BOOM!
A silhouette crashed onto the boulder on the top of the cliff. Half of the boulder was crushed by the impact and dust drifted in the air that was formed after the figure crashed on the boulder with a loud bang.
Lucas tried to get up on his feet and supported his body on the sword leaning on it and looking ahead. His vision was slightly blurred with red colour.
Blood was trickling down from his forehead covering one of the eyes entirely. He felt dizzy and felt the world was spinning around.
He stumbled on his feet and found it hard to maintain his balance for a moment as he stood.
The previous hit was quite hard and he even got some internal injured as he coughed a few mouths full of blood.
As the dizziness disappeared, his mind drifted on the battlefield where the branches of the human tree were still coming at him shrouded by darkness.
The bits of starlight in the sky were the only source of light in the region shrouded by darkness. Being hit in the head Lucas's vision had been affected greatly and he felt his head spinning around.
Still, he gritted his teeth and tried to step up by mustering his strength.
Locating a region of shadow, he used shadow steps, his figure melted into the shadow disappearing from the range of attacks.
Lucas then emerged from a faint shadow cast from the bundle of branches at the side by faint star lights.
In this situation, the entire area covered in darkness is the same as the day in an open area after all a certain amount of light was needed for the shadow to be formed. On this night in the absence of moonlight, there are hardly any shadows for him to use.
That's also one of the thr reasons why he was not able to flee from the human-shaped tree otherwise he would have leapt from shadow to shadow and gotten away from there.
The spot Lucas emerged was filled with trees of average height and full of bushes and shrubs. A perfect place to hide if not for the human-shaped tree will able to find him easily as he was quite close to him from the right.
Lucas drank an intermediate grade potion and tried to infuse mana into his sword. He could hear the rustling and scritch, scritch sound that the tree was making as his branches rubbed with the ground or the surrounding boulders.
Lucas's sword glowed faintly and running ahead, he stepped on the boulder and used it as a foothold to jump toward the tree.
Lucas appeared right above the human-shaped tree and caught it off guard.
While slashing, his crimson colour sword on the tree he prayed in his heart so that he may not be attacked in the mid-air like before.
Lucas sliced his sword vertically and the blood-red glowing arc of the blade descended on the tree.
Before thr arc could reach it, the tree formed a thick and huge shield made of its branches and walls one after another.
The red arc sliced the first few shields like butter and went past through it quite easily arriving near the main trunk.
The human-shaped tree seemed to be panicked and surrounded its remaining branches and formed a huge shield.
Boom.
The arc of the sword exploded at last and the major part of it caught on fire. The tree thrashed its branches which were on fire on the ground, here and there bellowing with a shrill cry.
Everywhere its branches collided the rocks were flattened into powder.
Bang...Bang...Bang.Bang.
Loud sounds of colliding were heard as the tree cried in agony thrashing its branches as a whip.
Lucas panicked as he noticed several whips like branches and thorny claws were coming towards him.
Lucas used flash steps and jumped to avoid it.
Slice.Swish.
He ducked as many he can and meanwhile used wind blades to cut the branches connected to the source.
"Shitt!!." Lucas cursed as he noticed that the whip of branches was coming in all directions toward him and he had no place to escape. He activated his shadow steps but it was to no avail.
There was not a single shadow within his periphery where he could jump to.
Gritting his teeth, he clenched the hilt of his sword and poured every bit of his strength for his next attack.
He didn't become negligent and hold himself back. He decided to give his all in his next attack, unlike the previous attack which was not at its full power.
The surrounding temperature started to hit up and the sword glowed in crimson red. Lucas poured every bit of mana without holding back.
"Slash!" Lucas shouted and he swing his sword.
The huge arc of the sword aimed at the incoming branches moved towards it cutting through the ground.
The crimson arc burnt down everything that stood in its path.
The tree claws caught on fire even before the attack reached them.
Before the blood arc could clash against them.
They split and changed their direction and diverged from the incoming direction still many of them weren't able to avoid the attack and some even burnt turning into ashes even from the distance.
The remaining claws arrived before Lucas and pounced on him.
Lucas held his sword tightly trying to slice off as many as he can.
While Lucas was trying to swing his sword. The ground around him emitted a rumbling noise and started to shake and a dome-shaped wall appeared covering the spot where Lucas was standing and many walls were formed before the dome that veiled Lucas.
The claws collided with the wall but were not able to break it and before they can strike the wall again, the blood-red arc whose strength was numerous times higher than the previous Lucas attack tore through the shield of branches and sliced off the main trunk into two halves and passed through the cliff and covering a certain height burst out, exploding in the sky illuminating the whole area like the rays of the sun for a moment.
The explosion rang like thunder that frightened the beast nearby and that shrank in fear as they noticed the huge crimson ball of explosion in the night sky.
The sliced human-shaped tree, split into halves and burn fiercely turning into ash before it can react.
The main part of the trunk turn into ash which was blown away by the wind, the remaining branches and claw-shaped twigs fell on the ground with a large thud and some of them were started to burn and emit a screech screech sound along with the crackling sound which can be heard when dried twigs were burning.
Inside the dome-shaped shield, Lucas's vision was dark and he wasn't able to see anything inside.
Seeing the dome made of fine grain appearing out of nowhere, Lucas muttered"Don't tell me.."
As to answer his question, the ground beneath him started to shake again and emit a rumbling sound.
The dome slid down and became one with the ground.
Lucas was blinded by the sudden influx of light as he looked around to find the entire area surrounding him was burning and deep fumes of smoke were gathering in the sky and from the smokescreen, a silhouette appeared.
Lucas was familiar with the silhouette and was about to ask 'Didn't you flee?.'
But swallowed his words as he looked at Charles's pitiful condition. His clothes were torn from many places and his body was full of scratches and bruises and his face was swollen to a certain extent.
Lucas was confused about his appearance and asked "Why are you...?"
But before Lucas could complete his words, he was cut off in the mid of his speech by Charles.
"I didn't leave you alone. I jumped in the wrong direction to avoid the attack and fell down the cliff."
"You...What!!!"
"Pftt." Lucas didn't know whether to laugh or cry at Charles hearing him as he tried to hold back his laughter.
'Just how bad is his situation awareness that he didn't know on which side the cliff was.'Lucas thought and was unable to contain his laughter seeing Charles pouting like a child.
"You don't have to laugh so much. It was quite hard to notice the direction in the night and to help you, I have to fight hard with the beast down there which lead to my current condition. After hurriedly climbing thr cliff, I noticed that you were surrounded by those weird dark branches."
"Okay, I got it. Thanks for the help. We are even now." Lucas spoke.
Charles nodded but still looked at Lucas in awe. When he climbed the cliff he noticed a sparking light of sword passed through the tree slicing a part of the cliff and exploding in the sky.
His eyes widened with horror seeing the attack. Remembering about the attack he shuddered. He swore in his heart that no matter what, he will not make an enemy out of Lucas and when he got back, he will just focus on improving himself.
Lucas looked around and found the trees around them were quite normal and they still haven't been affected by the seed of darkness.
...
At the first rays of sunlight the sky.
Lucas and Charles stop on a big boulder and looked in the direction of the fortress.
Finally, after walking non-stop for thr entire night they were out of the dangerous situation. They can finally let their guard down.
On the bank of the river of Kansas, the city of Aler was surrounded by the wall on all sides forming a fortress that was named as Fortress of Aler.
As they were nearing the gate, Lucas was trying his best to keep his consciousness.
Heavy drowsiness started to hit him. Though he was physically fit he was mentally exhausted and fighting non-stop for the past days have taken a toll on him.
After entering the huge gate, they head towards the Public Safety Bureau.
After reaching it, Lucas's vision blurred as heavy drowsiness hit him.
After all, he had been fighting nonstop without even a blink of sleep and he was about to pass out when Charles gave him a shoulder to lean on.
