Dismissing the screen, Sam stretched a little, then joined the rest of the team, who were already looking around the clearing, though no one stepped on any of the paths visible. Hell, except for Katie, everyone was staying a healthy step away from the edge of the forest.

However, Sam noted humorously that all of them were glancing his way, as if expecting him to offer up a solution to the fracture. Well, he could do that, but he didn't want the headache that came with it.

Instead, he just raised an eyebrow. "Why're you guys looking at me?"

Clarissa scoffed. "Do you expect us to believe that you took us to a random low-level fracture for funsies?"

Isabella let out a sigh. "Heh, if people heard you call this a low-level fracture, they would have a heart attack…"

Clarissa ignored her and continued to stare at Sam. He just shrugged. "I heard it was somewhat of a puzzle, wanted something simple for when I returned to the game…"

"Uhum…" she responded with a tone that declared exactly how much she believed him.

Dan interrupted them with excitement. "I can try to burn the forest!"

All of them looked at him, causing him to feel a little abashed, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean, I've looked up this fracture," Dan began to explain as the rest of them watched him. "There are three paths at the beginning, then those will split into two later, creating six paths altogether with different bosses at the end. So, I thought instead of following any of them, we could simply burn the forest down and reveal the hidden path."

"I mean, it makes a certain sense," Isabella agreed with the man, while Katie eagerly nodded behind her. The crazy girl probably just wanted to see the forest burn.

However, Clarissa also slowly nodded. "A traditional answer…could work."

Sam smiled and nodded too. "Sure, go ahead and try it."

Isabella and Katie stepped next to him, with the spiky armored young woman almost hopping in place and clapping as she waited for the magical bonfire, while Clarissa simply ambled over with a sigh.

Apparently, she knew how to read him and knew that it wouldn't work. Naturally, it wouldn't be that easy. And while he liked to think that he was smarter than the average person, they were not the first ones to try setting fire to the forest.

In a magical setting like Magic Unbound, setting fire to things was an oft-tried solution that worked out in a surprisingly large number of cases. If Sam remembered correctly, there was even an odd report that circulated around in the forums a few years into the game's life, which proclaimed the worldwide number of arson cases had declined sharply since the game's launch.

Dan did a few stretches, then took a club – new one, that Sam hadn't seen yet – adorned with all sorts of blue and red crystal, held it in front of him with his eyes closed, in a sort of meditative position, before with a sudden movement he raised it above his head and magic began to rise in the air.

Sam, with all his senses directed at his friend, could see as the tip of the club became the locus of the spell, gathering mana in a swirl, not unlike a whirlpool, as they all felt the very air warm up around them and then turn really hazy around Dan.

"Burn! Burn! Burn!" Katie whispered, excitement radiating from her entire body, with Isabella holding her from jumping around like an excited kid by holding her by her shoulder.

Soon, the magic became visible, first a few threads of crimson mana, radiating all-consuming heat, which slowly but surely turned into threads that had the thickness of an arm, swirling around the tip of Dan's club. Then, the first thread reached the center point and curled around itself, creating a small ball of fire mana. That action seemingly had a cascading effect as the rest of the mana simply began rushing toward the same point, increasing its size every second, turning it from angry red, to burned orange, then searing white with the slightest blue edges, before the white color began to thin out, leaving behind hints of blue and a color Sam found hard to describe.

However, the color was the least of their worries. The air around the club, hell, around Dan, was positively sizzling with heat, while he looked completely unbothered by it. Sam couldn't even guess what kind of resistance the man had to withstand that kind of temperature regularly.

The grass under him had long since evaporated, and the ground looked like it was starting to sizzle and bubble with a slight orange color. Even they were uncomfortable as the air around them became rather dry suddenly, all the water seemingly vanishing from their surroundings.

Sam watched with fascination, and not a small amount of horror, as his muscled friend seemingly held the ball of super-heated fire magic above him before, looking like a statue before he let out an explosive breath and with one smooth motion, brought the club down in front of him, pointing at the forest and exclaimed, voice hoarse due to the dry air.

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"TRUE PLASMA ANNIHILATION!"

The moment the last syllable left his mouth, the containment on the ball of fire magic broke, and hell was let loose in the fracture.

VRROOOOSH

Sam had to close his eyes due to the eye-searing light that was generated, but with his Mana Sense, he could observe as a giant column of 'fire' was unleashed in front of Dan, drilling into the forest, not even burning things, simply causing things to cease to exist.

The others may have said something, but Sam could only hear the roar of magic, the heat most assuredly giving him a sunburn.

After a few seconds, when they could hear the roar of flames echoing in their ears, and the surrounding temperature went from high noon in a desert to a warm Mediterranean afternoon, he finally opened his eyes.

It was rather impressive.

As far as his eyes could see, there was only destruction.

Stone cracked and broke as the heat expanded instantly, and now it was cooling down while the slowly solidifying as the liquified rocks began to take new shapes.

As for the forest?

There was no forest before them.

Dan stood there, still holding his club, breathing heavily, but with a satisfied glow on his face and a grin almost splitting it in two.

Clarissa was gaping, and Isabella's arms hung beside her as she similarly stared at the devastation, while Katie just cheered.

"AWESOME! You showed that damn forest who is the boss!"

Dan sent them a shaky thumbs up, but then he let out a disappointed sigh.

"It wasn't enough, though…"

"What?"

"Look!" he said while pointing at the rapidly cooling devastation before them. Sam looked and saw what his friend was pointing at. Already, plants were crawling out from underground and growing back into trees in front of their very eyes.

As if watching a fast-forward, the team stood there, rooted to the ground, as the previously desolate landscape began to shoot up, vines climbing, trees rapidly growing to their previous height, bushes sprouting up from nothingness, returning to the vista as it was before Dan unleashed the primordial destruction on it.

"Bummer…"

Sam chuckled, stepped next to his friends, and clapped him on the shoulder. "At least you gave it a try! Come on, let's see what happens if we walk in…"

Katie rushed forward, excited. "Let me go first!"

Sam turned sideways, letting the excited young woman go first, and watched as she stepped onto the path in the middle.

For a moment, nothing happened, then one odd vine slashed toward her in a flash, intent on wrapping around her throat. She just let out a cackle, and eldritch yellow lightning shredded the aggressive vine into pieces.

As if on a signal, the rest of the forest came alive following the vine's death. Bushes began to shake, and oddly-shaped black eyes started to appear on them, formed from the shadows between leaves. Vines began to slither, all of them facing toward them, even though they lacked what one may call a face. Trees similarly began to shake and creak as Sam and his team watched as they slowly but deliberately ripped up their thick roots and turned toward the intruders.

The air itself was filled with mana, emanating from beyond the suddenly rather dangerous forest, but seemingly all of it aimed at them, more specifically, Dan. It seemed something really didn't appreciate his artistic expression.

"Maybe the second time is the charm?" Isabella asked as she began to sway to music only she could hear, magic seeping out of her and enveloping the rest of them, while also unsheathing her blades. "Maybe with more fire? Like a lot more?"

Dan's reply was practically dry as a desert. "It's on cooldown…"

"Well…fuck."

Fire helped.

Not much, but it ensured that all the small creepy-crawlies created from the flora found in the forest couldn't swarm them as they dealt with the onslaught of the treants, bush monsters, vine snakes, flower butterflies, exploding cones, rabid squirrels, and suicidal finches.

The entire team was locked in a dance of death and destruction.

Dan was in the middle, back to back with Clarissa, one of them flooding the area with fire, carefully avoiding his teammates, and the other using their finely honed senses, providing healing or other services where needed, while occasionally letting go of a small spell to take care of a few stragglers that escaped the other's notice.

Katie, Isabella, and Sam were, however, circling the two, equidistant from each other, their weapons and magic whirling around them as they destroyed the monsters that rushed toward the clearing. Katie maniacally laughing as eldritch light and her giant greatsword made fodder out of the animated flora, Isabella elegantly dancing between strikes from the enemy, while returning her own precise ones. Sam was taking it easy, simply enveloping himself and his sword in an aura of nothingness and erasing all the plant monsters that approached the area he was protecting.

"They're endless!" Isabella called out between two strikes and a twirl, proving her mettle as a Bladedancer.

"The forest is still regenerating!" Dan added as he had a clearer view of the enemy.

And he was right. No matter how many monsters they defeated, burned, cut into pieces, consumed via the void – whatever Katie did to them – there seemed to be an endless number of them.

Sam just grinned. "Let's see who can keep it up longer! Us or the forest!"

It was them.

The forest put up a good fight, but thanks to the level differences, the skills they managed to gather, and his own advantages, soon fewer and fewer trees showed up, then the animals vanished from the battle until they were simply kicking around a few bushes that had the bad luck to be the last ones to die.

The area around was littered with dead wood, all sorts of plants cut to ribbons, ash, and burned remnants of the animals that besieged them. The forest, however, looked like one of those photos Sam saw of deforestation. Brown ground, littered with stumps, holes, and weird tracks. In the distance, they could see the odd mist swirling around, yet none of the described boss monsters could be seen.

Granted, the treants that attacked them were similar to the Giant Treant that one of the paths led to, but the boss was nowhere to be seen.

"It's too quiet…" Katie whispered dramatically, while her greatsword flashed with yellow light, ready to tear into the next monster, wherever it may come from.

Before any of them could comment, they were interrupted by a sound.

ROOOAAAAAR

A giant roar, strong enough to shake the ground where they stood, erupted from somewhere, and Sam could see the mana begin to flow underground. The team exchanged a glance and turned toward the devastated vista.

KRA-THOOOM

The ground exploded, sending stone, rocks, dust and dead plant material everywhere.

"You just had to say it…" Dan grumbled.

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