CHAPTER 481: DAMNED LAWS OF PHYSICS

Of course, because of the ice-hole trees’ growth speed, the appearance of flower buds meant that we had only a few hours before the seeds would appear.

Many trees and grasses needed pollinators to carry their pollen from a flower to a flower, but there were plenty of those that could transfer their pollen with wind alone.

I even knew about flowers that could fertilise themselves... It was suboptimal, since the produced seeds will be mere clones, a product of absolute incest, but in some situations, it was necessary for survival.

Snails could do a similar thing... Even bees could’ve evolved it if I went this route.

I didn’t know if even the ice-hole trees’ pollen and seeds would suck the warmth out of their surroundings, but I was going to prepare for the worst possibility.

"Father, we need a plan of action!" Workharder exclaimed. "What if we fly high above and sprinkle acid over the trees to hit their flower buds?"

"We still don’t have enough acid to catch them all," I refuted immediately. "This is still a war, not a single battle, Workharder. At least we already have people placed around the edges of the avalanche to clear them up. They can become our cordons and work to prevent seeds from going outside of the frozen forest."

I was already calculating this plan in my head. The existing defences we had weren’t enough to catch something as elusive as tree seeds easily, but we could try. The Oracles could calculate the wind’s directions beforehand. As for the seeds, in order to fly, they would have to be large and noticeable.

"We need to speak with Bloodhero. Have her send in dragon riders who will be able to catch and bring down the seeds before they fly beyond the cordons. And the woodcutter teams will have extra work after this."

Hearing even such a basic plan of action immediately cheered Workharder up. She stood taller and puffed out her chest with renewed self-assurance and conviction.

"Got it, Father! I will gather the Council!" declared Workharder and turned around, clearly intending to leave.

I stood up, waving my arms at her.

"The Council? It will take too much time! We will spend an hour just on discussions when we must act instead!"

"Oh... You are so right, Father!" Workharder swung her hammer so energetically that she almost hit the ceiling candelabra. "Let’s go find Bloodhero and crush the children of these trees! Maybe this will teach them to stay away from us."

I sighed.

She was a bit TOO eager to act and crush the enemies of the Empire.

"They are just seeds, anyway. And I doubt these trees have any wits to realise what’s going on around them."

***

Our war and work machine had moved with great speed again. Although the ice-hole trees grew fast, the Bee Empire’s speed of actions wasn’t anything to scoff at!

By the time the first ice-hole flowers bloomed, the cordon teams were almost ready to counteract them with acid. Dragon riders were gathering from all the surrounding regions. Their beasts were not against clawing some seeds, and on their back they carried rifle-bees ready to shoot.

The seeds would be much smaller than the trees, and I hoped that bees with their rifles would be able to bring them to the ground.

The flowers themselves weren’t anything impressive. Each of them was only the size of a bee-sized bed—pretty small for a flower!—and pale white. By using an astral projection, I could watch them bloom in real time.

Their lack of size, the flowers compensated with amounts: they grew in clusters of dozens, and there were up to several hundred flowers growing on each tree! Truly prolific.

The trees shook their branches slightly as they grew, and the flowers shook off grains of pollen all over. If the Bee Empire’s forces didn’t burn them with acid first, of course.

Then I could watch a fascinating sight of a flower shaking off its petals and becoming a cluster of seeds in real time. It was like a sped-up video, but much closer and larger!

These clusters of seeds reminded me very strongly of dandelions. Each seed was only the size of a basketball, but had a bee-sized feather-like "umbrella" growing from it. There were dozens of these seeds, and each blow of wind threatened to take them off the tree and carry them far, far away.

Thanks to the Oracles, we knew where the wind would blow and where to send the most seed-catching squads. However...

Physics wasn’t on our side here!

Because the trees sucked the warmth around them, while the surrounding area was tropically cold, there appeared a massive shift in temperatures that never let up.

The cold air became dense and gathered closer to the ground, from which it spread around, creating powerful gusts of cold wind that could spread the ice-hole tree seeds.

At the same time, warm air above the trees, following the same laws of physics, rushed into the frozen forest to replace the lost air. This created warm winds that heated the area back again and made the trees grow faster.

As a side effect of this phenomenon, the area around the avalanche grew thick with mist. It didn’t do the Bee Empire’s forces any notable harm, but it was reducing visibility and making our mechas harder to maintain.

No matter what, the cold wind was going to blow away from the frozen forest, carrying with it the trees’ seeds.

In short, we were at a disadvantage we could do nothing about!

The wind blew, and the first seeds flew away from the frozen forests toward our lush green grass and the cordons of humans and bees ready to meet them. One seed quickly became a few dozen, then a few hundred...

I watched from afar, silently pleading to my shitty luck:

’Please, just don’t freeze, too! Make our lives easier at least in one tiny aspect, you damned trees!’