The System

CH- 41: Trick or Treat.

    Dandralith uses an earth skill to lock onto their location before sending her roots. The smoke only blocked their view of the battlefield. A dumb move from a dumb human. Yet she suffered the loss, unable to connect a single hit.

There is more trickery added to that smoke.

'Humans...' Her voice grew sharp with fury,

A gust of wind carries away the smoke along with the spores. A clear view revealed the human staring dead into the Dandralith's eyes.

Cold calculation and unknown forces under his command.

'I have to kill him.' The Dandralith snaps to a decision.

Tetsu stared at the Dandralith, confused. 'How the fuck does it see?' He shrugs and turns to the rhino again. "See these..." He points at the roots he butchered. "These are its limbs or whatever. We have to leave." He joins his hands, pleading.

RJ steps aside, gesturing him to leave.

"That ain't the only flower in the wilderness..." Tetsu tries using sign language for the first time, hoping this will convey the warning.

Normal words didn't get through to her, and he didn't want to yell and alert the Dandralith of their findings.

"There are others out there and there and there." He points by twisting his mouth in various directions.

RJ gawked at the weird human and boiled its doubts to one question. "It? Is he talking about the Dandralith? But all of them are she's, not it's. Everyone knows that."

Tetsu kept tossing charcoal shards as he tried to put some sense into the 'jelly for brains' Rhino.

A gust of wind carries the smoke away into the forest. Tetsu makes a plan to follow the wind, using the smoke as cover. They just had to find a pit and hide...

Dandralith activates a skill, detonating each pore with more firepower than a hand grenade.

The entire section of the forest behind the Dandralith levels to the ground with a lucky few boulders surviving the blast.

A blazing forest severed every other root of escape.

Tetsu gapes at the roots he struggled to cut while using two runes, a skill, and his tooth acting as the blade. A tiny piece of info he hid away, resurfaced.

The true affinity of a Dandralith; Fire!

The Dandralith was done playing games. Its initial plan to level up its weaker skills faded. Now she wanted to level the entire area.

A green blaze covered Dandralith's roots as she uprooted herself from the ground and floated into the air. The flames over the whip-like tendrils create an air pressure to keep her afloat. The Air pressure also worked as a protective layer that blocked any smoke from entering.

This wasn't much of a transformation but pure mastery of herself, as she used the arrows in her quiver to form a barrier.

Unable to identify the smoke, she played it safe. Some fuckery went on inside that smoke and she made this barrier to keep that fuckery away.

Despite being stuck at level one, the human slipped past her tendrils, severed them, and also disappeared into the smoke. With so many deceptive skills, it's not far-fetched to assume a smoke skill, hiding its true level. Which meant that the human had a bond and skills related to smoke.

That is the reason it keeps releasing smoke. All of its attacks revolve around the smoke affinity. Perfect for a cowardly, deceitful race.

The Dandralith withdrew her head, the silvery white blob, to the center and manipulated the blazing tendrils to surround it. This way, she can both attack and defend at the same time.