less than a boulder or a Flame Ore blast.
Less, yes—but specks of dust became mountains. Rei hurled spear after spear, burning through most of his stockpile, until at last the tree reached its limit—and crashed to the ground like a felled timber.