Chapter 47: The Forest [3]
"It can’t be..."
Aegon was baffled as he witnessed the regrowth of the guardian’s head.
"It didn’t die?"
The guardian, now fully grown, and attached, suddenly turned taking with it, its long hands to strike this human.
Aegon sensed it fast and used the dagger to cut off some parts, but they just regenerated back.
The guardian didn’t give him a chance as after it had regenerated it struck again, this time Aegon jumped up to dodge its strike from above.
Then the strike landed on the ground with no humans affected by it. The guardian then again spread out it long hands wide, and then Aegon landed on the ground.
He saw the same move the guardian was about to pull and immediately dashed towards it. It with a swift speed as his trench coat danced with his movement.
While he ran, he swung his hands for a faster movement as he speed increased tremendously
Just then, upon close, he struck his dagger at the side of the guardian as he moved forward away behind it.
He turned around and found that the cut which he made, had just easily regenerated back by joining with other branches.
"No good, huh?"
At this moment, he didn’t know how he was going to defeat this monster, and time was running out.
However, he didn’t give up and simply dashed towards the guardian again.
The guardian saw his incoming movement and immediately retracted both of its hands back.
They reduced from the longness that had, and now back to their original size.
Then, it raised both hands above its head, clenched the two of them together, and as Aegon was close enough, the guardian, with a large force smashed its fist on the human.
However, this human was swift, and had already dodged to the left side of the guardian.
Dust and particles of leaves flew around aimlessly at the sudden strike of the guardian’s fist to the ground.
At this moment, Aegon had a heavy breath as he breathed continuously, so strong that it would be heard.
He cleaned the sweat off his face with this right hand which was holding the dagger, then set his gaze at the guardian.
"Huff... This is a difficult one, huff...probably my toughest fight yet... huff."
The guardian turned towards him and had an expression of utter annoyance. It was obvious what it felt.
This human is proving difficult to kill.
At the same time, Aegon uttered;
"This creature is proving difficult to kill."
He held the dagger tightly as he thought of ways in which he could defeat it.
"If cutting it will not work, then should I drag it to the stream? No, that could make it grow faster because it is a tree."
"How about, cutting it all before it has time to regenerate?"
The idea entered his head and came to stay. It was the best option so far, with the most possible percentage of success.
"Guess I won’t know till I try."
He began to walk forward and the guardian saw his movement. Its bright green eyes were changing color as if reacting to its rage, which was somewhat the case.
Aegon noticed this and saw that the eyes of the guardian had changed into dark yellow.
"Did it...?"
However, this didn’t stop him from what he had in mind. At this point, he had closed the distance between him and the guardian.
They were very close, about just half an inch from each other.
Aegon stared up into the glowing yellow eyes of the guardian, and the guardian likewise stared into the piercing gaze of Aegon.
For a moment there was a brief silence as if everyone held their breath to watch. Even though there was nobody, no animals nor insects to witness this, there was still a moment of silence.
It was as if the forest itself was watching what was to unfold, the clash between a human and the tree giant.
Aegon had the ultimate confidence as he stood before the guardian. Out of all the monsters he had fought, this was the only one that had him go this far.
However, not once had he thought of the guardian as a monster. Of course it was different creatures but it didn’t have malice in itself.
It wasn’t fighting because of territory guarantee or a reward awaiting, it was fighting to protect its home, almost as if from something terrible that was to happen or had already happened.
This was how Aegon felt about this, but nevertheless he had to end it.
[Quest in Progress...]
[Time: 00:02:50]
After the moment of silence had ended, the guardian let out a loud cry and raised its hands up and clenched them both for a blow.
However, before it could make a move, Aegon had his left leg stepped backwards and his right a bit forward.
He had the dagger in his right hand, but to the side of his left waist, and his left hand backwards in the air, then, in that moment he opened his mouth for a bit, to breathe and a chill smoke came outside.
Afterwards, he sung the dagger and in that particular moment a thousand strikes were made, cutting every part of the guardian’s body.
From the body, to the hands, to the legs, to the head, horns, and everything else that remained; all felt the cut of a thousand strikes.
The dagger shimmers every time the moon is shown on it while it moves, as a bright reflection of the scene would appear.
The guardian groaned in pain as it felt its body being cut into pieces, until it couldn’t make a sound again because its mouth and face had already been cut.
After every strike, every cut, every precision taken for this execution was splendid, it was like a samurai wielding the katana.
It was beautiful.
THUD!
Every piece fell to the ground after the strikes had ended and Aegon, at this moment, was very exhausted.
He took a few steps backwards and knelt on the ground, his breath heavy.
"T... huff... that should have done it."
At his front, the system displayed not just one but two separate windows, his pupils shrank.
[Quest in Progress...]
[Time: 00:01:20]
[Fatigue: 78]
He was baffled to see that the quest window was still active and the timer was still counting.
Upon seeing this, his eyes immediately set to the fallen pieces of wood, leaves and branches on the ground.
It was the part of the guardian, but, had it really fallen?
Aegon was startled when he saw a certain piece of the fallen branches move an inch.
"Impossible..."
It wasn’t, the guardian was still alive and was only cut from its joints. At that moment, about a couple of woods began moving and rising.
They joined towards and formed two separate trunk-like legs, it was that of the guardian.
Afterwards, bit by bit the regeneration began and every path of the guardian’s body began to form back.
However, it wasn’t the same as before. Not the same size, not the same height and not the same form.
The guardian had grown three times what it was before, had four horns on its head and had grown four arms; two on each side.
Its eyes had turned red, glowing under the blood moon, this very night. It rose so high it was almost compared to the height of the forest’s trees which were incredibly tall.
Aegon couldn’t believe it, he had cut the guardian into pieces earlier to stop it from regenerating but little did he know that even if it was cut into pieces; as long as there were trees, leaves, woods, and a certain condition wasn’t met.
It would regenerate as often as needed too.
Seeing the massive size of the guardian now, Aegon, who almost didn’t have any strength, knew he couldn’t defeat that thing; not with his current state.
However, just at that moment, the two windows of the system that were in front of him shifted and gave way for a new window to appeared.
[Ding! MP Restored!]
[Due to the sudden drain of mana from the Monster Slayer, regeneration had been taking effect and now completed!]
[Ding! Possible use of mana again, checked!]
[MP: 30/30]
Aegon saw this notice appear before him, his lips curved into a smile, while making the sound.
"Hehehe..."