"Hmmm..." Tyla crouched beside Marco’s unmoving body, studying the overgrown vines twisting from his left shoulder.

"Even though he’s healed and regenerated his right arm, the potion couldn’t restore the left one. Instead, the vines are sprouting from the wound..." She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "It seems like the potion recognized them as part of his own cells. The situation is... hopeless for him, at least for now."

Before her, Marco lay motionless, his chest faintly rising and falling.

"Doesn’t matter!" Yumina shouted over the crashing sounds of battle. Her fiery hair flickered with prana light as her gauntlets burned through waves of corrupted roots. "As long as he’s alive, just throw him in your pocket dimension and help me deal with these things!"

"Alright!" Tyla replied, sweeping her hand through the air. Marco’s body shimmered in faint light and vanished instantly into the pearl’s dimension.

With that done, Tyla rose into the air, taking out her greenish gourd. She uncorked it and began splashing the potion everywhere. Each drop of the luminous liquid that touched the ground hissed like acid —but instead of burning, it purified. The blackened roots twitched violently, smoke curling from their surface, before they crumbled into pale ash.

"Ha! It’s working!" Yumina grinned, blasting a cluster of tendrils with molten flame.

But before Tyla could celebrate, the ground trembled again. The corrupted roots suddenly changed movement, slithering swiftly like snakes, avoiding her sprays of potion.

"Tsk... fast little things," Tyla muttered. "But—"

With a snap of her fingers, two more gourds appeared from her pocket dimension. She tossed them toward Yumina. "Use these, Mina!"

Yumina caught them midair. "How much of these miracle potions do you even have, woman?" she muttered, eyeing the gourds.

Her gauntlets folded back into wrist mode as she examined the containers.

"Ooo... I can use this..." Yumina muttered, her eyes gleaming with curiosity as she examined the pair of glowing gourds in her hands. She brushed her fingers across the runic engravings on her gauntlet, activating a few arrays that pulsed faintly with azure light. A faint click echoed as the metal shifted, revealing a small chamber hidden within the mechanism.

It was a compact compartment— something she had designed with help of some Array masters from Ixalaria Continent. The space acted as a miniature storage unit, capable of holding various ores and condensed elemental materials. By channeling prana through specific runic paths, she could combine those materials to unleash different long-range elemental attacks. Fire, lightning, ice— anything she loaded in could be converted into a devastating blast.

"Let’s see if this fits..." she whispered, trying to push one of the gourds into the chamber. But the moment it touched the edge, a faint hum vibrated through the air, and the gauntlet rejected it. The surface glowed briefly before pushing the gourd out as if the device itself refused to accept it.

"Oh... This Gourd itself is a storage unit," she realized, tilting her head with mild annoyance. "It doesn’t work like pocket dimension, instead it rejects another storage device. Figures... Then—"

Without hesitation, Yumina positioned both gourds and forcefully plunged them into the open slot at the base of her gauntlets. Her prana flared, wrapping around the gourds like ethereal chains, securing them tightly in place.

The arrays reacted instantly— golden lines traced along her arms, connecting to the lion-faced design on her gauntlets. The metallic lion’s eyes flickered open, glowing with a fierce light as the power within the gourds began to synchronize with the gauntlets.

"Perfect fit," Yumina grinned as the gauntlets whirred, locking into position around her wrists once more.

"Alright, let’s test this!"

The lions roared as Yumina raised her arms. From the gauntlet mouths, streams of pure whitish-green potion blasted outward, raining down like holy artillery. Wherever it splashed, corrupted roots screamed and disintegrated into dust.

"Take this! Take this! Take this!" she yelled gleefully, flying through the air, unleashing waves of purifying rain. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Tyla followed behind, flying upside down while giving her a thumbs-up. "Nice! Keep it up, partner!" she shouted, still holding her copper pot. "Head toward the main root cluster!"

They shot through the air side by side—Yumina blazing with fiery light, Tyla shimmering with alchemical energy. Below, dozens of elf-shaped roots emerged, their hollow eyes glowing red as they hurled spears made of bark and bone.

"Ew, creepy forest mannequins!" Yumina hissed, punching her gauntlets forward. Fireballs erupted from the lion mouths, blasting the elf-roots apart. The potions in her gauntlets turned each explosion into a flash of purifying light.

"Empty already?!" she shouted as her gauntlets clicked dry. The two gourds popped out and fell into the writhing mass below.

"Reload!" Tyla called cheerfully, tossing two more gourds toward her.

Yumina caught them again with a groan. "Seriously? Did you rob an Immortal’s tomb or something?!"

"Nope," Tyla grinned mischievously, "I just Rich."

Before Yumina could reply, Tyla’s eyes widened. "Watch out!" she shouted.

But it was too late.

From all sides, the corrupted roots surged at once, twisting together like serpents in a frenzy. They coiled around the two women, layering over one another until a thick cocoon of black vines sealed them inside.

Everything went silent. The air outside stopped moving.

Everything went eerily silent. The only sound that broke the stillness was the steady drip... drip... of industrial waste falling somewhere in the distance, echoing through the twisted roots like the ticking of a giant, unseen clock.

The air which was thick with a foul, chemical stench, was no more.... And the faint vibration of the factory’s machinery trembled through the cocoon that now held the two girls captive.

Inside the cocoon, a muffled voice spoke.

"Ahh... it’s tight in here..."

"Stop moving your elbow there!" Yumina snapped. "That’s my – !"

"Ohh, sorry... Wait, if I push this way—"

"Stop touching me there! I swear, I’ll shoot you!"

"Stop, let me pour the white liquid... I’m gonna fill this cramped space till it flows out!"

"Wait— don’t pour it there! I’m gonna choke... Gonna choke!"

"I’m serious!" Tyla said. "Hold still or we’ll—"

Their chaotic banter echoed inside the cocoon, sounding both ridiculous and desperate at the same time. From outside, nothing could be seen —only faint tremors and muffled voices could be heard through the thick layer of roots.

Then came a brief silence... followed by a sharp crackling sound as light began leaking through the crevices.

BOOM!

The cocoon exploded outward, showering the area in a geyser of white-green potion and shredded roots.

Both girls were launched through the air, tumbling before crash-landing on top of the colossal World Tree stump.

"Safe!" Yumina cheered, throwing up her arms. She sat up, panting and dripping with glowing liquid. "That’s one way to make an exit."

But when she turned around, her smile faded. "Tyla?"

The stump was vast, its surface smooth and ancient, carved with natural runes that faintly pulsed with light. But Tyla was nowhere to be seen.

"Tyla!" Yumina shouted, scanning the surroundings. The silence that followed was unsettling.

Then— a tremor.

The roots across the stump began to shift, curling upward like fingers. The cracks between the wood glowed faintly green, and a low hum filled the air.

Tyla was still nowhere to be seen.

---

Tyla blinked in confusion. "Where... am I?"

She looked around, realizing she was floating in the middle of an endless sea. Waves shimmered beneath her, stretching beyond sight, but what truly stole her breath was the colossal tree rising in the distance. Its roots spread across the ocean’s surface like veins of light, and its trunk ascended so high it pierced the clouds— and even tore into cracks within the sky itself.

"This is..." Her voice trembled, Her eyes widened in astonishment. "The World Tree. The youngest World Tree?"