He felt each branch like it was his own fingers. The sensation of it squirming through the monsters was far worse than he could’ve imagined. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, but the wet feeling of blood was quickly covering everything. Those that were being crushed, and those that were stabbed, spilled blood. Thankfully his nose was sealed. He remembered how bad the blood had smelled and was glad to not be accosted by it. Touch was the only sense he had left, and he felt his way through the army of insects. Each branch was a part of him, and he could grow it beyond his domain, even if he couldn’t see past it. He just had to feel his way forward. The ends of the wood would flail a little and only pause when they met contact with another monster.

Honestly, he had never considered fighting while sealing all of his normal senses. His domain let him function just as well, and it took away a lot of his weaknesses. It also let him focus on what he had left. When the ends of his branches met with another insect, he made sure to trap or kill any insect that he could. The monsters didn’t die from what was essentially a stake through the chest. Although some died, when he started making more branches sprout within the monsters’ bodies. They crawled through the insects’ bodies. They were much more vulnerable underneath their carapace, not that it mattered with his stats. Some of the thinner strands of wood pushed through the insects and punched out from various places along their bodies.

Beneath him, his wood expanded out into a tunnel. More of the monsters had been rushing for the exit but they were now stopped by a wooden pike that filled the tunnels and grew into their homes. Mash couldn’t see what was happening, but he knew that things were dying. He leveled and knew. Plus, he could feel it when the wood crushed an insect. The wood was an extension of himself, and it was like he was pushing the bugs or stomping them against the walls and floors. The monsters didn’t stop though.

They swarmed toward what must have been the only escape. It wasn’t one anymore and the monsters died as they squished themselves against the wedge he had made. He had shaped it like a nail and drove it through the ground. Split whenever he felt another tunnel and dug into that as well. That would make it even harder to move. He didn’t want to take any chances though and made sure to dig into the ground itself in some locations. He imagined a tree in its entirety. What he was making now were the roots and he made sure to spread them through the dirt.

Mash filled the tunnel for a while, only stopping once he felt like the monsters had given up. They must have realized that there was no longer an exit in this tunnel. At the very least, they stopped charging toward their deaths. He stopped feeling anything from the end of the wood. Well, he still felt the wall of corpses that had piled up in the tunnel, but he didn’t feel anything trying to push at it anymore. Even these things had figured out that they weren’t making any progress. Or maybe, there were just too many corpses for them to do anything.

The tunnels had gone still, but the fight wasn’t done yet. Mash didn’t rise or go to his friends. He remained hunched; his hands pressed against the ground. Not the dirt, but a small barrier of wood that separated his hands from the snow. No new snow could make it to him either. Above him, the insects formed an umbrella of corpses. And beyond that, there were even more monsters that were simply impaled by wooden branches. He didn’t move. Rather, he couldn’t move. The insects, even dead, were trapped in place by his wood. Like a bush, all the branches had grown from him, and he was stuck in place by the weight of it all. The wood was heavy, but it was the thousands of corpses that really dragged him down. His strength had its limits, and this was too much weight even for his dragon form. So, he was hunched over on the ground.

His knees shook as he tried to push himself up. The dirt beneath them shifted as he tried to move. It wasn’t snow which felt at odds with what he had seen before. He slowly opened his eyes. He was expecting the light to sting, but he felt none of it. The light could only barely get past the mass of monster bodies, so he had no trouble adjusting to it even though his eye had been shut tightly for a while. He kept his nose and ears covered. Not in the mood to smell or hear what he could now see. That was only a small part of what was truly around him. His domain far exceeded what he could see with his eyes, but there was something different about seeing something with all of its colors and details.

His domain had shown him the shapes of things, but his eyes let him see more. Even in darkness, he realized the real reason that he couldn’t feel any snow around him. The blood of the monsters was vaguely warm, and it covered every inch of what he could see. He should’ve realized that it was blood on his body, but without his sense of smell, he had just assumed it was water from melted snow. And he didn’t want to smell it either. He remembered how much the blood stank and wanted to take a bath before removing the scales which had grown over his nose. Then he thought of Red and realized that she could remove the blood easily.

All he had to was get out of his own creation. The monster bodies were not making it easy. Some monsters were still alive too. He could feel them. A few were even in his direct vision. Although one of them was little more than a snapping head. These monsters were certainly stubborn if nothing else. He thought about how to deal with all of the bodies around him. He could grow more wood and try and move them, but that would take a while.

[Just use the same skill you used before.]

Priscilla’s message was not exactly aggressive, but she was annoyed. He knew why too. The fight had drawn his attention, and he snapped when they had actually managed to hurt him. He completely ignored Priscilla for most of the fight, and she obviously didn’t like that. Which was something he could understand, but not something he was prepared to deal with now. Instead, he pushed the conversation back and tried what she had suggested.

The branches, that were still connected to his back, should function as if they were another part of his body. Just as good as his arms in theory. His chimeric restoration should work. Plus, most of these were injured or dead, so it would probably be even easier. He focused on the insects. The monsters that had been skewered by the wood. No, not wood, but his fingers. His arms and hands. That is what they were, and he held the image in his head as the skill started. The monsters crumpled. All of them almost simultaneously broke as the skill activated. He couldn’t hear it, but he felt it. And he saw some of it but had to shut his eyes as small bits of shell fell. They were small closer to dust than pieces of its shell, but he kept his eyes closed anyways.

He watched with his domain. The process was fascinating, regardless of how many times he had seen it now. There was no perfect way to describe what happened to the monsters. They broke down, crumbling in on themselves. Some pieces flaked away like dust, but most of the monster broke into the wooden limb. It fell into the wood as it wasn’t there. But when it melded with the wood it seeped into it like water might. The strange sight left him stunned for a moment.

His eyes were still closed but he knew that there were no monsters left. The fight was over, but strangely he wasn’t out of energy. He pushed himself up. The branches around him broke off as he separated himself from them. They broke into pieces. They weren’t exactly stable. He had been holding the structure up, but now he let it collapses. It broke in different places. Thin sections of wood broke, and heavy sections fell to the ground. The thinnest pieces broke as well and many of them broke like splinters. They floated a little in the wind as the larger pieces fell through them.

He stretched his back out. It felt like it cracked, and he let out a long sigh. He stretched his arms out and moved them from side to side. As he moved, he felt it when his hunt skill stopped boosting his stats. He waited for the feeling of exhaustion to paralyze him, but it never came. He was stunned for a moment but then realized what must have happened. It seemed like he had recovered enough energy to compensate for the feedback. Chimeric restoration and hunt interacted strangely. It was a good thing as it seemed like he could avoid the paralysis effect of hunt so long as he had some energy at the end of it. And he got to keep the boost too. He thought about the skill and didn’t think that was how it was supposed to work, and focused inward to check.

Name: Mash Stellumbra Class: Chimeric Vagabond

Level: 112 → 121

Health: 3330 / 3330

Energy: 481 / 4590

Fortitude: 330 → 333

Endurance: 210 → 229

Strength: 275 → 278

Agility: 275 → 279

Intelligence: 230

Wisdom: 130

Charisma: 110

Free Stats: 40 → 130

Skills: Hunt, Thunder-wood Creation, Inhuman Hibernation, Chimeric Transformation, Thunder-wood Imitation, Chimeric Reconstruction, Vagabond’s Path, Chimeric Domain, Adaptable Monster Core, Chimera’s Constitution, Wooden Body, Mimic’s Avarice, A Touch of Nothingness, Golden Body

Hunt: You have gone beyond your limits when fighting enemies and devouring their power. Go beyond your limits. Continue the current fight even after depleting energy. Stats improve while at when stamina drops below 0. Continues until either you or your enemies are dead.

Current Bonus: +100% stats

Mash didn’t know exactly what to expect, but nine levels were a lot more than he expected. Even if thousands of the monsters had died, it felt like a lot. And he didn’t even consider the stats. It was mostly endurance which kind of meant sense considering what the insects were like, but it was a lot. Plus, he also had a lot of free stats to work with. He forgot that his class had been giving him more after the last advancement. All of that didn’t even include the fact that he had upgraded another skill. Those weren’t small improvements, and he started to chuckle. The fight was over now, and the tension that had been there broke with it. With improvements like that, he couldn’t help but feel a little giddy.

His chuckle became a full laugh. There was no sound to it. Well, he couldn’t hear it with his ears sealed by scales. He felt the vibrations through his body, but it was strange to not be able to hear them. His mind tried to fill in the missing sound. There was something distinctly wrong about it not coming from his ears though. He freed his ears and ended the transformation altogether. He could deal with the smell of the blood for a little bit. Plus, he could vaguely see what he looked like with his domain, and it wasn’t exactly human.