# Chapter 48: Steel Magic Tree
On one side, Claire, who was clearing out the horde of wild gods, noticed that Joshua was constantly dodging attacks from enemies in the distant sky, appearing somewhat beleaguered.
"This won't work like this."
She clearly understood that Joshua couldn't be defeated by this level of attack—that guy wasn't even using any skills—but there were only three of them, facing an endless horde of wild gods. With their physical limits, they needed to conserve as much strength as possible.
Claire turned to look at Number Three, her expression serious. She was about to speak but realized she didn't know the language of this other world.
But Number Three's projection blinked her gray-blue eyes, a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth. Then, in the elf's astonished gaze, she spoke in somewhat stiff Mycroft Continental Common Language: "Don't worry."
"I will provide fire support, but it will take some time to modify the bombardment parameters." The artificial intelligence spoke slowly but grew increasingly fluent. "Please hold out for a while. Don't bother with the low-level wild gods. Just kill the ones that can ignore my bombardment, same as before."
After speaking, she turned back and continued controlling the artillery fire for bombardment. The white-gold streams of light suddenly accelerated, punching massive holes through the black tide in the distance.
"Good... you learn very fast."
Letting out a soft exclamation, Claire remarked with admiration. She no longer marveled at Number Three's learning speed as an artificial intelligence but instead manipulated the war plants beside her to repel the surrounding wild gods. At the same time, she raised the brown staff in her hand, and green natural force overflowed from it, forming a simple, ancient rune of light green.
Then, this Archdruid took a silver-white seed from her waist and threw it to the ground. The ancient rune circled the staff several times before immediately sinking into it. Within a single breath, the silver-white seed began to take root and sprout. Silver roots burrowed into the steel base, growing rapidly at a visible speed.
After throwing out this silver-white seed, Claire showed a rare expression of reluctance. But her movements didn't slow down in the slightest. Not only that, she also took out the Ring of Twin Flame Serpents that Joshua had temporarily lent her. Arcane power surged, causing the runes on the ring to begin sparkling.
"Guardians of the Twin Serpents!"
The warrior had long told Claire how to use this Gold-rank Transcendent magic ring, so she didn't hesitate. She immediately recited the secret phrase and activated one of the spells charged within it.
Boom—
Blue-white flames ignited from nothingness, then opened a massive gate composed of countless ancient runes. Heat sufficient to melt steel surged forth, scorching the air with a burnt smell. Two enormous pythons, also composed of blue-white high-temperature flames, emerged from this gate and coiled around Claire. Their white-gold serpent eyes held no emotion whatsoever.
"...The summoning time has increased, and the duration has shortened. At this rate of dissipation, it seems these two elemental pythons will disappear within half an hour."
As soon as she summoned the two fire elemental pythons, Claire keenly noticed that due to the terrible environment of the Carlis World, these dozen-meter-long giant monsters couldn't replenish their internal fire elements from the surroundings. Soon, they would dissipate due to imbalanced arcane structures and return to the Fire Elemental Plane.
But that didn't matter much. She only wanted to draw some fire for Joshua. Claire pointed forward without hesitation and commanded the two elemental pythons: "Devour these disgusting monsters."
"Hiss..."
Silently accepting the command, the fire elemental pythons immediately slid forward at high speed, charging into the dense ranks of wild gods, leaving behind a trail of melted, golden-red molten iron.
But Claire didn't stop casting. She continued gripping the Ring of Twin Flame Serpents and recited the secret phrase: "Heavenly Sun's Flame, protect my body!"
High-level Flame Barrier!
As she spoke, a strange thought arose in this druid's mind—I'm clearly a druid who uses natural forces, so how am I using fire magic now?
But the thought flashed by. As the incandescent white firelight blazed up, a roaring wall of flame appeared on the battlefield, adding a trace of warmth to this cold, desolate world. At the same time, the two enormous flame pythons charged into the wild god army, causing massive chaos. They were naturally fearless of death, simply biting, devouring enemies, and igniting the monsters around them with their high-temperature bodies.
As if sensing the burning flames, the wild gods originally surrounding Joshua—whether locusts, centipedes, or other forms of chaos monsters—all let out a silent roar simultaneously. Then a large portion split off and charged toward Claire and the twin fire elemental pythons, as if trying to extinguish these flames.
Monsters chasing instinct, taking extinguishing flames as their duty—this was the sorrow and weakness of chaos.
"Moraya, leave it to you."
After continuously casting spells outside her profession, the Archdruid gasped for breath. Somewhat fatigued, she spoke to the old dwarf beside her, who had been steadily killing and repelling the surrounding wild gods. Then she focused her attention on the silver-white seed that was growing wildly before her, injecting the meager natural force remaining in her body to accelerate its growth further.
"So troublesome. You're exactly the same as before."
Spear thrusting out, killing several magical beasts before him, Moraya sighed but couldn't ignore Claire's request. He naturally understood that to change the current situation, they could only rely on this spellcaster.
So the old dwarf swept his white spear horizontally, bringing a gust of wind that cleared the wild gods before him. Then, he ignited the battle qi within his body. The flowing flames gave Moraya's wrinkled face sharp contours. Accompanied by a special breathing technique, he revealed a confident smile, golden light flickering around him and rapidly solidifying.
And beside him, Claire also manifested solidifying golden light on her body, which then formed a powerful battle qi barrier with the shadow of a mountain peak before her.
Battle qi originally used for offense, released externally as a defense as stable as a mountain—this was a battle qi technique only dwarves could learn. The surrounding wild gods crashed against it, one after another breaking their heads and bleeding. Their shells composed of crystal and chitin shattered under their own tremendous force, spilling strange fluids.
But the number of wild gods was truly excessive. Monsters attracted by the flames continuously crashed into the mountain barrier and the high-level flame barrier. Ignited by thousands of degrees of heat, they madly rammed, causing this powerful defense, capable of withstanding siege weapon attacks, to become shaky and on the verge of collapse within ten seconds.
Yet no one worried about this. Claire and Moraya's expressions were both very calm, because during this time, the originally small silver-white seed had grown larger and larger, finally transforming into a massive silver tree fully twenty meters tall.
Whoosh! Creak!
With harsh scraping sounds, the originally broken steel base beneath the elf's feet began to smooth out. From the ground around the silver giant tree, a metal tentacle suddenly shot out. It grabbed a wild god that was charging at the barrier and hurled it violently.
"Boom!"
The wild god thrown by the metal tentacle was like a cannonball fired from a cannon. It pierced through countless bodies of its own kind, heavily crashing into the steel ground. With a violent roar, it directly created a massive crater over three meters in radius. Dust flew everywhere, and corpses scattered in all directions.
Gold-rank war plant, Steel Magic Tree!
Under Claire and Moraya's satisfied gazes, the surrounding steel base, originally reduced to ruins, was smoothed flat again under the control of this rapidly growing magic tree. But in the areas where the wild gods were, countless steel spikes rose up, piercing them through. Overwhelming power caused massive upheaval in the ranks of the wild gods.
And Joshua immediately felt the pressure lighten. After Number Three modified the bombardment parameters and targeted fire freed him from the wild gods in the sky, he had been surrounded by other wild gods on the ground. Although they posed no threat to the warrior, they kept him from breaking free to fly up and kill those flying crab wild gods with cannons.
But now, with Claire's assistance, the pressure of the siege was greatly reduced. He finally had the spare strength to gather power and aim at those monsters in the sky that only knew how to bombard.
Boom!
The ground was split apart by tremendous force. Countless wrinkles and cracks appeared in the steel. Joshua's body shot into the sky like a red meteor, flying in reverse, streaking across the sky.
And in the Mycroft World, the Northern Empire, the Northern Dwarf Settlement.
Within the lava lake, wrapped in a magical barrier, Nostradamus walked on the golden-yellow lava, his expression serious as he stared at the hidden space-time gate before him. The white-haired old mage furrowed his brows. Holding an instrument like a compass, with countless energy trajectories flowing through it, he muttered to himself:
"Is this it?"
(To be continued.)