The beasts from all over the area started to gather in torrents coming from several directions and tried to gang up on Lucas and Charles.
Lucas and Charles, trying to escape from the hoard of beasts entered a narrow valley in front of them where it was intersected by an area of sharp boulders, the area was quite narrow allowing only one of them to pass at the same time.
The Valley was a shortcut that can save them quite time and the path of the valley was too narrow to allow the beast to pass through.
They had no choice but to cross the area from here as the other side was filled with the beast and those dark withered trees resembling a tidal wave coming for them.
The roots tugged at the side of the wall of the valley started to wriggle and extended its root towards Lucas.
Lucas sliced the roots without baiting eyes.
Swish...Swish.Swish.
Roots were sliced off as soon as they approached Lucas and fell on the ground turning into normal broken twigs.
"Thank God!! Once these things were cut off they lose their life support." Seeing the cutting leaves going back to normally dried twigs, Lucas took an air of relief.
While Lucas was taking care of the front, a tree was extending his withered branched like claws and grabbed onto Charles's legs and hauled him backwards dragging him down.
Charles was caught by surprise, seeing the branch emerging from the ground and coiling at its leg.
Lucas looked back and shouted, "Charles be careful."
Lucas exclaimed in surprise seeing a thick bundle of withered branches coming towards them from behind.
Charles tried to swing his sword to slice off the rope like branches coiling around one of his legs. But his body was not balanced in the correct position to put the right amount of strength in his sword to slice it off.
Lucas dashed forward and swing his swords. Wind blades of various sizes emerged from his tip and bombarded the bundle of withered branches.
Lucas wind blades went past them slicing them cleanly.
As the force of pulling decreased, Charles got up on his feet and sliced the withered branches and put an earth wall and seal the backside.
The withered branches started to gather up and started to crawl over the walls.
If it was left alone they will surely gather again and after going over the wall will chase them.
Lucas formed a fireball and threw it vertically in a projectile motion to the other side of the wall and signalled Charles to leave quickly.
The flickering ball of fire, when reached the other side of the wall, burst into many small fireballs with a small boom and fell on the withered trees.
The withered trees which were not any different from dried twigs started burning fiercely with a crackling sound.
Lucas and Charles reached the bottom of the valley and started to climb up the cliff.
The duo climbed the rocky cliff hurriedly. When they have reached the midpoint, panting heavily they looked down to notice many small beasts gathering down there.
"We are quite lucky. If we were just a minute late, we have to go through another round of fighting." Lucas muttered.
Charles nodded his head agreeing to Lucas's words. He doesn't know if he would be able to take even one of the beasts down there.
These dark-skinned beasts were something that he had never heard in his whole life nor did he know anything about them and whether they have any hidden ace like the undead who don't care about the pain and attack you non-stop mindlessly.
Climbing up the cliff, they sat down on a rock to catch up their breath and replenish some of their strength.
Lucas gazed at the dark pitch night sky which was devoid of any light from the star and moon.
He looked from the cliff at the equally dark forest filled with terrifying beasts and dangers carrying a huge mystery.
Before they took a step forward, they saw the rustling sound of the leaves many withered trees converged at a single point and took shape similar to that human with thick branches forming its hand and big wide open mouth but its leg was rooted on the ground.
"What the hell is this!!" Lucas muttered unable to discern anything about the thing he was seeing.
Lucas racked his brain in rush. Lucas carefully observed the monster before him. Seeing his legs rooted on the ground, Lucas discerned that it must have low agility but to overcome its agility it should attack us from a distance with its branches.
The human-shaped tree must be an evolved species from the tree of darkness having some intelligence.
How high its intelligence was? Lucas didn't know about it. Lucas gritted their teeth and cursed at the situation silently.
Lucas looked at Charles beside him and saw him panicking.
Seeing Charles's expression Lucas frowned thinking about the possibility of Charles abandoning him and escaping alone.
Lucas didn't intend to waste time with his enemy.
Lucas tried to sense the monster's strength but he wasn't able to discern its strength. Since it had no mana it was quite difficult for him to make guess.
Only after exchanging a few blows with this monster would he be able to gauge its strength.
The human-shaped tree before him saw the living beings before him and moved his huge bundle of withered branches acting as its hand.
A huge bulk of withered branches came towards Lucas and Charles.
Lucas stomped the ground and lunged towards the side ducking the blow.
Charles jumped to the side and rolled on the ground covering around ten meters.
BOOM!
As both, they ducked the blow, the huge hand collided with the rock and with a loud bang, the boulder they were resting on flattened turning into thousands of pieces.
The human-shaped tree didn't feel any threat from the living beings in front of it as it lumbered heavily towards Lucas who was closer to it. Even though it was a tree, the branches rushed in all directions towards humans which looked like a wild animal charging at Lucas.
Lucas dodged sideways to avoid the claws of branches still the sharp tips from the branches scratched a few body marks across his body.
Lucas sidestepped to avoid one of their claws and bent his head but the claw passed him making a U-turn and pierced one of his thighs giving a deep cut.
Lucas sliced the claw and somersaulted backwards to gain some distance.
"Arghh." Lucas groaned in pain as he look at the wound on the thigh. His battle suit was already damaged from the previous battle and the sharp branches were able to penetrate through the suit.
Moreover, he felt the cut was not normal as he felt a burning sensation and felt his flesh is corroding by some acids at the spot he got the cut.
There were a few scratches on the other parts of his body but they were not as bad as this one.
Lucas looked around to find Charles but contrary to his expectations he wasn't able to find a single silhouette on the top of the cliff.
Lucas gritted his teeth and cast ice spikes.
The ice spikes pierced the claws of the huge human-shaped tree. It wriggled around for sometimes but Lucas felt that his attack hadn't done much damage except for gaining some time.
Lucas cursed himself for not knowing anything about the human-shaped tree. Neither its strength nor weakness. The only thing he can do is try everything he has.
Fleeing is not an option as he was surrounded by the tree branches from all around.
Even though Lucas was calculating in his mind about all the possible things, he could do, his actions didn't slow down. He grabbed one of the throne claws of the human-shaped trees and pulled it back and sliced a major chunk of its supply of branches.
Lucas took a deep breath. After exchanging a few blows, Lucas had already got a hang of its strength. Its strength can't be compared to the normal grading system. The only attack it knows was to throw the thorny branches and claw at its opponents, surrounding the enemies and trap them without leaving any escaped routes and then rip them apart with the claw-like branches.
Lucas used one of its trunks as a stepping platform and kicked off from it and rotated his body in spinning motion to avoid the incoming claws and activated flash steps as he stepped on one of its branches, his speed increased.
He covered dozens of meters in mere seconds and swung his swords trying to cut down and clear the path between the main trunk of the human-shaped tree and him.
He sliced off everything that came towards him.
Lucas was slowly nearing the trunk and was about to leap when he saw a huge wall of branches forming before it forming a shield and many branches came crashing down on him.
Lucas thought of using a fireball to blast away the wall when he saw two thick hands come towards him from each side.
Lucas's eyeball shrank and he jumped backwards but before he could adjust himself in mid-air.
The branches of the human-shaped tree, forming a whip, hit him hard in the guts.
Swoosh.
Lucas's body was sent flying in the air, spurting mouth fills with blood and was slammed on the boulder.
A cracking sound of bones was heard as his silhouette crashed on the boulder.
