The whale and Stitches were the only ones who could tell how well the procedure was coming along. But the whale was preoccupied with the pain of the trees burrowing into its wounds and couldn't determine whether it was going well or not.
Stitches, on the other hand, was surprised at the ease with which the trees had gotten acclimated to the situation. Stitches only needed to coax the trees into absorbing the mana at the beginning. After that, Stitches worked hard to control the trees' advance and foster a symbiotic relationship between the whale's body and the trees.
It was promising that the trees took to rooting inside the whale so easily, but it also meant that the trees might enjoy draining the whale's body of all its mana and nutrients completely. Stitches controlled the trees, so they wouldn't do that. However, if he stopped the trees too early, they might not take root properly and would instead tear off the whale's back if they were unlucky. There was also the risk that the starlight mana would leak out through the gaps if the trees didn't attach themselves properly and block off every single hole the mana leaked out of.
Stitches had to make sure that the trees grew evenly and covered the whale's back, and took root properly, but without harming the whale further. Stitches' perception was stretched taut as he micromanaged the entire forest and the whale's back.
Sweat ran down Stitches' wrinkled forehead and back due to the exertion of delicately controlling large amounts of life force and keeping his senses spread out. However, Things were progressing steadily, and it looked like it would finish soon. At that time, Stitches could let himself fall unconscious.
The whale had gotten slightly used to the pain of its wounds pressing against the island and the trees burrowing into its flesh, so it managed to increase its speed slightly. After the whale picked up the pace, Toz and the other two managed to take a few breaths and recover slightly from the exertion of going all out without stopping for several minutes.
Nil kept the harness intact, and as the trees dug into the whale's back in search of mana, it decreased the pressure on Nil and the metal bands.
It looked like they only needed to hold on for a few more minutes until the whale's back was completely covered. Although there was a lot less mana leaking from the whale's wounds, it was still enough to keep the void beasts hounding after them with the same intensity as before. Toz was beginning to worry if just blocking the leaking mana would be enough since the void beasts already had the whale in their sights.
Toz expressed his concerns to Lucy. Lucy nodded before sinking deep into thought and concentrating on his mana.
It wouldn't affect anything if he used magic to cover them while the whale and the trees were still fusing, but Lucy could prepare his magic for the moment that the whale stopped leaving a trail of mana for the void beasts to follow.
Things were going perfectly fine for everyone. Even the whale was dealing with the pain without grunting and twisting. At least until the trees spontaneously drilled more than a meter into the whale.
While twisting and shouting due to the excruciating pain, the whale slowed down to a crawl. The whale's thrashing prevented Toz, Mindle, and the blue cat from fully concentrating on the void beasts. Toz did his best to keep as many of the void beasts at bay while he secured his balance. Hods and Scrael dashed to support Lucy and Mindle, who were about to fall. The whale had bucked and sent the ones who weighed less into the air, including the blue cat.
But since Scrael knew Mindle personally, and because Mindle was killing more void beasts, Scrael prioritized stabilizing her instead of the blue cat, who was almost completely out of mana.
Hods had chosen to help Lucy since he would secure their escape from the void beasts after Stitches finished fusing the whale and the island. Hods had reacted almost instinctively since he had been on high alert. While he couldn't help any other way, he could at least be ready for anything.
But after he put down Lucy, Hods looked toward the center of the island where Stitches was.
Stitches stared dazedly at his hands glowing with a green light, but he snapped out of it as the whale continued thrashing and twisting. He had accidentally made a mistake. He hoped that the others would be understanding of what had happened.
However, now wasn't the time to worry about whether or not the whale would hold a grudge.
Stitches had broken through to the seventh level while in the middle of adjusting the trees' growth. The sudden surge of power and mana had made Stitches lose his control, and the trees got a river of life attribute mana into them. The burst of mana made the trees experience explosive growth, and the roots drilled into the whale.
While it was too late to fix his mistake, Stitches could at least try and rectify it.
Stitches hadn't yet learned how to control his explosive leap in power, and it would most likely take some time, considering he entered a new division. But he didn't need to be careful with how he used his power now.
The burst had gotten the roots as deep as Stitches needed them to go, and the whale's back was completely covered, blocking any mana from leaking. The only thing left was to soothe the whale's pain and heal its wounds.
Stitches sent wave after wave of life force into the whale, rapidly regenerating its wounds and healing the tissue pierced by the roots. Thankfully there wasn't much to regenerate since the wounds were already filled with wood. Even if Stitches had been at the seventh level from the beginning, there was no way he could have healed the whale. He would have still needed a lot of bandages and at least half a dozen helpers to stop the bleeding.
The green light spread from Stitches' hands, through the island, and into the whale.
