Alda had hope.

  It had been a long time since she had had that.

  Even though she now had to live as a mortal, this moment gave her back the hope she thought she had lost as a god.

  The worms near the wall were dead and dying.

  The worms were no longer a threat to the green heaven, the home of Alda and her kin.

  The tide that nearly broke the wall now shrank, without its old reinforcements.

  With each empowered arrow and each blast of channeled power, a small tide of worms died and did not return.

  Her divine nature now flowed through all her kin and her land. They all channeled the power she once wielded.

  Her children, her kin, and those who would soon be her kin were now winning the battle.

  Overlooking the wall, Alda was targeting the few Hunter worms that were still a threat to her kin.

  Her eyes landed on their new allies.

  A monster tide, and a beast that she hadn't expected to see at all.

  A Dragon.

  ‘And not a normal one either,’ She mused, her eyes locking onto the dragon in question.

  The dragon was with Heart of Tree and Bark.

  Together, they made a surprisingly effective team.

  They cleared the waves of worms with fire and nature magic and sought out the sources of the threat.

  Each tunnel was bathed in fire, and it wasn’t ordinary fire. There was something unique about it that Alda recognized, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  The monster tide had literally been a godsend.

  Her attention snapped back as she found another Hunter worm. It was close.

  It reached the wall.

  Alda channeled her powers through the wall and into the vines and earth that would listen to her.

  The Hunter worm had infused its own mana into the earth, but Alda, still retaining her divine nature, flooded the area with her power.

  The vines started to bind the worm, and in response, it began to cut its way up faster, but it never got the time.

  A hand of earth came shooting out from the ground, gripping the worm and crushing it in one quick move.

  She looked back at the battle and focused on the anomaly that was the dragon.

  Alda was still baffled that... there was a dragon in this world.

  The world was too young for a dragon’s soul, yet dragons sometimes appeared early in its history.

  Sometimes, a single dragon was born into a world to stabilize it against chaotic forces—a response to defend the world from gods and other threats.

  Alda glanced toward the dragon.

  However, she had heard this from an Eldritch being whose sanity was... in question.

  ‘No matter,’ Alda thought. It was here to help her and her kin.

  But first, she needed to survive this fight.

  She found another worm that needed death, and Alda gladly delivered it.

  Her thoughts drifted to what she had given up...

  It would be a new experience to live now in a mortal’s body.

  Spirit of Leaves and Wind ran swiftly, and every worm she leaped on or jumped over was struck by an arrow or sliced apart by the wind.

  Her power and magic, now strengthened by the High One, seemed nearly limitless; her previous struggles with magic had disappeared.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  ‘So this is what it’s like for Heart of Tree and Bark, ’ she thought. She felt almost jealous, but the sacrifices made by Heart of Tree and Bark outweighed any envy.

  ‘He still struggles speaking,’ she reminded herself, as she loosed a volley of arrows, the wind carrying them to their intended targets.

  She had received a small piece of knowledge from the High One on how to control this power.

  All of them had.

  As the tide of battle turned and Alda saw the monsters join the fight, some of her kin chose to sally out as Heart of Tree and Bark had.

  Spirit of Leaves and Wind was the first to do so.

  Now, channeling her wind gift, no worm could touch her.

  A blast of fire caught her attention. She saw Heart of Tree and Bark and the scaled one—the most powerful of the monsters—and the creator of the wildfire that made her wind recoil in fear.

  She hadn’t expected wind to fear fire.

  Or fear anything for that matter.

  Spirit of Leaves and Wind accelerated, making her way toward the scaled one and her kin.

  Each step brought her closer to her kin; she nearly flew over worm waves.

  She wondered if they could, looking over again she saw them...’

  ‘Are they running away from m—?’

  The world exploded in sand, worms, and blood.

  The world shifted so suddenly that she lost control of the wind. Her body was flung straight up, and Spirit of Leaves and Wind became disoriented, unable to tell up from down.

  She knew only that something enormous burst from the sands.

  'Oh, fuck,' Spirit of Leaves and Wind said. It was a word she had heard the High One whisper, and it seemed appropriate now.

  "Fuck," Isaac said, looking up. It was huge—a living skyscraper.

  Sand and dust had covered the entire battlefield.

  Worm bodies and blood were raining down on them... it was like the start of an apocalyptic movie.

  And he was just about the size of one small city block...

  Isaac had sensed something was wrong as the worm tide slowed—not because they were winning, but because something huge was moving beneath them.

  He had been focusing on anything that might cause his unease...

  When Isaac had looked down, his heart had skipped a beat.

  They had started running away the second he sensed the huge ass worm..

  Looking up at the largest living thing he had ever seen, Isaac questioned his chances in this fight.

  However, his nature as a dragon told him that it needed to die, or all of them would, and the world.

  ‘Time to go all out, I guess.‘ Issac looked over to his mana. He had been conservative, but there had been many tunnels and worms.

  Mana pool: 150 / 280 (Soul damage ~ )

  He still had some mana left.

  He glanced over to his ally, someone he could now call a friend, searching for reassurance.

  “You got my back, elf man!”

  For the first time since Isaac had met the elf. Isaac saw fear in his eyes, but Isaac's words had snapped him out of it, and... the elf man gave him a grim nod back.

  “Yes, scaled and fire one,” The elf replied. The fear in his eyes lessened, and a firm determination took its place. “Let’s kill the Worm queen.”

  Issac couldn't agree more.

  See a mistake, comment it so I can fix it.

  Shameless plug: 4+ chapters are on Patreon.