The newly sprouted branches were targeting his head. The leaves were obstructing his sight and the cape was mostly torn by now. But he had reached her. So, he made the decision to give up the disguise and forcefully pushed further towards her.

The branches hit and pierced the helmet. The leaves exploded as he rushed through them. The surprised Lera ended up stuck between the tree trunk and a monstrosity. The pierced helmet remained there, impaled...and empty. The cloak was no longer there and no more than shreds drifitng in the wind from the top of the branch alongside the now magic-less leaves.

And pinning Lera to the wall was a disgusting creature. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no arms and no legs. Not even a torso. It was only a green ball with a giant mouth filled with teeth. A ball no bigger than a regular human's head. No bigger than Lera' head. And from it sprouted hundreds of green tendrils that were coated in the weird metal shine and turned into those weird thin tentacles.

Each tendril sprouting from him was similar to a tree as it ended up forming many branches who formed many more. It turned out that the entier bulk that seemed to be Der had been nothing more than the clustering of all those tendrils. It was evident that there were all kinds of sentient species around in the many worlds but to be honest, Lera didn't expect this one.

She did not know what it was nor had she heard about it. However she could only admit that she had been underestimating it. And the price for it was to end up having a tendril piercing in each of her arms and legs. With the disgusting open mouth of the creature in front of her head, simingly ready to devour her. She was not going to let it happen so easily though.

Before the creature could eat, the trunk behind her opened and 'ate' her, clapping itself over the tentacles and completely shattering them. For once, she had to put some Magic to reinforce the wood in order to quickly and cleanly sever those tendrils that had pinned her.

This was not enough to deter the creature as he sent dozens of tendrils to slam through the tree trunk, completely shattering it. The upper part of the tree was now sliding down. But Lera had already fled. She managed to move through the trunk and exit at ground-level. Her Magic was being consummed faster than what she had hoped but she didn't have much choice.

This opponent was stronger than her since she was weakened right now and she could only buy time for the other two to finsh their tasks. He spotted her easily and chased. She was finally able to understand how he moved. He was using the tendrils as if springs and propelling himself straight forward. Now that she knew where his speed came from, the weakness of the movement was obvious. Turns.

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As such, she tried dodging by quickly moving to the side. Obviously, the creature was still being hampered by the branches and roots goign after him and blocking his advance. It was not enough. As he was reaching her and she dodged to the side, it smirked. A few tendrils were made into a spring as he pushed at the air itself to propell himself in the right direction. Turns being a weakness? Of course not. With Magic, there was nothing impossible and if that Titan noticed the problem, how could he have not after so many decades of fightings?

While he was once more closing on her, reaching melee, he noticed her changing fighting stance. Roots and leaves were being imbued with much more Magic randomly. Some had nothing while some were very potently imbued with it. She was trying to force him to consumme more power. Smart. But too late.

Or so he believed.

As he finally reached her, even though a few tendrils had been cut, and completely slashed through her multiple times, her body now in pieces changed appearance into a trunk. Well, pieced of a trunk. She had switched places with a nearby trunk. The rest of the tree falling down towards him. he changed a few tendrills nto a drill and another few into a spring and pushing right through the falling tree kept chasing her.

The spell she just used was a last recourse kind of spell as it took a lot of Magic to produce. She wasn't in a very good situation and the creature was once more right on her heels. She decided to face it with a final bang. Leaves converged near her and turned themselves into swords in her hands while more and more leaves began to reach her and envelopp her in a storm of leaves. Then, flowers began to sprout from all around the space. They were red roses.

As he reached her, it was obvious that the leaf storm was much more concentrated in Magic. It forced him to add more to his own Magic coating. It would be dump to get his tendrils severed for nothing.

He began to rush once again at her. At the same time, the roses began to send blasts of light magic towards his figure. They weren't very strong and he could tank them just fine. He noticed however that they had a peculiar ability concealed within them.

Corrosion.

It was an effective way to dampen his tendrils coated in metal. Well, it was far from dangerous though. The corrosion was too weak and the roses couldn't send those beams for long before they corroded themselves.

As such, he managed to reach inside the leaf storm with only a minimum of tendrils severed or corroded. And he was now facing her in melee. And she obviously out of tricks if she remained here. He was going to kill her then absorb the nutrients contained in her body.

He would grow stronger from this kill.