Cultivating Plants

An impossible weight assaulted Mother Nature. Her body was the pinnacle of vegetable strength and toughness, one that surpassed that of the World Tree that fought the power of a whole world to grow at impossible heights, and yet… a massive pressure was weighing her now.

Her thoughts became sluggish, her movements ragged, and her senses distorted. The unknown and invisible pressure halted her whole being, making her breath short even though she had no need to breathe.

"It's tough, eh?" The Grandmaster Assassin said next to her. The druid was surprised to find him at her side, mostly because she couldn't tell if the man had shadow-stepped at her side or he had simply walked.

And that scared her.

If it was the latter… that meant she was lacking several seconds in her memory as she couldn't recall him walking.

Mother Nature tried to walk forward, but as she did so, her body betrayed her, and she fell to the ground.

"Having your mind swimming around is an awful sensation, isn't it?" A groan escaped her lips as the old man tapped on her back with his cane like a boy would do to a roadkill with a stick. "But I must give it to you, you are getting attacked by a force a thousand times stronger than the one that Aaliyah-al-Ydaz fought, and you are still conscious. Barely, but I think that counts. My congratulations to you, be sure to clutch them close to your heart until we meet at Oblivion."

The weight suddenly increased to a magnitude even greater than before, but amidst the sea of confusion, the words of the Grandmaster Assassin echoed in the mind of Mother Nature. Having your mind swimming around is an awful sensation, those exact words replayed in her mind the drums of war on a calm autumn night. Mind, she told herself.

"I see," the vegetable woman expressed powerfully even though her body was failing her and her eyes were bloodshot like those of the wrinkled assassin in front of her, regardless if her body possessed blood or not.

With a scowl, the assassin hit her again with his cane and the pressure increased again. Just a burst, not the continued weight, which made the druid smile.

"Why are you smiling?" Zayn shouted with distraught.

"The mind is…" Mother Nature slowly, painfully, stood up. Her body jerked awkwardly and remained hunchbacked, but what mattered was that she stood up. "My mind is a bastion you cannot conquer."

Then she switched to glamour.

Instantly, the weight on her mind decreased by many degrees as the assault of the assassins in hiding no longer was magnified by her acuity internal infusion.

Whilst the weight of a whole hell pressed her down, Mother Nature felt herself free. Taking the weight of a whole hell wasn't anything new for her.

She had been doing that for centuries.

Her mind had been poisoned countless times before she reached this point. They were completely unable to subjugate her now that acuity wasn't in effect, for their drugs were mortal ones, and she had been constantly assaulted for centuries by drugs that no mortal minds could even begin to understand.

Their efforts were as trivial as the gravitational force that bound her feet to the ground.

Her body swiftly reformed by the glamour internal infusion, no longer an atrocity of disconnected arboreal organs, but the zenith of beauty and fertility. And unlike the many times she had traversed the city of Sadina with this internal infusion, this time she didn't wear any clothes.

As much hate as the Grandmaster boasted, as contaminated as his mind was, as advanced as his age was, the old man paused for a moment; his breathing and pulse halting as the only thing he could behold was Mother Nature's splendor.

And finally, the druid freed herself from her restrictions.

Vitality exploded outward from her like the most violent steam explosion to the point that the unseen mystical force was even tangible. The world trembled as Mother Nature no longer limited herself, exactly as she had done when she had intended to kill Aaliyah-al-Ydaz. Only now that she had been taught the discoveries of these centuries of progress and the synergies of the vital arts. Perhaps she hadn't obtained many Haya in this last decade, but her understanding of vitality and the vital arts had grown aggressively like weeds.

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The assassins – not just Zayn, but all of them that dared to press their foul contamination upon her – trembled as the veil between hells thinned and cracked as a tree of emerald manifested before their eyes.

"Ah," Mother Nature groaned as she cracked her neck, her bountiful bosoms swaying enticingly by her enhanced glamour. "It feels quite nice to liberate oneself, does it not?"

"A-ah…" the Grandmaster gagged as the words failed him, only broken moans escaping his lips. He fell backward on his bottom as he struggled to breathe, clutching his throat in severe pain, a gesture of utmost curiosity for the druid as it was his eyes that were bleeding.

With her enhanced senses, Mother Nature could tell that he wasn't the only assassin who was suffering from this affliction. As the veil between the hells thinned from her raging vitality, the druid could personally see the sights of the legion of assassins clutching their throats and eyes through the world of ideas. It was quite a trivial endeavor as their violent crimson eyes contrasted perfectly against the omnipresent cyan of that hell.

The weaker assassins started bleeding from all their orifices as they were incapable of beholding Mother Nature, their minds too weak and contaminated to withstand her fulminating glamour. It also didn't help that they were even more susceptible to the effects of the world of ideas than normal people and the veil between hells continued to weaken as the druid's vitality infiltrated the cyan realm.

Her emerald crept violently like water and repulsively like a cancer. Not a better term existed for that growth, for it was immortal and relentless. There was no stopping the rivers of vitality that were Mother Nature's emerald. Seemingly infinite, the cyan of the hell of cognition and the red of assassins' eyes were drowned in the ever-growing roots of a tree that put to shape the World Tree.

One tree was a specimen that had grown big and healthy.

Another was the might of a goddess.

Mother Nature looked at the writhing figure of the Grandmaster before her. The old man was suffering as much as the weaker assassins by virtue of being this close to her. There were many things that she could ask him, but she… just didn't care.

The thing he had mentioned about Nesrine was also of inconsequence to her. A reflex and nothing more. That woman deserved any evil that might come to her, but she was too beneath the druid to carry any punishment personally.

Mother Nature, simply, didn't care.

The weight of her presence alone drove the assassins to the ground; she didn't need to do anything. Nor that she wanted to. They were pests, mosquitoes that had dared to bite her, but one had to be foolish to lose time killing a mosquito when they were pressed for time. Mother Nature failed to acknowledge their presence, no matter if they had managed to bring her to the ground one time.

Pride held no weight to her.

Without switching to acuity, the vegetable woman continued looking for her disciple. His body had to have gone somewhere, and time was running out. Perhaps there was still a way to revert the effect. Perhaps she could still save him. That was the only thing that mattered to her now. Nothing had mattered to her before as much as finding her disciple. These insects were but mere distractions.

The thin veil separating the hells allowed her to peer between the two of them simultaneously as it was now but a suggestion.

One, a hell of cognition and observation.

Another, a hell of the living.

The roots of her manifested vitality tore through the world of ideas as she searched for Xochipilli, the emerald rivers snuffing out the flame of life out of any assassin that it came in contact with. No mortal was capable of withstanding that much vitality in their bodies, and hers was no longer limited to her physical vessel.

Her mind was intoxicated, she knew it, there was no denying that fact. She acknowledged that the assault of the assassins was partially successful. Her reality was warped, and her thoughts were as torn as the world they resided in. And yet…

Mother Nature felt more lucid than ever before.

Like the morning sun washing away the night.

Like the fog clearing away after a rainy day.

Like a wrong being corrected.

Never before had Mother Nature felt more of herself. Free. Unshackled. Justified. No longer just free from the weight of the assassins' cognition, but also the world.

It was her that now exerted the weight upon reality.

At this point, she was unable to distinguish if those were her own thoughts, the fake drugs that were contaminating her mind, or the silent whispers that affected anyone who dared to tread the world of ideas, but she was well aware of the dwindling time.

The world shook with her every thought, buildings collapsed, fires raged, and the starry mantle of the night sky personally illuminated her, yet all of that mattered not. Only that she found her disciple.

Only that mattered to her.

Only that mattered to the world.

Her senses continued expanding through both hells, many lives flashing through her mind, yet none she cared about, even as they were extinguished. It can't have gone that far, Mother Nature thought. His body should still be somewhat close. WHERE IS IT?

As she pushed more and more vitality to expand her senses, using vitality now as some sort of tactile sense and an extension of the range of her vitality sense, Mother Nature detected a powerful dot of vitality approaching her. For a moment her visage brightened up as she thought that Xochipilli had come back to her, but it instantly tarnished as she recognized that vitality.

The next moment, she had lost an arm.

The movement had been so clean and fast that the ground only shook after the figure had separated her arm from her body. With the steady breath of a warrior, the woman regained her posture and stood upright, wielding dual swords, both casually resting to the side. She wore pauldrons made of roc feathers that didn't match her pompous set, but that only highlighted her status. The purple armor that she donned served no purpose beyond decoration as it failed to cover most critical spots.

But she didn't need armor to protect her.

"Dunes, I had aimed from the head. I guess I am getting rusty," she jested as she rested one tulwar on her shoulder and another covered in sap pointed at Mother Nature.

Naila-al-Ydaz, Calipha of Ydaz, had joined the fight.