[Colossal Frost Treant | Lvl 47 | Field Boss | HP: 4717291/4892064]
Daisuke twirled his daggers, flames licking their edges. “If its armor doesn’t regenerate, I can finally deal some real damage. Same plan as before.” He shot forward. “Hang back and wait for your moment!”
His golden eyes left streaks of light as he soared toward the Treant. The beast pushed to its feet, its boisterous roar splitting the heavens.
Trees trembled.
The sky quivered.
But Daisuke didn’t stop.
He twisted midair, slipping over a massive branch swipe. His daggers flashed, carving into the fiend’s exposed bark. Damage numbers depicting five-digit values flared in the air. The monster bellowed in agony, its colossal form trembling under the onslaught.
Tiphanna seized the opening, unleashing a razor-sharp wind blade. It carved into the creature’s torso, sending splinters flying. Every attack she landed kept it distracted, letting Daisuke strike harder and faster.
Bit by bit, its HP drained until 50% remained.
Then, everything changed.
The Treant stilled.
Its emerald eyes darkened, turning a murderous crimson. The ground rumbled as its legs twisted into slithering vines—writhing, undulating like the tentacles of a deep-sea monster. Its arms contorted—morphing into twin battle-axes.
It swung.
A single slash.
A luminous arc burst from the axe’s blade, cleaving through the forest. Trees snapped like brittle twigs, the earth itself splitting under the force. The battlefield expanded, the landscaping changing.
Tiphanna barely managed to leap to safety on a nearby branch before the impact obliterated the spot she had just stood. Heart hammering, she turned to survey the devastation—only for something even worse to steal her breath.
The broken shards of the Treant’s armor had sunken into the earth. From them, grotesque flowers sprouted—towering three feet tall, their crimson petals curled inward like a predator’s jaws. The stigmata at their center bristled with needle-sharp seeds.
Daisuke’s pupils shrank. This is bad.
The plants swayed, eerily reminiscent of the ones that had dwarfed him and Lumielle in Mammothgrove Forest. And now, an unsettling amount of them surrounded him.
A suffocating silence swallowed the battlefield. Every other monster had fled. The forest held its breath.
Tiphanna hesitated, glancing at Daisuke, searching for reassurance in his expression. But before she could get a good look—
A storm of vines lashed toward her.
The elf twisted, her body spinning through the air as she dodged the first strike. Another tendril shot for her throat—she severed it with a razor-thin arc of wind. More came. She leaped, barely clearing a swipe that shattered the tree she had perched on. Bark-like shrapnel raked across her shoulder, another grazing her cheek.
“AHHHH!”
Pain exploded through her.
“Tiphanna!” Daisuke shouted.
But before he could even consider trying to help her, a metallic ding rang in his ears.
[Seedreaper | Lvl 24 | Spawn | HP: 1,347/1,347]
The dozens of monstrous flowers screeched.
A barrage of razor-sharp seeds erupted, slicing through the air like bullets. Daisuke’s daggers became a blur, intercepting the deadly projectiles midair. Sparks flew as metal clashed against hardened seed.
But there were too many.
He ducked, spun, sidestepped, deflected—his form a whirlwind of motion, each step keeping him alive.
In a moment of desperation, he yanked the Ironhide Bulwark shield from his inventory and slammed it forward. The shield absorbed the next volley, seeds ricocheting off its surface like gunfire.
But there was no time to breathe.
He wasn’t safe yet.
The Treant roared, swinging its axe-arms with terrifying speed.
Daisuke vaulted over one, barely dodging the second. The air howled as he twisted, deflecting a vine strike with his shield while launching a single, large magic missile. The glowing projectile streaked forward, exploding into a cluster of Seedreapers.
A scream.
His heart lurched.
“KYAAAA!”
Tiphanna slammed into a tree trunk. Her wooden charm shattered against the bark.
She fell.
Desperately, she clawed for a branch—missed. Another. She crashed through it, her body tumbling through the air.
Why isn’t she using wind magic to slow her descent?!
Daisuke’s mind reeled.
But he couldn’t stop moving. If he hesitated, he was dead.
Just before she hit the ground, a vine coiled around her torso—tightening like a noose.
For a split second, relief flickered in Daisuke’s chest.
Then he saw where the vine led.
It wasn’t the Treant’s.
Something else lurked in the undergrowth.
“HAXKS!”
Tiphanna’s scream shattered his thoughts. Her hands stretched toward him, desperate, pleading.
“Tiphanna!”
Daisuke lunged.
He slashed through another storm of bullets, shoved past a thrashing vine, and reached for her—
Their fingers brushed.
Then—
CRACK!
A vine the size of a tree trunk slammed into Daisuke’s side.
The world spun.
He crashed through a tree, pain exploding through his body as he tumbled to the ground. His daggers slipped from his grasp.
Through the haze of dust and agony, he saw her.
Tiphanna—dragged into the shadows, vanishing into the dense forestry.
His breath came ragged. His blood roared.
He forced himself up, blood cascading down the side of his face.
The Treant loomed above, its crimson eyes burning. The battlefield raged around him—vines lashing, Seedreapers shrieking, axes gleaming with impending death.
None of it mattered.
Flames coiled around his daggers once more.
“You’re not taking her. Not while I’m still breathing.”
[Colossal Frost Treant | Lvl 47 | Field Boss | HP: 2,006,032/4892064]
Fueled by rage, Daisuke flung himself into the chaos like a bolt of lightning, propelled by the 408 Stat Points invested into Agility.
His speed was a blur, near inhuman, his movements a masterclass in precision. Every muscle in his body screamed for him to chase after Tiphanna—but first, he had to clear the field.
The Seedreapers shrieked in unison, unleashing a storm of razor-sharp projectiles. His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, flicking across the battlefield, tracking every deadly trajectory with mechanical precision.
He tilted his head—one zipped past his ear. Another came. His dagger flicked up, slicing it clean in half before it could reach him.
The next wave screamed toward him.
His magic chains flared to life, spinning into a cyclone. The seeds ricocheted off the whirling links, shredding midair.
More vines lashed from the Treant, thick as iron cables, aiming to constrict him. Daisuke’s dagger met them mid-strike, cleaving through them as if they were paper.
The Seedreapers were plentiful—but weak.
His feet barely touched the ground as he weaved between the projectiles, his body a phantom in motion. He dodged, deflected, and struck in the same breath, his daggers carving through stalk after stalk.
Every step left destruction in his wake. A downward slash—one withered. A reversed grip thrust—another fell. A spinning kick, a dagger throw, a seamless transition into Impeccable Parry—his every move lethal, efficient, unstoppable.
Then, silence.
The last Seedreaper shriveled and fell lifelessly.
Then a shadow loomed overhead.
Daisuke barely had time to react before the Treant’s axe-arm came crashing down like a guillotine. He sidestepped at the last possible second, the blade slamming into the earth with a thunderous crash, splitting the ground open.
The next attack followed immediately—a sweeping horizontal slash meant to cleave him in two.
He leapt.
The wind shrieked past him as he soared over the incoming strike, his dagger scraping along the edge of the axe in a shower of sparks.
But there was no time to breathe.
Now that the Seedreapers were gone, he could focus on the real threat.
His magic chains lashed out, coiling around the Treant’s massive arm. With a snap of his wrist, he anchored it to a nearby tree.
The creature snarled, yanking against its restraints—but before it could react, another chain lashed out, snaring its other arm and pulling it taut.
It roared, thrashing, shaking the very forest in its struggle, but Daisuke ignored it.
His mana burned away like a broken dam, but he didn’t falter. His daggers, now engulfed in ravenous flames, burned like molten fangs.
Mercilessly, he carved through the writhing tentacle-like vines, severing them one by one. The fiend’s movements grew desperate, its crimson eyes flickering with something dangerously close to fear.
But it was too late.
Daisuke’s dagger flashed.
One arm fell. Resin sprayed like a gory geyser.
Another slash.
The second arm hit the ground with a loud thud.
The Treant swayed, its towering form trembling in agony.
But Daisuke wasn’t done.
From the far end of the battlefield, he sprinted—faster, faster—his daggers poised like the fangs of a beast. Fire crackled along the blades, hunger and fury roaring within them.
And then—
He struck.
Like a human spear, he tore through the Treant’s chest, his blades carving through bark, marrow, and core. A massive, gaping hole burst open in its center, the very essence of its life force spilling forth.
A final, strangled groan echoed through the grove.
Then, the Colossal Frost Treant collapsed.
DING!
[Haxks has slain the Field Boss «Colossal Frost Treant».]
[361,000 Experience Points have been acquired.]
[Level Up!]
[The title «Lone Striker» has been acquired.]
[Blazing Moon has been acquired.]
[Warden’s Plate has been acquired.]
[Infernal Hessonite has been acquired.]
[Spellbook has been acquired.]
[Frost Treant Core has been acquired.]
[Reinforcement Tablet x4 has been acquired.]
[Celestial Cube (Blue) x4 has been acquired.]
[Celestial Cube (Orange) x3 has been acquired.]
[Runetablet x2 has been acquired.]
[Glacium Heartwood x45 has been acquired.]
[Tungsten Ore x8 has been acquired.]
[Armocidian Quartz x5 has been acquired.]
[20,777 gold has been acquired.]
“Damn it! I wasted too much time,” Daisuke muttered, ignoring the barrage of notification windows as he bolted into the woods. “Tiphanna—I have to find her. Please… don’t let me be too late.”