The earth seemed to have come to life, and it started rumbling. The snow on the trees started falling, and the trees bowed, as if welcoming their master. And then a dark, narrow path was revealed.

To Buzz’s horror, two wrinkly, wooden hands held the trunks, or to be precise, the ‘hands’ were made out of countless intertwining vines. The hands pushed themselves back, revealing a gigantic being kneeling behind the path. “I-is that a-a deer?”

The creature’s head was as big as an average adult human, with a pair of gigantic antlers protruding from the sides of its head. Each of the antlers looked like the branches of a tree, and they were intertwined. Its face was as long as a deer’s, but it had no flesh on it, not even on its snout, and only a mere skull remained. Eerie flames seemed to dance in its eye sockets, sending fear into those who saw them. Its torso and limbs were made of tree trunks and vines, covered by a layer of fern.

The monster took a step forward, and its face was just a few feet away from Buzz, its ten foot height blocking everything in Buzz’s sight. The leshen was one with the darkness, spreading darkness, fear, and death to its surrounding. Buzz’s hairs stood on end, and he trembled, feeling suffocated. It took all his head to blurt out, “W-what the hell are you?”

The leshen growled, its voice grating. Before Buzz could say another word, the leshen raised its gigantic hand and slammed it downward.

This is it. Buzz closed his eyes in despair, but then a gust of wind howled behind him, and a deafening boom surrounded him. He heard an inhuman gasp of pain, and the monster pulled its hand back, and someone appeared beside Buzz.

He looked small compared to the leshen, but for some reason, Buzz thought he was infallible. “Letho!” Buzz roared in excitement, and he started crying. He was about to die a moment ago, but then he’d found out he was still alive. It was a harrowing experience to say the least.

“Be quiet!” Letho stood before the dwarf, his face filled with black veins thanks to the potion he had, and he held his short swords before his chest, yellowish oil and crimson blood gleaming on them. The blood belonged to the elf who’d led Buzz to his would-be death.

The leshen was twenty feet away from Letho. Letho could smell the scent of soil and grass from it, but also the faint stench of blood. His necklace started humming, and the ground pulsed, as if a creature’s tongue was trying to coil around its prey.

A vine whipped upward from the snow and tried to wrap them, not unlike how a python would. There was a stench emanating from it, and Buzz started shouting for help. Letho sliced the vine, cutting it in half, and green fluid oozed from it. The broken vine squirmed on the ground like a sliced worm. “Don’t just stand there and scream, you fool! Take this!”

Buzz scrambled to take the knife Letho tossed him, and he smiled wryly. “You want a limp like me to fight that with this little knife?” But he couldn’t complain, for the leshen had started howling, and dozens of vines were crashing toward them like a waterfall.

Letho grabbed Buzz and rolled away, but the vines didn’t stop chasing them, and soon, they were surrounded. Eventually, the vines formed a cocoon, trapping Letho and Buzz within it. The leshen sighed, and then it went ahead and held the cocoon within its slender, wrinkly hand. And it gripped it. The cocoon that was made out of countless vines started squirming as the leshen’s grip became tighter, and it turned smaller and smaller.

Sounds of things rubbing against each other came from within the cocoon, and then a crack was heard. The leshen took an involuntary step back, and if its face still had flesh on it, it would’ve looked horrified. The weird sound kept going on and on, until the cocoon suddenly stopped contracting, and the vines started trembling, murmuring into the night. They were shivering in fear, as if they’d encountered a predator.

The leshen watched quietly, and then a beam of light shone from within the cocoon, and after that, the vines fell off, drying up and dying right away. Steam escaped from some of the vines, as if they were getting cooked. The leshen opened its arms, and the forearms turned into two sharp spikes. It tried to pierce the cocoon, but what greeted it was a whip of flame, though it only lasted for a moment. However, that moment was enough to make the leshen clutch its arms in agony and back off.

Letho was kneeling on one knee, supporting himself with his sword. He was panting, his whole body red. Even though they escaped death, it took a toll on him. He was bleeding from his face, and his armor was broken, blood gushing out. Buzz was lying on the ground, life hanging on by a thread.

“Homta, morata…” The leshen started chanting while Letho was catching his breath, then howls of wolves came from afar. Letho quickly made a sign in the air and sent a green beam flying straight at the leshen. The leshen was caught by surprise, and it was stunned for a moment, forcing it to stop chanting. Letho took the chance to hurl a bomb at it.

The canister was smashed into pieces, and white smoke with black particles in it enveloped the leshen, blocking its magical flow and its connection with nature. The leshen howled and quickly backed out of the smoke.

Letho crossed his short swords, creating sparks in the air, and then he pounced on the leshen. Buzz was still lying on the ground, and never once did he expect to see a witcher fighting a monster up close in his life.

The leshen’s magic had been sealed once the dimeritium bomb had been set off, and it could only engage in close quarter combat with Letho. It was like seeing David fight Goliath, except David was a witcher, and Goliath was a leshen. It looked funny, but dangerous at the same time. The leshen had incredible strength and was invincible. Its every attack left a crater in the ground, but since it lost its magic, it became the prisoner in a prison it created.

It was as if the leshen was constricted by a shirt too small, and it couldn’t exert its full strength. It’d clumsily hit the pine trees from time to time, wasting energy for nothing.

On the other hand, the witcher, while big in the dwarf’s eyes, had astounding speed. He moved around as if there were wings on his legs, evading the leshen’s claws by a hair’s breadth at times. Whenever the leshen tried to go around Letho to attack Buzz, Letho would force it to retreat with Igni.

Letho was a cunning and cautious fighter. He’d retreat after every strike with his short sword, not giving it any openings. That was how snakes hunted. His short swords acted like fangs, biting into the leshen and poisoning it whenever he saw an opening. Then he’d hide behind the trees.

Vipers had lethal venom, and Letho’s venom was the oil and poison on his short swords. The leshen had a tough hide, so the stabs wouldn’t damage it too much, but all Letho needed to do was scrape its skin, then his oil and poison would invade the leshen’s body, corroding and destroying it that way.

If someone saw the fight from afar, they’d see a titan roaring in the forest, while someone was swirling around it like a phantom.

Two minutes of intense battle later, the leshen had accumulated countless injuries, and green blood oozed from them. Letho was hit twice, and blood trickled down his cheek. His right arm was mangled and hung limply at his side. Even so, he showed no panic or frustration. He cast one final Igni and threw the flames at the gigantic monster, and then he took a deep breath and put his short sword down.

A moment later, green blood spurted from the leshen’s countless wounds, and it fell like a boat that was sinking because of the countless holes in its hull. Letho watched closely as the giant fell with a rumbling thud. It lay on the ground, spread eagled, its chest heaving, and the light in its eyes dimmed.

Letho uncorked a Swallow and finished it in one gulp. A moment later, the wounds on his body stopped bleeding, but he still wouldn’t take his eyes off the leshen. At the same time, he moved his right arm with his left to snap the bones back into place, giving it a semblance of an arm. He helped the heavily injured dwarf up and fed him a bottle of marigold potion. The bitter taste made Buzz frown, and he woke up.

“I-is the monster dead, Letho? Did we survive?” The dwarf could see that the leshen was almost dead, but the fatal hit hadn’t been landed yet.

“Ash to ash, dust to dust. It was born in the woods, therefore it shall die in the woods. That is its fate, but it has to live, at least for a little while longer.” And then Letho’s face fell, for the leshen suddenly turned into a ball of smoke and disappeared into thin air.