On the third day of the fourth week, the students once again ventured into the woods west of Weathered Woods academy. But rather than cowering behind their teacher every step of the way, they took the lead—confident and courageous, scouting ahead for monsters they could ambush. The instructor steadily walked behind, monitoring without interfering, to the best of his ability at least, mostly correcting errors as they presented themself.
But the man himself had unconsciously inspired some reckless behavior. A few of the students began attempting to jump from treetop to treetop after watching their instructor scurry about the day prior. But it didn’t last for too long after one of them took a nasty fall. They fortunately managed to catch themselves, though, by digging their weapon into the side of a tree to slow themself down.
It had been a somewhat scary moment for the teacher, really feeling the limits of his drained body as he rushed to try and help them. While he would have made it in time to catch them at the bottom of the tree, or at the very least use his body as a cushion to collapse into, it was indeed a gut-wrenching moment. But if it was the scariest moment of the day, he’d consider it a blessing.
Though he felt there wasn’t too much to worry about. Drim had scouted the woods early that morning, and the group had already cleared the worst monsters over the past two days. So it should have been fine, with his pupils able to competently handle the dregs that remained. But just as The Slayer was about to call back the students and chastise them for running too far ahead, he heard screaming in the distance.
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“Will you slow down, Jordi?” Kleff stopped to catch his breath, struggling to keep up with his overeager classmate. He knew his words would do no good when she got like this, overconfident and cocky, but maybe showing some weakness would get through her thick skull. “I can barely even see the rest of the class behind us now.”
“It’s fiiiine,” the girl insisted, clearly hopped-up on adrenaline. It was slightly understandable, since she was currently on a killing streak, having taken down four monsters already in quick succession. She was also demonstrating far more skill and mastery than she ever had before, particularly with her weapon, starting to wield it properly.
Kleff groaned as he started to hustle again after her, worried to leave her alone for even a second. Maybe he didn’t need to be if she kept improving like this, but the man doubted he’d ever be able to fully shake his protective side. And it flared again mere moments later.
“Hey, Kleff, what’s up with this tree do you think?” Jordi had actually stopped moving for a minute in the suspiciously open clearing as she stared at the bizarre trunk. The bark was warped weirdly, and the coloration was none like they’d ever seen before. It was also wider and taller than every other tree around, with emerging roots that seemed to have weeded out all the other foliage in its immediate vicinity. Perhaps against her better judgment, it made the girl want to touch it. But just in case there was something weird, she decided to prod at it with the pointy end of her pole mace.
She inched the tip of the weapon closer and closer, but right before she made contact, her back cracked with pain and she was sent tumbling off to the side. The girl whirled her head to understand what had happened, and she saw Kleff standing where she’d been, still holding out his tonfas from when he’d struck her, knocking her out of the way.
The next moment, the claw-shaped branches grabbed the man before he could escape and hoisted him into the air. Jordi quickly scrambled to her feet as fast as her aching body would let her. She picked up her weapon and sprinted towards the base of the tree. The woman drove the pole mace forward, embedding the spiked tip deep into the bark, but nothing happened.
She pulled back and adjusted her attacks, slamming the mace head into the sides of the tree, using her best moves that had just so easily dispatched raving monsters. But they were equally as ineffective. And then the girl had to skirt back further, swinging upwards at the branches that were now coming for her.
At least her attacks were effective in holding them off, managing to damage the branches, though not snapping them like twigs as she’d hoped. She continued to ward off the assault, all while trying to find Kleff again. Then she spotted him well out of reach, and her heart sank. The man was quickly becoming fully caged by the tree, more and more branches wrapping around him, trapping and squeezing the boy as he continuously failed to resist, forcing him to scream in pain. And in mere moments he’d be completely entombed.
“Damn it! What do I do?!” the girl bellowed, feeling so hopeless. All of her confidence had shattered, and she felt entirely incapable, knowing she’d hit her wall. And what made it worse, her reckless behavior would cost her closest friend his life. All she could do was watch and despair.
But just as she was about to give into the crushing reality, the girl was suddenly struck from behind a second time.
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Drim bolted forward as soon as he heard the screaming, rushing as far as his humanized legs could carry him. The teacher clawed at his strength draining cuffs as he sprinted, desperately trying to remove them. They had a quick-release function for just such emergencies, but his less dexterous fingers struggled as he scrambled.
And even if he could manage to remove them, the return to full power wasn’t instantaneous. It took a little bit, precious moments that he couldn’t spare. But what could he even do? The moment he laid eyes on the situation, even he was riddled with a hopelessness that the students ahead of him undoubtedly shared.
Just what was that monster? The Slayer had certainly never seen anything like it before. There were of course mutated plants that acted aggressive, but this seemed to go beyond angry flora defending itself or hunting for sustenance. No, it was clearly out to kill in a way that other plants never acted.
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It had to have been merged with some sort of creature. While such a fusion was something Drim had encountered before, he could count the experiences on a single hand, and most would never witness it in their lifetime even if they often traveled the world. His only encounter in recent years was with the Fungants. And while fungi aren't strictly plants, the concept was the same. Two otherwise entirely separate fields of life combining to create something new.
Just from a glance, The Slayer guessed the tree had somehow mutated with an anemone. He was entirely basing it on the coloration and the way the branches swayed, but it honestly didn’t matter at this point. What it did mean is that the easy solution was gone. While Drim would have barely any control over his power when the cuffs were first removed, he’d at least be able to drain plants right away, assuming he could make it that far to touch it.
But that wouldn’t work in this scenario since it was now a fully alive monster. It meant Drimini who was speeding there herself also wouldn’t be able to drain the thing. In fact, everyone was converging. All the students were rushing headlong towards the stationary creature, to help their peers. But none of them would make it in time.
There were only a few seconds left for action. Branches were aiming to strike Jordi who had fallen to her knees. And the student trapped in the treetop, whom the teacher had to assume was Kleff, would soon be entirely covered and subsequently crushed.
Drim had closed about half the distance and managed to remove one of the cuffs, already increasing his speed. But instead of reaching for the other, he found his free hand grabbing at the bow on his back. Why was it doing such a thing? Why was something in the back of his mind thumping the rest of his brain, insisting that there was another option.
The feeling felt familiar. It was the same one from the Bastion Genocide that had helped him decisively end the war with as few casualties as possible. While all of his fighting instincts told him to keep moving, to get to his students’ side as quickly as possible, that feeling made him stop in his tracks and drop to one knee himself. Though it wasn’t out of hopelessness and forfeit, but rather to brace his aim.
The Slayer let that subconscious voice take over and his body began surging with power like he’d never felt before, reaching from his head all the way down to his toes and fingertips, like it was tracing his veins. He drew his bow and aimed dead ahead but didn’t nock an arrow.
Instead, that trace of power concentrated, all flowing to the hand that had pulled the string. Then it passed through his skin, becoming tangible as it formed into a long spindel, aligning itself perfectly with the bow. The man didn’t understand what this arrow of green light was, he only knew that he had to fire it. Then his lips mouthed unconscious words, ❝Divine Intervention: Skill Link❞
He released the shot and it zoomed through the air, far faster than it had any right to based on the strength of the bow and how hard he’d pulled it, truly acting like light. The faux arrow pierced into Jordi’s spine, just below her neck. And then for a split second, there was the flash of a chain that connected all the way from the girl back to Drim’s heart before it vanished out of sight.
The branches came crashing down a moment later. Unlike with Kleff, they didn’t intend to capture the girl, but rather to skewer her, the wood formed into long slender spikes. But they missed their mark. Jordi had leapt up at the last second and she landed back down on top of the branches that had aimed to kill her.
And she didn’t stop with a simple dodge. The woman sprinted forward up the thin wooden path, traversing the rough terrain as easily as a sidewalk. Then when more branches went swinging towards her, she bounded out of the way, jumping from branch to branch in a succession of quick hops, like she was an elite gymnast that would win any competition in the world.
In seconds, Jordi had scaled the towering tree, landing her feet gracefully on top of Kleff’s confining cage. All she could see of him was his panic and a single confused eye, but it was all she needed to drive her forward, since hope remained after all. The girl lifted her weapon high and swung it downward, spinning it in a circle as it slammed against the tangled wood.
She met heavy resistance, but pushed forward with strength she’d never known before, carving out every inch around them. The cage remained intact, but everything supporting it to the treetop had been severed. So the pod of wood plummeted to the ground, reversing its purpose, now keeping the student inside safe from the impact.
But Jordi didn’t fall with it. Now that she’d saved her friend, all of her impulses as a monster hunter flared, and she needed to kill this crazy thing before it harmed anyone else. Her instincts drove her skyward, riding the branches that soared after her higher and higher until she’d reached the peak of their reach. And then she jumped once more, above the grabbing wood that snapped at her feet.
Jordi flipped around when she reached the height of her crest, and then shifted all of her weight onto her weapon, pointing the head of her pole mace straight down at the tree. She went crashing down, the metal flail beneath her easily tearing through the branches that tried to stop her. And then the spiked tip impaled directly into the center of the monster’s trunk where it pushed forward further.
The wood split from the momentum of the impact, and her weapon dug itself down about half the length of the shaft. Even with all of her new skill, there was no way that she could remove it easily, but the weapon was no longer required. All the flailing branches stopped at once and began to dissolve. The monster was dead.
Jordi hopped off the bizarre corpse and rushed over to the cage that had also started to rot, right as a few of the students also arrived. Together, they broke the wooden confinement away, revealing a tattered and shaken up Kleff who was fortunately still conscious. However, bits of his clothing had been dissolved away, and there were some strange burn marks on the exposed parts of his skin, like the creature had been digesting him.
Still, he was in one piece. And with his high spirits, he lunged up, wrapping his arms around Jordi and pulling her into a deep hug. But the moment was slightly ruined when the man noticed something off, bumping into his arms. “What’s in your back, Jordi?”
“Eh?” the girl whirled around having forgotten about that sensation she’d felt. She poked at the protruding arrow of light and it shattered instantly, along with the glowing chain that led back to the teacher that had just arrived on the scene. “Damn, now I feel all weak again,” she pouted as she slumped and her legs began to wobble from exhaustion.
One of the other students then spoke up. “I knew those cuffs had to be bullzjik. He was supposed to be weakened, and he still did some weird Fiend magic.” The group chuckled at the idea, and the instructor joined them, pretending to act light hearted about the whole thing to hide his confusion.
They ended the hunting trip there, even though it was still early in the afternoon. Yet to the instructors surprise, instead of retiring to their rooms and enjoying the early break, his students elected to continue training on their own out in the academy field while he took Kleff and Jordi to the clinic.
There, as they treated the boy’s wounds and checked for any abnormalities in Jordi’s body—which there were none, not even a puncture wound—Drim gave them a scolding of the lifetime. He hated doing it, but it was at that point where he genuinely felt most like a teacher.