Chapter 154 Labyrinth [8]
"Hey you all, I don't think you should let your guard down," someone warned, and it was Challes whose words we heard.
"What do you mean, Mr. Slave," Spene inquired; he was still calling Challes "Mr. Slave".
"Look behind you," Challes responded.
Spene turned and as he saw what was back there, he jumped away from the wall almost like a cat.
The wall he was using as support was now moving; or rather, the plants attached to the wall were moving. And this time there was not only one, but all the plants on the floor were slowly separating from the walls and taking their shape.
"This looks bad," Spene sighed.
"Yeah, for sure," Favian agreed.
"More like annoying," Xara corrected.
The three adventures went into battle mode yet again. Spene posed his sword, Favian held his bow and loaded the arrows, Xara poured her mana into her staff and the gem on the top glowed. The three of them stood around me and Challes in a triangular position to defend us.
At last, the tree monsters got away from the walls and formed their bodies. The main structure of each tree—which worked as the spine and the stomach, was made out of wooden trunks, and it was the same in each one of them. But it was different for the other parts of the body, some had vines as hands while some had branches, some had their head made of a big flower while some had them made out of bushes and long, dog-ears-like leaves.
Now that they were in a fixed shape, they looked a bit familiar to a fantasy monster named Ents—so I'll just call them that. If I'd to count their numbers, then there will be around 20 or 30 of them. Each of them was 6 to 7 feet in height, so they overpowered us to a huge extent. But there was no option other than fighting if we wanted to survive.
Hence, as the Ents' roared and screamed and closed the distance and attacked, the three adventured instantly countered.
Spene slashed their branches with his sword, Favian drilled their vines to the wall with his arrows and disturbed their movements, and Xara used her magic to burn the shit out of them.
But despite all that, in less than a second we were surrounded by a horde of Ents; if there had been any way to escape; now it was closed off.
Battle cries left Spene's mouth as he chopped off the trees. It was obvious that he was having a bit of trouble. After all, he was slicing thick and hardwood; and it's not easy to be able to perform that kind of thing.
Though the one with the most disadvantage was Favian; as an archer, he wasn't good in close combat, but the Ents were not just ready to attack him from a distance. The Ents were just wood, and he was also having the same problem as Spene; to pierce through the hardwood.
In fact, he had it even rough. One could cut the wood in half if they applied enough force, but to do that with mere arrows was impossible—even if those arrows were bound with mana. So all he could do was target the vines, which were a little easier target.
And while the two boys were trying hard to remain on the front lines, the girl Xara was having it easy here. From what I've observed she used spells that used the fire element as her primary spells, henceforth she probably had good control over it. That helped her here since Ents were weak against fire; no matter how strong they become they were still trees.
It was actually funny how them being trees and having a body made of wood was giving troubles to Spene and Favian while the same property was making it easier for Xara to finish them. Irony I guess.
She was using her fireballs and some other fire spells to burn the Ents, and she was able to do it quite easily, however, that wasn't enough. The balance between the three of them was not equal, and the formation was starting to crack. Favian was being pushed back and Spene remained at the same place, while Xara was charging forward as she got more ground.
𝑓r𝘦𝘦𝘄eb𝒏𝙤vel.c𝙤𝙢
"Oops!" I murmured as I titled to the side and dodged a vine that came at me with insane speed.
I instantly activated my skill [Foresight] thus allowing myself to see 0.1 seconds into the future. I was practicing with this skill whenever I had free time, and now I knew that I can only focus on one thing and see its future. Like I can focus on the vines and monsters and only their possible attacks will be visible to me while the adventures and everything else will look normal.
This was quite helpful since before, my vision always got messed up whenever I used this skill. But now it was not a problem, so I selected the vines and the monsters as the targets and saw all the possible attacks they could perform in the next 0.1 seconds, and dodged a few more attacks that came afterward.
"Favian, what are you doing? Protect Ichigo!" Spene commanded as he fended off against an Ent who had branched at its arms and was charging at Spene while some other Ents' beside him whipped Spene with their vines. 𝑓𝓇ℯ𝑒𝚠e𝘣𝓷𝘰ѵe𝘭.co𝓂
"I…can't!! I'm not in a position to move! I'll die if I let my defense down even for a second!" he replied. Right now Favian was struggling with 2 Ents at the same time; since they were so close, he was also using his body to attack them and didn't rely only on the arrows.
"Xara!"
"There are many of them on my side, they'll charge inside if I moved from here," she responded. As she was the one wiping most of their kin, the Ents were attracted toward her; she was facing 3 to 4 at the same time.
No one was in a position to come and defend me, and then finally it happened. Spene, Favian, and Xara went so far from each other while facing the Ents that an opening was created, and several Ents rushed inside toward me.
'There was no one coming to fight for me, huh? I guess I'll do it myself then.'