Logan, Marcus, and Amalia stalked the forests quietly but quickly, the former two having a lot of experience with being sneaky during their hunting missions. The forest regained some of its life, from the brush swaying in the wind to brave birds who sang atop the branches.
Deep within a forest to the northwest of Gauntlet, where the sky was hard to see, and its sunlight barely piercing a veil of green, the party continued its search for a dangerous monster. A treacherous force that matched its habitat, if a forest was to swallow whole those who got lost, the jinmerru would consume those who knew where they were going.
While the forest brimmed with dangers, it seemed none compared to the blight. Both unseen and unheard, the normal monsters probably also became a part of the large tree. As if the oak of the tree trunks knew of an impending danger, laughter echoed off their thick bark. It wasn’t joyous, though, it was a broken laughter. The only thing left when your mind had been sapped and your personality turned wooden.
Cresting a small hill within the grassy forest paths, the party crouched and hugged nearby flora to hide their unwanted gaze.
Ahead was their quarry. The jinmerru. An enormous tree, compared to the size of the humans, daunted the trio's victory. At 50' tall, and half that in width, the tree had a vicious mockery of a face painted across the middle portion of its trunk, dark brown hues that shifted but never opened, almost taunting the party as it mirrored a fierce glare.
While most of the bark was of light brown hues, it was covered in moss in several areas, and it had strange yellow veins across its many branches. Hands almost erupted from its bark, like the tree had absorbed so many people it couldn't keep them within its frame.
Atop its foliage was an even more sinister sight, its fruit that resembled large muddy-pink peaches, deep-red eggplants, and sickly-blue gourds, had pained and fearful faces, juices seeping from the orifices as if they were sick and crying. Logan could have sworn he heard tired moans of anguish from the fruit. The damn tree was torturing its victims as it sapped their power.
The Spellthief gritted his teeth in anger as he witnessed the abuse placed upon the seemingly still-living victims. “Marcus, do you think those people can be saved?” Logan asked with a sceptic hint in his voice making it seem to be a hopeless request.
Marcus looked over the gargantuan foe, his eyes betraying the emotions within of a boiling fury. “Sorry. Their transformations would lead me to believe there’s hardly anything of their bodies left. They’d need new vestiges, or, some powerful anti-curse magic I cannot fathom.”
Amalia lurched as she peered around the tree that hid her, “Disgusting, vile, monster”, she muttered under her breath.
Logan’s vaskt eyes flicked open as he used Identification. “All of those pieces of fruit act as a different entity. Some of the nearby trees are also corrupted treants”, he paused for a moment as he looked at the jinmerru, “Fuck me. Why’d this quest get given to you, Amalia?”
“What do you mean?”
“This is far above your level. It really should have noted this as a raid or something. It’s good you knew of us”, Logan spat.
“Will we be fine?”
Logan nodded, “It’ll be tricky, but Marcus and I can handle it.”
“Just like if we had Cassius”, Marcus teased.
Logan side-eyed Marcus, “We’ll stick to the original plan. There are no teleportation defences, but the main monster has a barrier that’ll take over a dozen powerful hits to break down. No doubt it’ll regenerate as long as the other creatures are here too.”
“Gather up, I’ll Enhance us”, Marcus ordered.
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The jinmerru was never silent, its roots croaked as if it was still in the phase of moving house, the wind brushing over its canopy and causing the fruit to moan in pain. There were no sounds of birds, most likely identifying the danger and fleeing the coop.
While it was never quiet, it was listening. Any amount of movement caused the beast to stir, and stir it did, moving its massive roots that went in and out of the ground like a gigantic wave that crashed away from itself.
The invisible Spellthief jumped high to avoid the defensive strike and let loose sparks of cobalt that appeared in mid-air, striking into the canopy above and dancing across its branches. Pained screams and gurgled cries echoed out as countless fruits snapped off from their homes and fell to the floor.
Before either his foe or himself hit the floor, Logan appeared with more blasts of lightning from his fingertips, piercing the previously struck foes and having them explode from within as the juices boiled and sought freedom. Crying eyes flew away from the nutritious confines of the skin, while others of their kind landed solidily on the roots and grass below.
Erupting wind from his palms, Logan avoided a crushing mass of roots on his location, twirling in the air to avoid more avid roots looking to drain him of his blood. Kicking off another angry root, Logan aimed both hands to the floor where the fruit had culminated, their exteriors having erupted into tendrils of sinew, seeds, and fruity muscle that replaced what limbs they had in life.
“Fire Blast 2nd”, Logan chanted, unleashing a bombardment of fiery explosions from both hands. The floor was filled with rolling and roaring fires, cooking the fruit and having more of them explode from the steam wanting to escape.
As Logan’s form slowly descended, a massive root limb of the jinmerru came swinging at his back. Logan didn’t react at all, as he did not need to. Marcus came flying from above and landed a massive downward punch into the root, bending and breaking it to the ground. With a massive flutter of his 20’ wingspan harpy wings, Marcus flew back up to strike another root that aimed to target Logan.
Logan looked high to the canopies, vindicating his fear that the sky would not be their ally as the dark greens blocked most of the sunlight into their area. Warping up to their heights, Logan aimed both hands upwards and chanted, “Fire Blast 2nd”, four times, letting fly eight casts of the spell to eradicate the foes that had yet to drop and were still clumped together.
Leaves and broken branches erupted sky high, cinders and smoke clinging to them like the fruit had done for dear life. Numerous clutches of trapped denizens were splintered free, from both their confines and their tormented life.
The nearby trees did not let Logan work unfettered, though. Their trunks broke apart to reveal owl hideyholes, holding masses of power rather than nightly avians. Masses of darkness formed into spherical disasters that were shot at dangerous speeds toward the Spellthief. But, a Spellthief he was.
Logan twisted in the air with the aid of Air Blast and aimed hands at the attacks, mentally commanding, “Spell Absorb”. The scourge of abyss hit Logan’s palms and spun around dizzyingly, vortexing into the man’s body.
“Spell Absorption successful. Necromantic 2nd charge stored x10, Necromantic 2nd already mastered.”
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Ten total blasts came Logan’s way, and ten were absorbed. At Spell Absorption’s current mastery, it was almost impossible to fail to absorb third-level spells.
Teleporting away from the airborne disaster zone, Logan apparated near Amalia who had been dutifully cutting away at the roots a distance from the main conflict. Her work hadn’t gone unnoticed as many of the fruity monsters had charged in her direction.
“Necromantic 2nd Grasp”, Logan chanted, slapping his hands onto the fruits as they jumped, climbed, and rushed towards his ally in combat. Each touch came with it an explosion of dark spikes from the monsters’ bodies, juices and skin flying as they hardly stood a chance against the multiplied damage, doing 204 damage on average.
Spinning, leaping, and circumventing the foes that were hurrying to falter Amalia, Logan had free reign to take down ten foes, freeing up his absorption slots.
Logan nodded at Amalia who returned the gaze. Logan then spun around as he drew up two blades to slash at roots that followed him, segmenting them into ovals of vegetarian delights. Jumping high, he drew out twenty other daggers and railgunned them with Dagger Toss. The daggers perforated roots and stabbed the fruits mid-air, sending their bodies flying backwards.
The roots continued their disastrous motions, moving to interrupt Marcus quite a bit who was trying to aim at the nearby trees who continued to blast around the arena. Warping in front of the jinmerru, Logan held a hand at its fake face, “Hey, bark face, right here! Fire Blast”, he yelled, exploding flaring ignition across a green hexagon barrier.
As the smoke cleared rapidly, Logan was unsurprised at the lack of damage. Logan’s red eyes stared at the creature, scanning the barrier that was quickly regenerating its lost 78 damage of a total of 900.
Thankfully, Logan’s two sets of eyes could act independently. It was a bit straining for his mind to process the information, but far away from difficult. His normal eyes peered to the far side, allowing him to use Dimensional Jaunt to avoid a cluster of roots that crashed together in front of the barrier, where Logan just was.
Apparating on the ground, Logan drew back both hands and had fire begin to form amongst them, but he warped up high just again, avoiding more roots that followed. It was a good thing that channelling a spell didn’t mean you’d lose it, only when fully cast or beginning of chanting would it be lost. Holding the charge, as it were, Logan aimed downwards at the roots as he spoke, “Flame 2nd Shot”, letting free a duo of fireballs that cracked apart two roots.
The propelling force of his spell kept Logan airborne, enough time to think, “If only this thing’s main body wasn’t immune to anything below third-level spell.”
A massive crunch and snap broke Logan out of his thought as he spied Marcus landing a Superman punch through the trunk of one of the nearby trees, breaking it in two and a thousand splinters. The Devout landed in a slide on the other end, twisted his head, and warped away to attack another of the trees.
Logan himself flipped in the air, warped to another bushel of fruit, and alighted them with a duo of Fire Blast casts. As the fires dissipated, Logan landed a solid defensive punch into a root that swung through the corpses. Using the root as a platform, Logan was thrown backwards into another but teleported in front of an antagonistic tree.
“Flame Grasp”, Logan incanted, grasping the trunk of one of the lesser trees, igniting it with twin arms that turned brown to black, and solid to crumbling dust in the air.
Logan warped between three other trees, using the same tactic to aid in Marcus’s destruction of the fuelling stations for the jinmerru. The sector of the forest the party were accosting was ablaze with flames and horrific screams of the animated flora, accompanied by pained yells of the tortured souls turned to fruit.
A waving green and grey aura dissipated over the jinmerru as the trees had all been slain and destroyed, the fruits atop its canopy either fully detached or burnt to a crisp. Letting off a massive roar from its oaky centre, the jinmerru caused countless pieces of debris to fly off on the wind. Alongside the debris went leaves, which turned into razor-sharp projectiles that aimed in an arc from the monster.
Logan and Marcus teleported behind Amalia, the Guardian raising her shield high to defend against the almost endless assault of green scythes. It sounded like hurried hail against a tin roof, ting ting’ing away. Unlike hail, it dealt much more damage to the wall of iron. Scratches turned to cracks until the shield fell away in fragments.
Logan wrapped an arm around Amalia’s side, chanting, “Barrier”, replacing a physical wall with one made up of blue hexagons. The metallic scraping noise was replaced with a more strange synthetic tune of coins hitting glass. “Marcus, I need you to batter back the leaves so I can set up”, Logan instructed.
Marcus with his arm raised over his forehead to block the wind and dust replied, “Got it!”
The leaves and hurricane were endless, but Marcus would see an end to that. Jumping over the pair, the Devout stretched his arms out to the side, wide, before slapping them together with immense strength. A tempestuous wind erupted from Marcus’s clap, battering against the blustery winds and flora from the jinmerru, almost equal in distance as they combatted one another.
Logan spun around Amalia, his legs sliding across the mud as he also stretched out his arms and chanted, “Spellforce.”
Replacing the combative winds, Logan’s palms vortexed in the air and ambient spellforce. The leaves and debris fell to the floor quickly, as the wind was more demonstrative than an actual vacuum of air. The jinmerru let out countless old creaks as if it were an age-old home that couldn’t handle the harsh winds outside.
A rumbling thunder emanated from the tree, whatever it could muster up as a groan of pain. It was poetic and karmic that its low cries were similar to that of its trapped victims. Said victims started to fall from its bark, skinless carcasses that were finally released from its grasp and returned to the earth below.
Logan took steps towards the jinmerru, the absorption powers of a demon on full display against the colossal foe that had little defence against it at this point. No allied trees and no commanded fruits to attack Logan at his flanks. Even if there were, he had Marcus and Amalia both to protect him, which they did as they followed at the Spellthief’s back.
Two minutes passed as Logan absorbed the power of the monster and the area around and behind it, its bark losing all lustre and its canopy almost barren as the leaves fell to the floor. It had no defence left.
Reddish-purple light flowed around Logan’s body, alongside his veins and arteries glowing a disturbing red and blue, seeking to erupt from his skin. Breathing out a thick white fog, Logan knew he was at the extent allowed by this skill, at least one that was safe to do. Any further and he’d risk damage to himself. There wasn’t as much energy in the air as there was in the tournament, as most had dissipated from the trapped creatures.
Moving his hands together, Logan formed the osmosis energies from his fingers into a small orb of monochrome in the air between his two hands. Static rolled around the orb as Logan’s body glowed violet, the colour flowing into the orb and fading to darkness and light.
“Blast”, he commanded, the ball of energy raced away from the man, blasting a wave of energy in a cone behind him that turned grass to mud and cleaned the area of debris. The ball, however, disturbed a massive line in the ground in its trail, a gutter of death that followed the deadly orb as it hurled toward the tree.
The jinmerru let out a final, and drawn-out, roar as the orb connected with its barky skin. Brown and black were eaten away as if millions of ants were tearing the construct apart. Picked clean, the jinmerru was disintegrated by the sheer power of the skill, a massive hole exploding in the centre of the tree with a huge bang that could have been heard for miles upon miles away.
The top of the jinmerru was sent flying into the sky, while the lower half was flattened against the mud. Seconds later, the top section landed with a massive slam on the ground, creaking and snapping audible as the pieces fell apart further.
Logan’s arms fell low as he hunched over, harsh breaths escaping his maw. This was only the second time using Spellforce Blast, and it was as good a time as any to test his current limits. He’d hate to use it without prior knowledge when it’d count.
“Fatality”, Logan laughed under his breath, the experience reward of the combat floating all around the trio.
Chapter 186 - Jinmerru Level XP [https://i.postimg.cc/0y9dKHHN/Chapter-186-Jinmerru-Level-XP.png]
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