Since the start of the battle, a 300-meter area of Felden has been turned to rubble. The once lively decorated streets were now deserted, with booths destroy and cobblestone roads cracked and shattered. Grayish brown roots sprouted and tangled everywhere, it looked like a tree had spread its roots over the area.

In the mid of this scene of destruction was Helina, she was looking around trying to find her opponent, since the start of the battle he hadn’t shown himself and only attacked by manipulating the roots that currently covered the area. Helina was an experienced warrior, her power was a the threshold of become an S rank combative, still, right now Helina felt that she was being led around. As she scanned the debris for Chris, she snorted a vein appearing on her forehead.

“Are you going to fight or hide. If you’re not going to come out then…” [Helina]

Helina’s sword started to glow with a faint red light, she then thrusted her sword into the sky and the red energy shot into the air until it reach 100 meters. The red energy had transformed into one hundred small red swords. Roots sprouted from the ground and thrusted at Helina along with the roots in the surrounding area. Seeing this, she smiled with confidences and brought down her sword, in which the red glowing swords above started to rain down piercing the attack roots as well as destroying the surrounding area. This was Helina’s skill

[One Hundred Flickering Swords] , while calmly watching, she spotted a shadow moving in around from building to building.

“Found you!” [Helina]

She lowered her body, making use of her well-developed leg muscles, she shot forward with lightning speed, the building she had been standing on crumbled from the force she exerted. Arriving where she last saw the shadow, Helina swung her sword that was clad in red energy, creating a large arc of red energy that sliced the building in two. Helina watches the dust cloud that formed from the collapsing building while concentrating to find the slightest movement or odd sound. From the dust cloud even with the sound of falling rubble she heard a faint buzzing sound.

A large cloud of wasps surged out of the cloud, quickly they swarmed around Helina attempting to sting her. Reacting quickly she jumped back to avoid getting enveloped in the cloud of buzzing insects. The swarm followed her with incredible speed, Helina’s face stiffened as a result. Suddenly, a red aura enveloped her body and expanded to form a sphere of small red semi-translucent daggers. The swarm of insects attack the sphere, surprisingly the daggers moved and cut the incoming wasps to bits.

“Haha, is that all you got kid. If so, give up on winning.” [Helina]

The corpses of the wasp littered the ground around Helina as she began to laugh.

“I guess I’ll have to get a little more serious huh.” [Chris]

A voice she wasn’t familiar came from behind her, spin around to find a dark brown and green figure in front of her. A layer of smooth dark brown bark cover Chris, making it looked like his skin was made of bark, the bark had light green veils running in a random vine-like pattern. Chris’ hands and feet now had small razor sharp claws, his face had no facial features except for what resembled a toothy smile. Truly he looked like a humanoid monster from deep within some forest.

“There you are, well have you decide to fight or are you going to hide again.” [Helina]

Chris didn’t answer, the toothy smile opened and Chris let out a roar that didn’t sound the least bit human. Suddenly trees, bushes, flowers, and other forms of vegetation started to grow. The forming forest engulfs the city covering everything in green, quickly a dense forest had formed, very little sunlight entered give low visibility. Helina looked around in surprise, she stood on a thick tree branch. It was hard to see the canopy of the forest, the trees had to have been 20 meters tall, their branches sprouting in all directions.

Suddenly, the branch Helina was standing on moved and she began to fall, panicking she tried to grab another branch. The branch she grabbed at to her surprise moved away from her, she continued to fall.

“Damn, he's not going to let me stop myself.” [Helina]

Helina smashed into the ground creating a small crater, luckily for her she activated [True Sword Aura] which covered her in a red aura that helped her withstand the impact. Breathing heavy she stood, Helina could feel that two of her ribs were broken, looking around she again became enraged.

“Stop hiding!” [Helina]

In response, an inhuman laugh could be heard echoing through the forest. Chris’ tactics let him be in control of the fight, always having a plan, never getting nervous, and always moving the fight in the way that best suits him. Chris knew that in this fight it still was only a fifty percent chance he would win, so he had to be cautious, not showing any openings. His current plan was to exhaust Helina, then go in for the final blow.

Unfortunately, Chris was hit with two of the swords from [One Hundred Flickering Swords] . It would take some time before he was back at full strength, still he had multiple plans all ready to be set into motions.

Helina finally couldn’t take it anymore, she couldn’t enjoy this battle it was too boring. Helina grabbed at a stone in her breast pocket, looking at the clear perfect sphere in her hand she smiled.

“Time to make things interesting.” [Helina]

She then swallowed the stone, energy exploded from in her rushing to her eyes. Helina’s eyes turned to a deep red color, she looked around then vanished. Thanks to [Terra Network] Chris was given time to react, moving just a sec before Helina appeared behind him, swinging her sword she had cut the branch Chris had been standing on. Not letting out Helina followed Chris slashing at Chris, luckily because of his heightened sense and increased mental capacity his reaction time was far beyond human standards, which allowed him to dodge Helina’s attack by a paper thin margin. Still even with his reaction time, Chris was lightly cut several times.

Chris didn’t know how, but that stone that Helina swallowed seemed to let her find him with ease. Chris could no longer hide, so his only choice was to meet her head on. Though, not only was Chris weaker than Helina in a head to head fight, but right now he was also wounded, but so was she.

Helina now was smiling savagely, each time her sword moved she looked to be in ecstasy. Suddenly, the forest moved branches speared towards Helina from all directions. She wove and slashed at the branches barely slowing as she followed Chris. Fortunately, the goal of the branches weren’t for attack, Chris used one of the branches like a springboard and redirected himself to fly at Helina, Orthos appeared in his hand and wind began to form around the hammer's head. Helina’s sword also began to glow with a red light, both swung their weapons at full strength, a shock wave was created from the terrifying amount of power released by the two. The forest groaned as the shockwave bent trees and tore up the landscape.

Both Chris and Helina were thrown backwards crashing into the ground creating two craters. Helina was the first to crawl out of her crater, quickly standing she rushed towards Chris, each step leaving a foot mark in the stone. Chris barely had time to create use [Cage of Thorns] to defend as Helina’s sword aimed for his head. Creating roots Chris made Helina back off so not to get skewered by the spear like roots.

Helina continued to smile as she leaped into the air to smash down on the cage of bushes, though she was cut multiple times from the thorns, she didn’t care. Chris didn’t hesitate creating countless stinger minions to attack Helina, she again retreated while activating [Blade Barrier]. Chris know that right now they were at a stalemate, Chris had discovered just by seeing it once that Helina couldn’t move while [Blade Barrier] active. So, she was forced to stay in the barrier while the stinger minions buzzed around her in a tornado-like fashion.

The stalemate lasted for 10 minutes, finally when Chris was almost in full form he got up. Hefting Orthos over his right shoulder Chris walked forward until he was about 15 meters away from the swirling storm of insects. Suddenly, the wasps dispersed exposing the barrier of red daggers, Helina looked at him puzzled, so far he hadn’t really tried to confront her head on.

Still, to Helina this was her only chance. She dispelled her barrier and charged at Chris with all her strength causing an explosion to appear from where she had just stood. Instantly, Helina was in front of Chris swinging her red light covered sword, murderous intent filled her eyes. As she swung down her sword Helina notice that Chris was smiling, it was a trap, but it was too late. Chris swung Orthos with terrifying speed, forcing Helina to redirect her swords angle to be able to dodge by a hair’s breath.

Helina moved backwards to make so distances between Chris and her, but Chris didn’t let up. Following Helina again swung Orthos at Helina, though she managed to dodge, Orthos hit the ground and immediately roots shot up from the ground in every direct surround Helina.

“What!” [Helina]

Her body twisted in the air in an attempt to dodge, still several roots managed to give her shallow cuts. Chris was smiling, currently he was using [Amplification Stinger] to increase his stats. While in the Oracle Chamber, Chris managed to learn how to withstand up to 50% amplification. Luckily, each stinger only boosts his stats by 5% so one swarm of Stringer minions is his limit.

Landing, Helina kicked off the ground like an arrow, Chris swung Orthos parrying Helina’s sword. Sword and hammer clashed repeatedly, neither side budging an inch. Another confrontation forced both sides to step back, glaring at each other their mana gathered, they planned to end the fight with one last attack.

Helina raised her sword to the sky, unlike last time there wasn’t a showy orb of mana, instead thousands of sword started to appear out of thin air. Chris looked at the swords that were still increasing, a small flashed on his face for only a moment, holding Orthos tightly wind started to gather at the hammer’s head. Finally ten thousand swords floated in the sky while a tornado had formed around not just Orthos’ head, but around its whole body and Chris upper arm.

“Let’s end this!” [Helina]

“My pleasure.” [Chris]

One voice filled with vigor, the other calm and cold like ice. Helina lowered her sword to point at Chris, swords rained down from the sky crashing into the earth like meteorites. Chris ran forward dodging the swords, though he received a few cuts it was nothing. While closing the last few meters, Chris raised Orthos, finally reaching Helina, Chris swung the tornado clad Orthos.

As a massive explosion of wind ripped the surrounding area apart, trees were uprooted, what was left of building was swept away. As the dust cleared Helina was no longer in front of Chris, but a white-robed middle aged man, his hair and long beard was stark white.

“Now that is enough kid.” [White Rob]

Chris’ face drained of color, the white-clad man had stopped Orthos with his sword, which looked like an average double edged long sword to Chris. Immediately, Chris jumped backwards while using [Analyze] , the window that appeared made Chris pale a shade further.

power gap between you and the target is too great, so information couldn’t be shown.

The man chuckled, showing a crude smile while his eyes glinted with amusement.

“Are you trying to look at my status page? Well, it doesn’t matter to me if you want to see it, then here.” [White Robe]

With a flick of the white-robed man’s hand, his status page appeared in Chris’ vision, the sight of it almost made Chris cough up blood.

Status PageName: Gunther JenisRace: HumanLv: 351EXP: 859320 / 100000700Age: 46Gender: MaleJob: Spell SwordsmenCombative Rank: S

TitlesMaster of lightning, Sword Duke, Wrathful One, Demigod Slayer, King Killer

HP 50400 / 50400MP 32000 / 32000Str: 18250Agi: 15330Def: 22540Magic: 14200Luck: 190Charm: 110

SkillsTriple Burning SlashRank: 45Falling SwordRank: 51Lightning WalkRank: 53Unseen BladeRank: 38Anger = PowerRank: 61Flickering EdgeRank: 49

(This guy is strong, too strong.) [Chris]

Looking at the robed man Chris frowned.

“Do I have business with you, old man?” [Chris]

“Hahaha, just like they said you do have a mouth on you, boy.” [Gunther]

“That right Uncle Gunther, this brat is very rude.” [Hector]

“Yes, that why we asked for you to teach him a lesson in respect.” [Vild]

Both Hector and Vild stepped out from behind a collapsed tree, with Claira and Sara in cuffs and gagged. Chris’ eyes bore holes through the two men, Chris words felt like ice scraping their skin as he spoke.

“Let them go, or face a fate worse than death.” [Chris]

Hector and Vild flinched at his cold words, still they did not waver. Suddenly Chris was sent flying several meters, crashing into a tree that hadn’t fallen over, Chris slide to the ground leaving a trail of blood.

“Watch your mouth boy, well it doesn’t really matter since you’ll be dead soon.” [Gunther]

“Shut the fuck up.” [Chris]

Chris slowly got up, glaring at Hector and Vild, who in turn began to laugh.

“Don’t think you have any power, after Uncle Gunther kills you…” [Hector]

Hector who was holding Claira licked her cheek, she squirmed, but it was no use, the cuffs that bound her were meant to suppress magic classes.

“You sick fuck, I said let them go, dammit” [Chris]

Chris shot forward Orthos ready to strike a Hector’s head, but at the last second Gunther was in front of Hector. Gunther raised his sword and a flash of light blinded Chris, the next moment Chris was again flying backwards only this time covered in numerous cuts. Smashing into the ground creating a small crater, Chris lay there, he know he could win again Gunther with just close range combat, but that didn’t mean he had no options.

Gunther’s eyes flashed with a cold but amused light.

“Looks like he hasn’t given up yet.” [Gunther]

Chris had once again stood, both hands reached for mana potions in his side pockets. Uncorking each one he chugged eight potions to completely restore his mana pool, when it was full, Chris glared at the Gilbo brothers.

“This is the fate you have chosen for yourselves, now you’ll regret it.” [Chris]

“Ha, we will regret nothing, now die already.” [Hector]

“Kekeke, Uncle Gunther, please end it quickly I want to have my fun with this elf.” [Vild]

Chris snapped, smiling he stretched out his hand. Suddenly, all but the smallest amount of mana in Chris body vanished, Chris’ smile twisted with bloodlust and excitement. This would be the first time since the Oracle Chamber Chris had gotten to use his true trump card, the Colossal minion.

The ground trembled, Hector and Vild still looked confident, that is until they saw Gunther’s face.

“Both of you step back, otherwise you surely will be killed.” [Gunther]

The brother exchanged a look then nodded and ran away.

“Don’t think you can run, shit stains!” [Chris]

Chris shouted while pointing his hand at the fleeing brothers. With that action, the shaking grew stronger and then a crack appeared in the ground right behind the Gilbo brother. From the crack, a massive 8-meter wide worm made of tangled roots branches and vines burst from the ground. A mouth that split four ways opened reveal row upon row of sharp thorns that acted as fangs. The monsters plant lunged at the Gilbo brother but did not try to eat them, obviously because they still had Claira and Sara hostage. Though, Chris still had a way of dealing with them, as the worm drew closer roots grow from its sides and speared towards the men who were now completely terrified.

Sadly, the roots were cut to pieces by Gunther, letting Hector and Vild continue to retreat.

“Damn you old man!” [Chris]

Chris fury erupted, as two more worms emerged from the ground attempting to swallow Gunther. With a snort, he swung his sword and an unseen force cut both of the worms in half.

“Is that all you have boy.” [Gunther]

“Don’t underestimate me old man” [Chris]

To Gunther’s cold and mocking voice, Chris simply smiled cruelly and said his favorite phrase. Suddenly, the ground trembled again and yet another worm came up from underground directly under Gunther, its mouth opened wide to devour him. Gunther was going to once again slice the worm in half when the first worm attacked from behind as well as the two worms thought to be dead lunged at Gunther as well. Gunther could not attack all of them at once, so he was forced to dodged the attacks and flee twenty meters away.

The worms gave chase, like dolphins diving into the ground and reappearing a short distance away, they moved with terrifying speed.

While Gunther was distracted by the worms Chris sent three sets of Stinger minions after the Gilbo brother, but the little wasps were turned to dust by Hectors lightning clad sword and Vild’s shadowy daggers. Chris grimaced, at this point he would have to focus on the Stinger minions in order to at least make the brother release Claira and Sara. Unfortunately, if he did that Gunther would be given an opportunity to strike at Chris. While Chris was thinking a hand was placed on his shoulder, and he quickly spun around to see Helina sheepishly smiling, a stone embedded in her necklace was shining.

“Let me help, I’ll go after those two bastards and retrieve those elves.” [Helina]

Chris stared at her completely confused, see his expression Helina sighed while blushing she spoke nervously.

“I’ll explain later, for now just know I’m on your side.” [Helina]

Chris was very skeptical, but this could be his only chance.

“Fine, but I’ll be watching so done try anything.” [Chris]

Nodding Helina left in the direction the Gilbo brother had gone, followed by four swarms of Stinger minions. Just to be safe he had one of the group heal her, Chris knew if she really going to help, Helina could take both brothers on, but only if she was healed.

Chris noticed when the Stinger minions started to heal her, Helina looked at the little wasps and smiled. Something wasn’t right, why did she change so much so quickly. Chris quickly pushed the thought to the side, he now had to focus on killing Gunther.

The battle which had been a stalemate slowly turned in Gunther’s favor. Though Gunther was tired from continuously dodging and countering the giant worm-shaped plants, Chris was near his mental limit. Controlling four roots of the Colossal was difficult, and over a long period of time the effort started to overwhelm him.

Finally finding an opening Gunther vanished to reappear only two feet away from Chris, his sword raised. As the sword descended on Chris time seemed to slow.

(So this is as far as I go huh, dammit, I haven’t accomplished anything, now I’m going to die.) [Chris]

(Do you want some help, sapling?) [???]

Just as Chris was giving up, an ancient rough voice rang through his mind. The next moment an explosion of mana filled Chris. A transparent sphere of green mana formed over Chris, blocking Gunther’s sword. In panic, Gunther retreated, his expression showed confusion.

The sphere of mana began to pulse like it was alive, slowly it expanded, becoming less transparent over time. As it expanded the ground was gouged, anything it touches seemed to be swallowed adding to its mass. Finally after reaching fifteen meters cracks formed in the sphere, suddenly with the sound of glass breaking the sphere shattered. In the center of where the sphere had been floated a Chris, though now the bark armor covering him had changed. While it retained the base trait of looking like his skin had turned into bark, he now had bone like wings made from branches, a long whip-like tail, and he now had glowing tribal veins that pulsed with a deep green light.

“What the hell?” [Gunther]

Gunther instinctually felt fear while looking at Chris, it had been a long time since he had felt fear. Chris turned to look at Gunther, as before his face had no features other than a toothy smile made of overlapping thorns that looked like teeth.

“Shall we continue, old bastard.” [Chris]

Before Chris had even finished speak he was in front of Gunther swinging down Orthos with impossible speed. Gunther had less than a second to react, bring his sword upwards to meet Orthos in an attempt to block the hammer as he had no time to dodge. The collision sent Gunther flying while Chris remained unharmed. Raising his hand, Chris pointed it at Gunther's hand and clenched it in response the Colossal minions roots attacked with speed and power unlike before. Gunther swung his sword and three of the worm-like roots were sliced in half by arcs of flamed the final one was cut by an unseen force.

Instantly the wounds that Gunther inflicted closed and the monstrous roots continued their pursuit. Suddenly the three worm-like plants that were closest to Gunther opened their mouths and countless vines launched forwards, ensnaring him.

From afar, Gunther could see that the toothy smile had curved even more upwards to become demonic in appearance. Suddenly the pulsing veins on Chris’ body began to pulse faster and shine brighter. The last of the four roots who was farther away from Gunther than the rest opened its mouth to its limit. As it did the inside of its mouth turned pitch black. It pointed its mouth to the sunny sky and the inside of its mouth began to change from black to a shining gold color. Finally when all the black had changed to gold the root pointed its mouth at Gunther and the golden light started to flow to the center creating a ball of energy that grow to three meters in radius.

“Shit, you have to be joking.” [Gunther]

Gunther breathed his words with a soft voice filled with terror because he knew if that attack hits he would die. Finally the ball of energy transformed into a stream that surged forwards enveloping Gunther, and because of the angle of the attack, when it continued it speared through the sky piercing the clouds and still continuing onwards.

“Damn old bastard thing you can escape.” [Chris]

At the last second before the stream of mana struck Gunther, four swords materialized and cut his bindings, then he vanished. Though Chris had already found where he was, Gunther had gone to where the Gilbo brother were. He knew from the Stinger minions that were following Helina, through them he could see Hector and Vild fighting Helina, then Gunther appearing.

“My nephews, we must flee, I don’t know what happened, but that boy turned into some sort of monster.” [Gunther]

Hector and Vild nodded, they had felt the intense pressure after Chris had transformed, now that they knew the cause, they wanted no part in it.

Just as they left Chris appeared, but he didn’t give chase. He looked over at Helina who was free Claira and Sara from their bounds, walking over the mysterious man leaving him cause his armor to crumble.

“Good you're both sa-“ [Chris]

Before he could finish his vision blurred and he fell forwards.

The last thing he heard was someone shouting his name.