[Acidic Blast: Slash]

The slash came too fast for Licht to react to. Doubled with the hulking frame of his body being slightly too big to react quickly, and him not being very familiar with moving it yet, Licht was cut cleanly across his chest without any resistance. The blade, covered in acidic slime, burned deep into his chest cavity and cut through his ribs like jelly.

Sizzle

[Acid Detected!]

[...Resistance Failed!]

[Taking -3 HP/sec damage!]

[Health: 450/500]

“AAH!”

A geyser of green smoke erupted from his chest. What had happened? Licht looked back down at Kushal, who was winding up his acid-slick sword for another slash at Licht.

“Damn!”

[Biogenical Growth]

The skill quickly went to work on patching up the wound on Licht’s chest as he backed away. What was going on? Acid? Licht’s mind swam with questions and was wracked with pain. As Licht’s own skill patched him up, the armed elf in front of him wore an expression of surprise.

He seemed to say something, but Licht’s attention was on the forest floor before him.

“Defius filigro? Fasini.”

A small number of Manacle Blossoms had fallen to the ground, damp from the acid and sizzling. They lasted but seconds before they dissolved to dust. Whatever he had been attacked with was fast working and potent, Licht realized. He began to understand the gravity of the situation, but not why he was being attacked.

“Why–”

Licht started just as Kushal jumped forward again. This time, he could see the trajectory of the slash aimed right for his neck. Licht held out his hand, swatting forth at the comparatively small frame of Kushal.

“Ha!”

Kushal let out a laugh and ducked mid-lunge, sliding underneath Licht’s attack and getting in a swipe of his sword at the open leg of the wooden giant.

[Acidic Blast: Pierce]

“Rgh!”

[Health: 410/500]

Licht bit down on the pain, feeling the coarse inside of his mouth stiffen. Licht dropped involuntarily to a knee. Though he felt that most sensations of his construct body were dulled considerably, the pain of a limb being taken was still unimaginable.

Even though Licht couldn’t understand the language of the elf, he somehow knew that a skill was being used, or it should be a spell in this case. Licht looked at the missing stump of his leg, clutching it with his hand. Clearly it had something to do with acid, and despite Licht’s resistance skill, it had melted completely through his dense body. A blanket of steaming azure laid around his body. More Manacle Blossoms had spilt onto the ground.

[Biogenical Growth]

Licht mended himself again. Although not having enough time to regrow the leg, he was able to seal the hole. Out of the corner of Licht’s vision, he could see another elf coming in with their sword raised.

Dazed from the pain still flooding in, Licht only had the presence of mind to raise his spare hand in time to block the incoming slash.

However he felt two blades slide through his body. Kabir, in front of him, who’s bronze sword had no coating of acid and thus only embedded itself in his raised arm. A dull thud rang out from the basic attack.

But all the while, Kushal struck him from behind.

[Acidic Blast: Slash]

Kushal, who’s acid-soaked slash followed swiftly in an arc through Licht’s lowered arm. Separating the limb from the stump it had been clutching.

“Hrgh!”

[Health: 360/500]

“AH! Licht!”

Racheal’s scream barely resounded in Licht’s head. His foggy mind thumped with numbness.

“...I understand her? Oh…the skill.”

Licht weakly thought. His vision starting to fade as his thoughts became less lucid.

…

Felfit, controlling Kushal’s body, grabbed the severed arm of the wooden plant life. Pushing into the gaping hollow of the limb, it wondered aloud.

“It’s warm to the touch? How curious. Using some kind of sap for blood.”

The slime parasite wondered if this was what allowed it to heal so fast.

Felfit hummed and tossed the arm back to Kabir. Best to keep it. It was sure that Blackreed would appreciate the sample almost as much as it would the mounted head of the target.

Nevertheless, the mission had gone well, Felfit thought with satisfaction.

Now that the target was immobilized, down a leg and an arm, it could even be apprehended alive. Though Felfit was assigned a clean up operation, which normally meant killing the target, it knew that its higher ups would much prefer a living sample instead.

It happened to be an added bonus that as a result of its actions and immobilizing strategy, the target appeared to be ripe for capture.

Felfit approached the steaming wooden body, when a roar came from the mouth of the creature.

The parasite cursed and jumped back. The trees around it suddenly started to warp and twist, splitting apart into fine spearheads and plunging downwards at the two bodies it controlled. The surrounding elves were also in the range of the attack, but grasped by roots, they were pulled away to safety.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Controlling the able-bodied Kushal and Kabir, Felfit easily dodged the spears. Though it presented an opportunity, and Felfit wasn’t going to let that pass.

“You’re going to resist until the end? Fine then! Forget the capture!”

Kushal raised both hands, dropping the sword. If it wanted to resist, it could resist. Licht wasn’t the only one with an ace up their sleeve, and this one had been long in the making!

“[Acidic Blast: Implode]!”

With a roar of its own, Felfit activated the most destructive form of [Acidic Blast], a complete implosion of all parasite carrying bodies under the effects of the spell. Instantly, all around Licht, the bodies of the elves started to elevate in heat. Viridescent bulging veins ran across the surface of their bodies, bursting with green smoke and dissolving flesh.

For a moment, the cries of the elves distracted the giant. The head of Licht spun around to see Racheal and the children.

Felfit smiled, capitalizing on the moment it finished the spell.

Boom!

In less than a second, four of the elves wrapped in roots and only a few feet from Licht, burst apart like balloons. Their innards showering their surroundings with a rain of acid.

…

“No!”

With a cry more resembling a tremor than of speech. Licht watched in helplessness and terror as the bodies of the elves that had been carried away to safety in the roots of the trees, burst apart one after another.

His vision spun as he quickly looked over to Racheal who was next to the kids. Both of the children, Arjun and Siha, were covered in green veins and squirming in discomfort while Racheal was screaming. The rain of acid had fallen upon her, burning holes through her mushroom cap.

Licht roared, his control over his mind’s lucidity having been lost to rage.

With a quick motion he reached into his chest and tossed half of the remaining blossoms at the elves who had survived, just on the small chance that it would help heal them.

“[Biogenical Growth]!’

In the next moment, he funneled as much AF as he could into the spell, accelerating the healing of his limbs. At the same time, he pushed off with his spare hand, lunging at the cause of the scene, the elf Kushal.

“Why did you do this?!”

Licht screamed. With all the power he could muster, he slammed his body against the elf, sending him tumbling backwards, flying into the forest.

The elf’s body twisted through the air, skidding across the ground before crashing into the base of a tree. Agonizing crunches of breaking bones heard on impact.

Licht was about to approach Kushal but was stopped by Kabir, who raced toward him with an outstretched sword, attempting to run him through.

“You as well!”

Licht, now having had a moment to regrow his limbs, was able to stand up and sidestep the attack. As Kabir passed, he grabbed the elf’s head and slammed it into the ground. Beneath his palm he could feel something flatten and expand, then a wet sensation.

[Defeated Elf]

[+33 Experience]

“Damnit!”

Licht kneeled, trying to calm himself down. He had counterattacked out of anger and had killed the man, despite not trying to. He needed to understand. Was all of this his fault? Had the elves attacked him out of fright?

He should have warned them. Told Racheal in advance, at least. Licht looked up, barely able to take in the scene before him.

Racheal was badly wounded, but recovering with the blossoms. The kids were in a terrible state as well, with green veins scattered across their bodies. However it seemed that they were able to use the blossom extract to recover too.

The few elves that had survived were dying, and the remains of the four that had imploded were scattered around the forest, hanging from branches or steaming on the ground.

No, Licht knew, this had nothing to do with the elves. He turned his head back to Kushal. The broken body of the man had propped itself up with its broken joints and flaccid bones.

Licht stood up and walked over to the body. He hadn’t gotten a system notification for this one.

The elf was still alive somehow. Through its remaining eye it looked up at the towering Licht. Licht repeated his question.

“Why did you attack me?”

The loose jaw of the elf fell, letting out a slow chuckle.

“Droun gera disces falis aoen?”

Licht frowned. He curled his fingers into a ball.

The eye of the elf dropped for a moment before a moment passed and it changed the tone of its voice. Sounding out words in a discordant voice, similar to how the Giving Tree and Muan spoke. Like plant life.

“You can’t speak Silver I take it?”

Licht gritted his wooden teeth, tempted to kick the man through the air once more. No, he needed to know why this had happened. He needed Kushal to live just a little longer. Licht settled for putting the weight of his foot on the man’s leg. Pushing through the thigh meat, he felt the snapping of a bone somewhere down there.

Like he didn’t feel the pain, the elf just smiled.

“Well, it’s no matter. I suppose you’re surprised that you were attacked, but can you really be so? You didn’t even try to conceal your presence! It’s like you were begging the outside world to rush in and kill you.”

Licht’s face scrunched up. That wasn’t true. He had concealed himself the best he could. Taking the advice of the Giving Tree he had hidden his white leaves and tried to limit knowledge of his existence. But that hadn’t mattered it seemed, as they had still found him. Hunters.

“Who are you?”

Licht looked down through the man’s one good eye, the other having been destroyed upon his collision with the tree. Despite the gruesome look of the elf’s injuries, it didn’t appear he was in pain at all.

‘Kushal’ laughed.

“Haha. I’m simply a runaway slave. But who are you? A fool who still doesn’t understand the situation he’s in!”

Licht raised his fist in mid air, but heard something from behind him.

“What!?”

Licht turned, seeing the headless form of Kabir standing just feet away from him. Then a ping of the system came.

[Defeated Elf]

[+39 Experience]

“!?”

Seeing the system notification, Licht spun around again, just in time to see an explosion of green slime coating his vision and wrap around his head.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Licht let out a muffled scream of pain as the body of Felfit that had forgone its cover came in direct contact with his body and burned through his dense wooden faceplate.

Licht attempted to claw off the slime, but it had too firm of a grasp around his head. Quickly, steam started to erupt from all surfaces on his body, as the potent acid of the parasite assassin burned through his cells, and touched upon his orb. The glassy surface of the orb within Licht’s skull began to scar and steam.

[Health: 110/500]

…

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Resisting against the impulse to lose consciousness from the pain, Racheal saw how the slime parasite had abandoned the body of Kushal that it was keeping alive to jump onto Licht’s head.

Despite the departure from the form she had known it as, Racheal could still tell it was the same nature spirit whom she had bonded with during a difficult time in her life. So when she heard the screams of agony from the wooden giant, a part of her heart felt like it was shattering.

She looked at the two elven children at her side, though they weren’t in any condition to move, she knew they would recover. They were strong, and deep inside Racheal felt that they would be fine without her.

Maybe even better.

Racheal stretched out her hands. Though her body was still touched by acid, the determination to help Licht was stronger than the impulse to lower her burnt limbs and nurse her wounds.

With a motion of her hands, she closed both fists and put them together, forming a gap between them with a bend of her fingers.

A light began to form in that gap between her palms. A swirling mass of Ambient Force, threatening to fly forward from that gap at any moment.

Racheal’s voice cried out.

“[Phantasm: Break]!”