<h4>Chapter 1354 Chapter 1354 King Crab </h4>


    ?--- Lily ---


    Good news bad news time.


    Good news, after heading deeper into the forest Lily had found another treasure chest and confirmed a few things. The deeper in, the more unique the scenery got. By the time Lily reached the grove at the centre, the kelp stalks had be more like kelp willow trees, with the kelp hanging off a bunch of branches, with the centre trunk looking like some weird hybrid of a normal tree and bamboo. It had obvious ''rings'' that stuck out and a very green colour… but the texture was exactly like that of bark instead of the smoothness of bamboo.


    Nowes the bad news. The thing she''d Lily had confirmed was that Thyme WOULD give one of the crabs a treasure chest to guard. Worse news, the crabs had been gettingrger andrger as she got closer to the centre of the kelp forest. The crab she assumed was the boss crab was easily the size of a small house.


    Worst news was that its little grove consisted of four trees, one in each corner, and a little bonsai in the middle that was clearly still being watched carefully. The problem? Lily, even with herparatively new mana sensing abilities could feel the mana practically pouring off those trees. Each one had their own ''vour'' of mana. Two were obviously water based, with one a slightly paler shade of blue, perhaps edging towards ice type mana into of sticking with just water.


    The other two werepletely different. One appeared to be healing, or perhaps ''life'' attuned. It had a bunch of flowers around it. Not ''flower like coral'' but what looked like ordinary flowers from the surface. It seemed to be allowing them to grow inpletely unsuitable conditions. It looked quite nice, and Lily felt very tempted to go roll around through the flowers… but it also seemed like by far the most powerful tree, and it really didn''t seem like a good idea to mess with it.


    The final tree was made out of shadows. Even just looking at it, Lily felt like her understanding of shadow magic was somehow increasing. It was by far the weakest of the set other than the small bonsai kelp tree that seemed to be aligned with wind. If the life based one felt like something fun to frolic around, the shadow based one called to something deeper. It felt like sitting around underneath it for a while would be a major boon to her.


    Of course, the giant crab was a pretty big reason NOT to go investigate it. The crab itself was easily twice asrge as its smaller brethren, perhapsrger. It also had two extra sets of arms. Both smaller then the ''original'' two. It seemed that as the crabs got bigger, they grew new arms so that they could still tend to kelp properly without losing any details. Though that extra tiny set of ws was MUCH smaller then even the smallest other crabs. Perhaps thetest set was for even more detail work then then the standard crabs.


    *I wonder if the smallest set is a mutation unique to this crab? It seems that they can somehow improve the health of the kelp over time all the way up to this fantastical scene. I don''t know if the fact I haven''t seen any other kelp that''s so clearly magical is a testament to it''s skill or if it''s aggression. I could see it wiping outpetition with itsrger size… but once again they seem sort of peaceful. Then again, that''s still ignoring the elephant in the room the chest.*


    Indeed. The chest. See, the crab wasn''t just protecting it, no the crab was actively using it as part of its hat. The crab had a number of fancy things stuck to its head as part of arge hat. It had them all sitting on what looked to be an old silver tter. From there, it had added whatever caught its eye by the looks of things. It had a number of colourful shells, some flowers from the life tree preserved in some kind of sap, the treasure chest of course, as well as a few bluish rocks and a single feather.


    *So the question is. How do I get the chest? I''m not sure I could fight one the weaker crabs so I''m CERTAIN I can''t fight this big one. That leaves stealth but… well…* Lily looked over the grove. The suspiciously empty grove. There was exactly three fish inside the entire thing. Two of them were hovering around underneath the crab and it seemed to be tolerating their presence without issue. It was aware of them, because when Lily saw one of them try to move towards the little bonsai the crab smacked it away with the second smallest w, but quite lightly.


    The third fish was muchrger then the other two, about Lily''s own size. It was swimming around inside the not-quite-ice attuned tree. It didn''t seem to be able to get out either based on the fact that it would bump into the ''edge'' of the tree before reorientating itself.It was possible that the fish just didn''t want to leave, but Lily didn''t know what to look for to determine something like that.


    I don''t know how it''s keeping all the other fish out of the grove. On top of that, it''s able to keep track of the fish underneath it without even looking at it. The thing''s eyes didn''t so much as twitch when the fish moved. It seemedpletely focused on the little bonsai but based on the fact it reacted to the fish at all, it clearly isn''t tunnel visioningpletely. Though it is being careful with the little tree…


    What are my options here? I can try to send out my shadow but if I get caught I might be in trouble. Can it even notice something like that though? And if I DO want to use my shadow should I try it close to the shadow tree or further away? I would guess close by but my instincts are telling me that''s a bad idea. So… maybe try and send my shadow down from above? I guess we can see how it goes.


    With the decision made Lily started to swim upwards, making sure not to disturb the nearby trees on her way. She kept as far as she could from the shadow tree, though of course Lily couldn''t get too far away lest the crab be out of range. Once in position Lily slowly started to extend her shadow downwards in a thin stream towards the crab. She didn''t think it was possible to take the chest, so the n was to open it and nick what was inside without the crab noticing.


    Slight problem with that? Before Lily''s shadow had made it half of the distance there, it dissipated. Simply snapping back to its position in her shadow. Lily frowned and poured more mana into her shadow and tried again. Same result. A third time, with nearly half of her entire mana pool actively maintaining the shadow. This time she got closer, when the crab paused in its motions and looked at the string of shadow. It smacked the ground twice near the shadow tree and then all of a sudden Lily felt all of the mana in her shadow get ripped away.


    She watched in surprise, and slight horror as a ck blob of shadow was absorbed into the kelp tree the crab was tending. It wacked the ground lightly two more times while looking, quite obviously, at Lily. Lily was too shocked to really do anything for a while. Though when the crab tapped the ground twice more while looking up and her and then down at the ground then back up at her.


    *Um… what do I do?* Another two taps, this time with thergest set of ws. Lily could feel the shockwaves from them moving all the way up where she was swimming and she couldn''t help but shiver a little. What the crab wanted was obvious… what Lily should do was getting less so.


    * I guess… I guess I just say a quick prayer to Thyme and head down? If the crab can somehow control the trees, and they, or at least, the shadow tree, can affect me all the way up here… I''m not sure I can escape. I guess I know why there isn''t any fish around that it doesn''t want. It can just control the magical kelp trees and use their power to force things away. It makes me wonder if there even IS anypetition. It''s at a much higher level then I''d imagined.*


    With it allid out like that, Lily decided she didn''t like her chances at running away from the crab so without any other options she calmly swam down to the spot on the ground it had been tapping. Lily was surprised when she saw the crab back up slightly away from the mark on the ground, giving her a bit of space. Not much. She was still certainly within grabbing range, but it was something.