I Become Master of Danger Zones as Incubus With Mastery In Genetic

Chapter 178: Mother Tree

Alros perform another observation, trying to find the best spot to attack the grove. As he scour the area, flying on the canopy, he spotted something of interest.

"They seem to be attracted, or protecting that tree," he mused, his eyes laid on a singular tree at the center of the grove. Despite being smaller than any of the surrounding trees, there are 2 treants guarding it.

From how some treemen would occasionally walk towards the tree and put the corpses of other monsters, along with the cores, it safe to assume the tree is important for them.

He eyed the tree with interest, some parts of his original plan changing as well.

-x-

While treemen are human-size monsters, they are as strong, if not stronger than Lizardmen, or at least tougher. It make them near impossible to be beaten by D-rankers, or a singular C-rankers despite supposed being in the same power level.

However, their one disadvantage is that they are slow. While they are faster than the other plant-based monsters, compared to the other monsters and human, they are at most, turtle speed.

Which make it easier to take them out from a distance. Though it still hard due to their barks and them not able to know feeling of pain unless one hack into the deeper part.

However, similar to many other tree species, they are weak to fire. It just being in a swamp make it harder to cause a fire effectively, as the dampness as well as being surrounded by literal water make fire hazard non-existent.

While it normally be hard to cause a fire, it is not impossible. Oils can light up the marsh nicely. And there is also demonic fire, a fire that can only be extinguished by holy power or an overwhelming amount of mana.

This is the weapon of Alro choosing to subdue the treemen. His goblin archers aimed at the 20 treemen guarding the eastern border, their arrows burning with demonic flame.

A volley of demonic flame arrow sail through the air before landing on their target, not even one missing. The treemen able to sense the heat and let out a sound similar to barks being torn from the trees, likely their equivalent of a shriek.

The one who get hit try to extinguish the flame, to none of their avail. The one who did not get shot try to find the attackers while helping the others removing the flame.

As they are distracted, a group of Lizardmen pounced on them, pushing them into the ground. With the weight of a Lizardman on top of them, it is hard for the Treemen to get up, as they are pinned by the other monsters.

With ease, all 20 Treemen were brought down, literally. They are soon brought to Alros, who then began to process of subduing the tree-monsters.

As he try to do so, he could feel a power trying to prevent him from subduing the monster, acting like a shield. Thankfully, it did not have any holy attributes, or it would hurt him badly.

While it is was able to stop him for a while, in the end, his power is just greater compare to the barrier, his demonic mana able to erode the defense and subdue the monsters.

After he was done with the final Treemen, he looked at what appear to be the strongest monster and oldest monster in the group.

"Tell me what is the tree at the center of the grove,"

-x-

"Interesting," Alros said, digesting the new information he just get. Unfortunately, while they are something he could understand due to subduing the monster, it is not possible to learn all of Treean in hours.

So, he could not translate the thing they called the central tree other than some gibberish that he could barely make words off. However it it, there is no way he would call a tree a name so long that it will take a page to finish writing it off.

So, he decided to name it Mother Tree. What the Mother Tree do is that it is akin to a mother to the entire Treeman's tribe. The Mother Tree will produce some seeds, that will then be planted near them.

Akin to a mother, it will divert a portion of it's mana to nurture the saplings, feeding it through the roots, just like a mother feeding her babies. When it grow large and strong enough, just slightly below the size of an average Treeman.

That is why the entire tribe is protective over the Mother Tree. If anything happen to it, it could spell an end to the entire tribe.

As Alros mused over it, he thought once more about the energy that block his attempt to subdue the Treeman. He could feel a hunch that the Mother Tree is the one responsible.

It likely put a mark on the Treeman during their growth stage, making them obedient to the Mother Tree.

"What about the other monsters? Do they form from the Mother Tree too?" he asked.

The Treeman let out another shriek, as Alros listened and thought of the implication.

"So, only Treeman and Treant come from the Mother Tree, and it all depends on both luck and quality of soil, water and mana. While the other monsters did not grow from the Mother Tree, but come to live with the tribes.

After all, the nutrient from the Mother Tree is beneficial to the other plant-based monsters, so they build a symbiotic relationship with the Mother Tree, protecting the grove in return for a place to stay and able to feed off the mana from the Mother Tree.

Looks like it all hinge on capturing the Mother Tree," he finally said, his head thinking of the way to achieve that. After all, the only way to capture the Mother Tree is near impossible. After all, the other monsters will detect movement around the grove. Even if they somehow manage to pass through the other defense, the defense in the place is overkill, name, the Treants.

"Let's try to subdue as much as possible during the attack, after which I will make a beeline for the Mother Tree," he said, thinking several other plans before discarding it.

In the end, the head on approach seem like the best way to defeat the entire grove, though he will send some of his monsters to observe the other grove, less they will call for help too soon.

"Let buy some stuff from the system shop first," soon, crates of arrows, barrels of oils, boxes of axes, all manner of tools that will make deforestation easier had been bought, to make the attack easier.