Once again I find myself alone within a tower, this time hopeful that the test will involve less combat and more reasonable enemies. With luck, I won’t have to deal with an indestructible stone serpent thing.

  I shake my tiny bird head to avoid such thoughts and ascend up the stairs via flight. Regardless of whether there was a significantly easier way to beat the last tower doesn't matter anymore. What’s done is done. All I can do is move forward.

  Reaching the top floor of the tower, I cancel my transformation into something quite a bit more durable before exiting.

  Upon exiting the tower, the first thing that graces my eyes is complete whiteness. An extremely dense white fog smothers my vision, limiting what I can see to only a foot away from my eyes. It is rather disorienting, moreso because I have six eyes.

  With but a mental command, I transform into my bird form with the expectation the fog isn’t going to restrict a different wavelength.

  Though I cannot see the fog, what I can see is the extreme concentration of mana everywhere.

  With an upset tweet, I shift back into my Fenrimorph form.

  Closing all my eyes and taking a deep breath, I focus on my sense of smell, hearing, and touch. A surprisingly potent combination given the superior senses of a Fenrimorph compared to a human. From my smell, I am inundated with the scent of soil- a combination of petrichor, decaying leaves, and the earthy smell of bark. From touch, I feel a soft wind caress my fur. From hearing, I can hear the creaking of branches and the flutter of leaves.

  After standing for a good five minutes, I begin walking forward, purposely indenting my feet into the ground so as to create tracks I can follow if I need to return.

  Eventually, I came near my first tree.

  Or more accurately, the tree slams its branch into me. I feel barbed spikes penetrate my flesh, followed by the branch retracting, pulling some of my flesh with it. I hop back, grimacing at the pain- grimacing further as a numbness spreads from where I’d been struck.

  I growl in the direction of where the attack had come from.

  While I wait for my regeneration to remove the poison and heal the damage, I listen to the movements of the tree's limbs. So far, no new attack lands, which reveals that the tree is immobile.

  Once fully healed, I’ve listened enough to create a mental landscape of the tree itself. I bend my knees and call up my mana. I start forming runes within my elbow, preparing a payload.

  I extend my legs and hop towards the tree, my arm pulled back and ready. The moment I’m in range of getting struck, I tilt to the left and hear the whistle of wind as a branch flies past. I tilt right, then left, dodging two more swings before I finally reach my destination. With my gauntleted fist, I slam into the bark of the tree, ripping apart the numerous spines covering it. The bark shatters and breaks, allowing my arm to enter inside. It is only now that my spell activates. Fire and flame burst from my arm, expanding the hole and rapidly engulfing the tree.

  I hop back quickly to avoid retaliation, not that that can happen, for it seems the tree is quite internally flammable. The entire thing is completely alight, with a potency enough that I can even see the burning outline through the fog.

  As the tree seems to wiggle in what seems like excruciating pain, I can’t help but feel that not only is the temperature increasing, but the trees seem to be burning brighter and brighter.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The same moment I get such a thought is the same moment a pillar of flame violently erupts into the sky from within the tree. As it does, the fog follows the eruption, ascending into the sky and creating a moment where I can not only see the sky, but I can see above the fog. It is at this moment that I briefly see the tip of a tower, barely visible in the distance.

  Then the fuel is used up and the fog rapidly returns in full force, leaving me with singed fur, a slightly charred arm, and the smell of ozone.

  Shaking my head, I start making my way in the direction of where I saw the towers tip.

  __________________________________________________________

  For the next eight hours, I have smothered the sky in ash and created eighty-seven bonfires, simultaneously laying down the preparations for a road through a murderous forest.

  With each tree I burn on my way to the tower, I find that not only are the trees larger and more dangerous, they also burn brighter and quite a bit longer.

  By my ninetieth tree, I finally reached where the tower should be. What I found is another tree. A massive tree, one considerably larger than those I’ve been destroying. The tree is fully engulfed around the lower end of the tower, completely blocking any ability to find the entrance.

  Over the hours, I’ve become progressively better attuned to my other senses, so when I approach the tree with a spell ready and my arm retracted, I can feel the slightest rumble under my feet. I hop left, avoiding a spiked root as it attempts to puncture me.

  Grimacing, I feel the earth tremble with even more movement.

  With each rumble, I dodge and twist, thanking the fact that the sentient trees aren't capable of greater thought. With the quantity of shifting roots, it would be childs-play to intercept my dodges.

  Thankfully, the attacks stay simple, albeit constant. After dodging a good minute and getting a good feel of the pattern, I start dodging closer and closer to the tree. The roots grow exponentially larger, but not faster. Unfortunately, it is when I get closer that I’m immediately forced to backtrack to avoid a dozen branches.

  Dancing to avoid the roots, I prepare several spells within and throughout my body. Runes coat just under my skin, ready and waiting to be activated. Next I prepare a potent fire spell, one powerful, but not powerful enough to destroy my gauntlet.

  Once the preparations are done, I take my stance and bend my legs.

  strip the bark before I can set the damn tree on fire.

  A moment before a root is about to penetrate out of the ground, I extend my legs and leap towards the tree, the ground shatters under my feet.

  Focusing on my sense of sound, I listen to the intercepting branches. As the branches move to intercept, I activate the wind spell . A gust of wind from my side explodes outward, shifting my aerial trajectory to avoid the branches. When I land, I leap again close to the tree. More branches come my way, followed by more spells going off and pushing my body to dodge. With each spell I activate, I lose both fur and skin, but I ignore the pain and damage. Unlike with Ignis, Ventus is far less dangerous on account of it being an explosion of air and not fire.

  By the time half my skin is removed, I’ve arrived near enough to the tree. A final leap and growl sends me hurtling at the tree itself. I swing my armored gauntlet and shatter through the surprisingly thick hull, wherein my entire gauntlet submerges in an extremely thick nectar-like fluid. This fluid is not only flammable, but violently so. It is the sole reason that the trees instantly burn from a single spell.

  The problem now is that the quantity of this flammable sap was miniscule in all the previous trees. Now though, my hand is completely engulfed in it.

  The Ignis spell in my arm flows down to my fist and violently releases my payload.

  _______________________________________________________________

  Three working eyes open to the sight of an enormous flaming pillar accompanied with the smell of burnt Fenrimorph flesh.

  I lift my head and glance around to find that my entire left arm, gauntlet included, is completely gone.

  I force myself to stand, though with difficulty. My skin is now charcoal and quite a bit of my muscles are now medium rare. Thankfully, I can already feel my regeneration going into overdrive alongside my increasing hunger.

  As I stand there and wait for my body to do its thing, I take a moment to glance around for my gauntlet while the fog is lifted. Or better yet, the key. Neither of which immediately presents itself to me.

  After five minutes of searching and finding nothing, the vortex sputters out, once again allowing the fog to return. By this point, most of the important aspects of my body have regenerated. All of my eyes are working, organs are back online, and my muscles have regenerated to the point I can easily move around. Unfortunately, my left arm is taking a while to regenerate.

  With the fog returned, continuing my search for my gauntlet wouldn’t be very effective. Instead, I make my way to the tower. Pushing away the burning remains of the tree boss, I finally reach the tower. When I arrive at the entrance, I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. There is a key already inserted into the door.

  I turn the key and open the door. When I enter the tower, I find my vision returned. The fog seems to be unable to penetrate inside.

  With familiarity, I descend down the stairs to the bottom, wherein I’m met with a crystal ball and the card within. The card is a picture of a massive spiked tree accompanied by numerous branches and several rings of fog surrounding it.

  Out of all the previous towers with all its monsters and bosses, somehow the tower that almost kills me involves an immobile sentient tree.

  Shaking my head, I place my hand on the crystal ball. It shatters. I then pick up the card.