The cats were locked in a battle so fierce it shook the ground. But not fierce enough to make Toz lose his footing. And the cats didn't seem to be in immediate danger, so Toz took a moment to assess the situation when he arrived atop a small hill, behind which was the battle.
Although the cats didn't look like they were struggling or fighting for their survival, Toz didn't see them make any kind of progress when it came to defeating their opponents.
The two who seemed to be having the most success were Nil and Asilean. But even when they cut apart the trunks and branches of the gnarled and desiccated trees, their targets just regrew and regenerated the damage at once.
Scrael and Mindle were even worse off. Scrael was in a position similar to Nil and Asilean. But she was in an even more desperate situation since she usually relied on dealing a slightly smaller amount of damage over a longer period of time when killing prey. That tactic was completely useless against the trees that they were facing.
Mindle, who should have had not a single problem considering their opponent, was the one who did the least. She couldn't fathom how a grove of dead trees could ardently refuse to catch fire, but that was what was happening. No matter how many times she steeped the trees in fire, the flames died out before they could deal any damage.
The only thing that changed was that their surface became slightly charred, but that only seemed to increase their fire resistance.
Toz could tell that the only thing causing the cats to suffer was their bruised egos. After fighting like crazy on the battlefield and becoming stronger with each battle. But never once faltering, the cats were stopped dead in their tracks by a bunch of stupid trees.
With his mana vision and combination magic, Toz already knew how to defeat the trees. But he couldn't do it with only lightning magic, so he decided to sit back and wait until he either figured it out or until the cats defeated the trees on their own. There was not a speck of doubt in his mind that the trees would win over the cats.
No matter how resilient the trees were or how inflammable and how great their regeneration was, their offensive means were lackluster in comparison. The only way of attack that Toz had seen the trees use was to fling out and reach for the cats with innumerable branches.
Against larger or less nimble opponents, that kind of attack might have worked. But the cats avoided the branches with ease. They even goaded and directed the trees to ensnare and tie knots on themselves. And if there ever came a moment where they were incapable of dodging a branch, they would work together to overcome it in a different way.
If Nil and Asilean weren't already busy with their own attacks or defenses, they would help the cat in trouble by slicing the branch before it could reach its target. If it were the other way around, Scrael would use her speed and momentum to redirect the branch's path.
Mincle didn't quite have the same possibilities as the others when it came to saving them or helping them avoid being attacked by the trees, so she instead controlled her five Tongues of Flame to try and burn the trees.
Considering how hard the cats had fought and how much time they had spent on the battlefield, Toz wasn't surprised that Mindle had already conjured the fifth flame. However, he was surprised to see that it still wasn't enough to light the trees on fire.
The heat was sweltering enough for the air to tremble even where he was, but the trees only surrounded themselves by a dense layer of bark that refused to catch fire. Thankfully, Mindle had learned how to delicately control the heat so that the other cats remained unaffected.
After using her flames to create a barrier of heat and fire around the trees, Mindle gathered them all in one spot, around a single tree. The other cats supported her by making sure the trees' attacks didn't reach her, and she concentrated all of her firepower on that single tree.
It caught fire at once. Usually, when that happened, it would put out the fire at once. But since Mindle kept adding more fire to the already burning tree, it couldn't put out the flames, and it kept burning.
It took a lot of concentration and mana on Mindle's part to increase the power of her five Tongues of Flame to that degree while still limiting the area of effect to the single tree that she had chosen. But she did it without even as much of a grunt.
Eventually, it seemed like Mindle's efforts would bear fruit since the tree no longer fought to put out the fires consuming it.
However, the tree didn't stop fighting the flames because it had grown incapable of resisting. It stopped fighting against Mindle's fire because it didn't have to anymore.
The flames had stopped consuming it.
Although Mindle still controlled her five Tongues of Flame, she had lost control over the fire raging across the tree's trunk and branches.
The cats weren't prepared for that turn of events and let a few branches slip through their defenses. Mindle, who was more shocked than anyone else, was too stunned by the fact that the tree had taken control of her flames to react to the branches.
Thankfully, before the sharp branches could pierce Mindle, a purple light flashed by and swept Mindle and the other cats away from the incoming cascade of wood.
Toz had noticed how the situation would turn out ever since Mindle first tried to incinerate the tree, but he decided to wait until the last second before intervening since he wanted the cats to see what happened.
Mindle probably wouldn't have died if the branches hit her, but she still would have been injured. That was something Toz wasn't willing to witness. He wanted them to use the failure with the trees as a learning experience. But that didn't mean he wanted to see them suffer.
