Chapter 34- Elder dryad.

"Double shit." I exclaim as I frantically try to get away from the bulked up giant that is now leaning in to grab me with its wood-like hands.

The thing stands easily 3 meters tall and lumbers over me, as if I was but a small child before a grown adult.

Blinking 20 meters backwards from the giant, I quickly gather and condense Mana to cast a direct spell towards my Nemesis that is now quickly closing in on me by having roots carry it towards me at incredible speed as the giant prepares to throw a root spear with its right arm.

As I manage to gather and condense enough Mana to form my spell, I focus my mind and start molding the Mana to conform with the shape I had in mind; a flurry of fire-bullets, hundreds of them to shower him with.

As the giant reaches 10 meters away from me, which only takes the thing a few moments with his incredible movement speed with his roots, he throws his mighty root spear with ridiculous speed straight towards my head.

As the giant root spear shoots towards my head, my mind quickly realizes that there is no way, with the spears speed, that I will be able to dodge the root spear before it goes through my head.

As the realization goes through my head and the panic flares up, time equally starts slowing down and I can noticeably see that the spears movement speed is becoming slower and slower as it inches towards its intended target, my head.

'Is this how it goes when you know you're going to die? Will my life flash before my eyes next?' I ponder absently as my eyes stay transfixed to the approaching root spear that is promising death upon me all the while I desperately try to force my head out of the way of the incoming spear, but to no avail; My body doesn't respond fast enough and my body's movements are too slow for my movements to be able to dodge out of its trajectory. It is too late now anyway, the root spear is just a hand-span away and poised to take me through my left eye any moment now.

Or so I thought.

Suddenly something gives and my body suddenly becomes incredibly responsive, fast and nimble as I slide right and cleanly dodge the root spear by a measure of centimeters. A moment passes in silence as my mind has problems to grasp what just happened; By all intents and purposes, I should be dead. I should not have been able to dodge that spear attack, my mind knows this. But for whatever reason, I am still alive and kicking.

Still in disbelief, I look back towards the root spear that is now slowly accelerating away from me as it is slowly reclaiming its speed and is increasingly quickly moving away from me.

"... Magic?" I ask aloud distractedly as I watch the spear continue its flight away from me. Turning back towards my Nemesis who almost killed me, a smile slowly spreads across my face as I take in the shocked look on the green bastards face.

"...Yeah; Magic. And I freakin' love magic!" I exclaim in exhilaration as the adrenalin rush hits me full force and washes away all my tiredness, pain and fears. Blinking 30 meters up into the air, I start surveying the general area which my sword flew off to and within moments I spot the weapon standing upright about 30 meters away, the blade has been half buried into the ground with the handle up towards the sky.

'Magic sword, indeed.' I comment in my mind as I Blink over to my katana and pull it from the ground before I set off at a sprint towards my new Nemesis and target with a wide smile on my face.

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As I close in on the elder dryad I slide to a stop and do a sword draw that sends yet another wind-blade screeching towards the mass of dryads arranged in front of me, with the wind-blade focused onto the elder dryad at the center of my slash.

After sending the wind-blade flying towards the dryads arrayed before me, I promptly Blink to the right side of the group of green humanoids and slash right and left while dodging the dryads counter attacks before I Blink to the opposite side and unleash another wind-blade through the mass of dryads before a glancing blow from another root spear leaves a long and painful rift along my chest that quickly starts soaking my clothes and turn them to a dark crimson color.

"Shit!" I exclaim in pain through clenched teeth. 'I can't kill all of them… I need to kill the elder dryad, get the essence and make a run for it.' I think as I refocus my mind towards the elder dryad and consider my options to bring the big bastard down as I take a few moments to watch the wind-blade bisect the first few dryads at the edge of the mass of dryads as I try to stop the bleeding by forcefully shoving Mana into my chest wound.

"So, how do I bring that big bastard down?" I ask aloud to myself as I start dodging the quickly incoming projectiles and spells, using Blink to escape when I can't manage to completely dodge the incoming onslaught.

"I can't just keep dodging forever here man; Think! What to do?!" I yell to myself as I dodge the latest root spear from the elder dryad: I just barely managed to move out of the way enough so that it wouldn't piercing straight through my chest, instead, it left me with a long and nasty gash along my left arm as I had to use my left arm to push the root spear and lead it away from my body. "SHIT! That hurts like balls!" I exclaim as the pain registers in my mind. Taking a look at my left arm, I quickly realize that I will be unable to use the arm properly until I heal the wound; Which will have to wait.

'Ok that's it!

I need to take that big green bastard down and get the hell out of here, ASAP.' I reaffirm to myself before promptly getting ready for an all out hit and run on my new Nemesis: the Elder dryad.

As I start gathering Mana, I figuratively start squeezing even harder, in an attempt to forcibly gather more Mana, at an even higher rate than I naturally would be able to.

Things don't quite work out as I had imagined however: When I started forcibly gathering Mana to myself the surrounding fauna visibly starts wilting as the very Mana that is sustaining them gets drained right out of them.

Noticing the effect, I put it out of mind for now and refocus on gathering as much Mana as quickly as I can while I continue dodging the incoming projectiles.

A few moments pass before I start feeling physically ill from the unbelievable amount of Mana that I've managed to collect from the surrounding fauna and the Mana rich air. I feel dangerously inflated, as if I am a balloon that is about to reach its limit and could pop at any given time.

Gritting my teeth, I power through the uncomfort and continue on to condensing the Mana, at which point the pressure from inside slowly lessen and I breathe out a sigh of relief; Only to have to Blink out of the way of yet another root spear that comes flying, aimed straight at my head.

Looking over towards my Nemesis, the Elders dryad is now rushing towards me once again; This time with a dozen other dryads following along and supporting their leader with spells and projectiles.

Their leader, the elder dryad, has started channeling a huge spell, likely in response to my own spell-in-making.

Blinking away into the fauna, I try to make myself as hard to hit as I can as I continue running through the foliage. Which unfortunately, I belatedly realize, has the exact opposite effect as the surrounding fauna suddenly comes alive to attack me as I pass.

"... I'm an idiot. They're freakin' tree people! What the hell was I thinking?!" I mutter in exasperagasm at my own stupidity as I Blink back out of the fauna.

As I reappear in the clearing, I begin molding the gathered and condensed Mana into a workable spell: I settle on yet another flash fire spell: Only, this one should be a number of times more powerful than the last one, at least, if the amount of Mana is anything to go by it should be.

…

'... I hope I don't blast myself into oblivion too; 'Cause that would suck.' I think to myself as I finish the last of the moulding.

"I better Blink as far away from here as soon as I let the spell fly; Better to be safe rather than be burnt to a crisp." I mutter as I prepare to unleash my spell upon the elder dryad. The green bastard needs to die.

"Eat this, you green bastard!!"

End of chapter 34