Alaric’s act was not a mistake. Were his aether reserves too deep? Maybe.

Was he using one too many spells? Perhaps.

Was he in too many places at once? You could say that.

Was his Ability a bit too strong for a fifteen-year-old? He really couldn’t say. Alaric hadn’t met enough Aspirants or even interacted with enough to know what was really normal.

The fact remained that no one should have been able to stare at a multi-perspective amalgamation of a plant and a human and make it feel like they were looking straight into their soul.

Even for an experienced adult, that was just some next-level voodoo.

Alaric almost ventured to guess that the man was capable of controlling his perception of things but he didn’t have the time for it.

In any case, the boy had seen this coming a mile away and as a result, he sent his power reeling through the forest, making the roots of the trees tremble and mimic a small earthquake.

[One of them is very powerful. Head for the Outpost… I’ll be right behind you] Alaric yelled into the minds of the five remaining aspirants.

At the same time, the branches around his friends had fashioned themselves into protective pods made of vines and pushed themselves to the far edge of the boy’s perception.

To confuse the enemy, Alaric made several more of these pods numbering close to a hundred and spread them all through the forest.

Many of these pods spread out but five in particular kept heading north, straight for the Gateway they were meant to find.

The mercenary looked around briefly. Being the last one of the group of ruffians that could still move, Alaric focused solely on him.

His heart, if he had any now, was beating rapidly in his chest.

He could feel the immense power gap between himself and the man.

It was enough to make him pause for only a moment, ‘Think, Alaric, think!’ he mentally screamed.

He had the power of the forest on his side… and yet, he still felt inadequate.

The man closed his eyes for a short moment, ignoring the chaotic wails the trees emanated or even the screams of the comrades who called out to him, trapped in cocoons of constricting vines.

For a split second, Alaric felt a wave of mana brush through the woods, expanding in a circular dome.

‘A searching spell…’ Alaric’s heart sank. It was only a matter of time before a slayer with the power to use such a spell showed up and Alaric had been preparing himself for such a moment.

At the same time, however, Alaric picked on a small group entering the forest at the very periphery of his control.

Two beasts flew through the air at a high speed, heading straight for the noise. Thunder followed the guardians while on the ground, and a man in white armour gave chase. This time, Alaric could tell it was indeed Garin.

The stalwart knight and his comrades were coming… For a brief moment, Alaric felt relief but then, the wave of mana hit the five pods rushing North and the mercenary opened his eyes.

‘Crap,’ his heart sank.

The man took one step forward, then shot forward like a missile on steroids.

Fear ran through Alaric’s leafy self, spurring him into action. He had no time to think.

Vines shot from the ground, trees, leaves and whatever the forest had to offer within a chaotic flurry that was strong enough to rip the average human to shred.

Shooting in response to the mercenary’s actions, the vines were within range in less than a second, only to be incinerated through the sheer destructive force of the mercenary’s movements.

Alaric mentally cried at the sight of the evil man’s scythe cutting down his vines as though they were paper. Like before, the vines would grow back two-fold. Unfortunately, the man’s scythe had heated up to the point where it left sizzling marks on the vines it cut.

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The vines wouldn’t grow back as fast.

At this rate, he was going to reach his friends before Garin and the Tower Slayers ever reached them.

“I must say, little boy. You’re far too skilled for your age,” the man’s voice rumbled.

Alaric’s consciousness sailed through the woods at lightning-fast speed, pushing the pods even further whilst he focused on keeping the man’s lethal scythe busy.

Time after time, the vines attacked, getting shredded by the scythe with each attempt. It almost seemed like the man wasn’t going to slow down.

Alaric wouldn’t stop though. He reached out and pulled on the forest’s reserves as well as his deep wells of aether… and unleashed a hellish attack on the fiendish villain, growing more and more wary as he watched the scythe blend into a dome of sheer unfathomable destruction.

‘If it means slowing him down even for a second, I won’t let up,’ Alaric gritted his… ‘teeth?’

An idea formed in his mind amidst the highspeed battle. His current mode of attack was buying him a few seconds at best, which wasn’t enough.

He reached for the aether available to him and sent it flowing into the vines that attacked the man, altering their properties ever so slightly and focusing hard on what he wanted.

At first, he didn’t achieve much but once he’d found the right method to use for his intended purposes, a resonant clang rang through the chaotic forest.

The scythe had bounced off one of the vines with a resonant clang. The vibrations sent Alaric’s brain reeling as the force of the scythe went through the entire tree connected to the vine.

Alaric didn’t falter. His consciousness was a lot greater than a single tree. He continued attacking.

The man, shocked, leapt into the air, dodging an ensnaring enchanted vine. To his dismay, more followed. He struck at the snake-like ropes and found that all of them resisted his scythe just the same.

A moment later, the scythe hummed with aether and sliced through the annoying vines like a hot knife through butter. With one sweep, a vacuum of space was created between the man and the vines.

Alaric’s mind shuddered with the sudden influx of magic.

‘Ouch! That’s hot!’ he winced.

The boy didn’t take more than two seconds to recover from the sudden attack. However, in a battle such as this one, two seconds were too many.

In that moment of respite, the mercenary shot forward, not wasting any more time. Alaric hadn’t stopped pushing the wooden pods containing his friends further and further away.

However, he was starting to feel the strain from using his Ability.

Their fight hadn’t gone on for long… but in that time, he’d kept the mercenaries that hadn’t turned into a black mist tied up, he’d pushed his friends far from the battle and he’d fought this man, all while keeping an eye on the approaching slayers and imbuing the vines with aether to fight this abomination of a man.

Pain pulsed in various places within Alaric’s mind. It was an odd feeling… pain as a nature entity. It felt both mental and physical. Some trees were strained, never made to move as much as Alaric had pushed them.

It was a wonder that Alaric had survived this long against someone that was clearly stronger than him. In fact, if he hadn’t resorted to using Thomper’s power, he was sure he wouldn’t have lasted this long.

But now… his energy was waning.

The vines lost their speed and ferocity and it got a lot harder to focus… Alaric felt sleepy from exhaustion. This wasn’t working. If he kept going like this, he was going to lose.

He felt pain at the roots, stems, leaves… ‘Why do my leaves hurt?’ a part of him cried. The other part didn’t have time to worry about trivial pains such as these.

At first, Alaric had suspected these bandits of wanting his S-class orb but now, he couldn’t tell. The man had called himself a mercenary and the dark power rolling off his body only reinforced this claim.

‘Why would a mercenary be hired to steal an S-class orb?’ Alaric’s mind strained, ‘This guy is also so damn persistent for a mere thief. How did they get past Garin anyway? They just came out of nowhere.’

Alaric struggled to understand what the man’s presence meant. He’d seen the looks of utter hatred and loathing from a few aspirants back at the tower. He’d even gleaned darker auras.

If one of those aspirants had sent this gang, then he didn’t want his friends anywhere near them. He could already sense the murderous intent rolling off this man’s body.

As the man tore through the forest, Alaric took on different measures to slow him down. His first strategy had worked against him, draining him of aether and rendering him so tired he could barely tell up from down.

Alas, there was no time to rest… He had to keep moving. He couldn’t let the man reach his friends. His consciousness flowed through the woods, keeping watch on his surroundings and bending it all to his will.

The vines didn’t move to obstruct the man anymore.

No, now, the forest itself moved.

The trees shuddered and swayed, changing forms in ways that distorted the very concept of direction in the convoluted mass of trees and greenery.

The coming storm obscured the sun which would have made this illusion a lot harder to pull off. The sound of thunder was scattered around by the trees and the sun wasn’t around to keep the man aware of which way was North.

Once in a while, the scythe cut down the trees that got in his way, while other times, Alaric was able to turn him around completely or at least send him spiralling in circles.

“You’re one annoying bug, boy,” the man growled.

With how fast the man was going, however, it was only a matter of time before he caught up to the fleeing pods. Alaric sucked in a sharp breath-if at all this was possible-and watched as the man leapt into the air and brought his scythe down on a fleeing wooden pod.

Slicing it in two with one clean cut, the pod fell to the ground to reveal nothing inside of it. It was then that the man noticed a multitude of pods fleeing from him, all in different shapes and sizes… but all built for the sole purpose of acting like decoys.

Only five of these fleeing balls of nature contained the children he was looking for… and Alaric wasn’t about to let him touch them. Alaric felt the fabric of the woods approach its limit, just like the muscles of his body would normally burn.

There was no telling how much longer he could keep this up.

[Start casting an S-class Concealment Spell.] Alia’s voice softly whispered into the mind of the tired boy.