Chapter 11 - Evil broccoli

Adam’s grey core augmented not only his muscles but also his mental capabilities such as his senses and reaction speed. His refined mana sight could use those heightened senses to warn him when a powerful mana beast was close even when Adam couldn’t see them. This was especially useful right about now when some grey-cored creature had tried to sneak attack him while he was occupied. His mana sight had saved him by warning him of a powerful mana core right behind him and he was able to dodge to the left with a roll. When he looked for his attacker though, he couldn’t see anything. An eerie feeling made itself known deep within Adam. A sudden rush of fear almost made him run away screaming but he instantly regained control of himself and peered through the beast's camouflage.

There it was, partially blended into the surroundings, a black void filled with countless teeth was extracting its head from the ground Adam was crouched down on only moments ago. It must have powered up its long body to attack him and that sudden spike in mana was what he had perceived. Adam was currently in a less dense zone of vegetation but not inside the few hundred meters or so of no-man's-land around the huge broccoli tree. Despite the tree not showing any reaction to the dead sloth, something was telling him that if he got too close then it would notice his core and attack. But the mysteries of the broccoli-looking tree were only a fleeting thought at the back of his mind as he gripped the claw blade tightly and prepared for the inevitable follow-up attack. The creature was quite slow since he could outrun it so Adam decided to fight his fears and take it out once and for all. The memory of this hideous creature has been on his mind a lot as he explored the jungle. It was the main threat he was on alert against and now it was finally here.

It only took a second for it to readjust itself and start rushing toward Adam once more. Adam hated its countless little legs as they looked like a sea of infant limbs that had been attached to a much bigger body. The freak hurtled toward Adam as its body lit up in his mana sight. Adam sidestepped away from the large lime tree to avoid the creature's horrible maw and swung his weapon down with all his might onto the creature's back. The top of its body was covered in some sort of shell that he couldn’t even leave a scratch on. Despite his powerful swing, the creature barely reacted and it was the blade claw that received the most damage. The shell was hard to look at as it constantly changed color and shifted to blend into the environment. It wasn’t something he could break with his blade claw even with his augmented physique. Since his counterattack failed on the centipede, it tried to double back and dive at him again. Adam dropped the blade claw as it had a large crack running down its length and enough hit like that would only shatter it. He instead focussed on running away. He may not be able to kill it but he could at least live to fight another day. Not to mention that he used every ounce of bravery in him to face it and now that his weapon was done for, his fear was steadily rising.

He tried to run in the opposite direction to the tree but unfortunately found that the creature had predicted his move and had already moved to intercept him. The creature was about thirteen meters long despite its comparatively slim width of only a little over two meters. Adam had dodged to the left of the creature when it charged and now that the creature had come back around, he found that his escape route had been cut off. He could run back down the length of the centipede but he would only be blocked once again by its long form. He had just been surrounded and the centipede was tightening the space between them. The thing that freaked Adam out the most wasn’t just its many legs but also its extremely flexible body that could bend and snake at nearly ninety-degree angles. That movement was just too extreme for such a large creature that it gave him a shiver he could feel shaking his very bones. The only saving grace in this horrible situation was that it could only use its legs to move and couldn’t grab him and hold him in place. That wouldn’t last for long though if the centipede continued to move closer and closer to itself. He would be crushed against its unbreakable shell and turned into paste.

The centipede wasn’t exceedingly tall so Adam was able to climb over the top of its long body, albeit with some difficulty. But as soon as he had made his way over and put a single foot on the ground, that section of the centipede suddenly moved sideways towards him despite its legs facing the wrong way. Since its little feet were all composed of what looked like small green two-toed lizard feet, they could move very freely. The downside was speed since the creature was crap in a race. Adam was now coming to realize that its terrible speed was the tradeoff for its insane agility and freedom of movement. Its natural environment is the dense jungle so being able to run fast is pointless if you get encircled by a giant armored centipede and crushed to death. After being unexpectedly pushed by the middle section of the centipede, Adam almost fell flat on his face. The only thing that saved him was that same fear now coursing through his body that told him to run, to get away, that if he stopped moving for even a fraction of a second, he was done for. That same fear that pushed into form his core while being chased by this thing was once again hard at work. Adam stumbled but stayed on his feet as he pumped more and more mana into his legs to regain his balance and run away. The creature's head was once again coming straight for him after its failed attempt to corner him.

Adam was running as fast as he could but it wasn’t enough. The creature was gone, he glanced back when he couldn’t sense its mana strengthening and it was gone. He didn’t stop but kept running. The thing was definitely chasing him but it was impossible to tell where it was because of its camouflage. There was no path or trail to follow so Adam simply ran in the opposite direction to where the creature was last, as he avoided various plants and natural obstacles. He hadn’t stopped infusing his legs with mana since he began running but had to abruptly stop after about a minute since he was back at the clearing to the broccoli tree.

“How the hell did I circle back?”

He didn't take any abrupt turns or even run for that long so he didn't know how he got back here. Before he had time to fully stop, he glanced at a moving shape in the distance and knew that the centipede had finally caught up. Desperate and out of options, he cooked up one last hail mary and kept running towards the broccoli tree. He kept glancing back at the creature giving him chase and could see its camouflage trying to match the constantly changing background as it rushed him.

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Adam was heading straight for the tree's barren perimeter at a slower pace in order to let the centipede catch up. When it was right on his heels, he ran straight toward the broccoli tree and made sure the creature was still following him. He had only made it a few meters when a huge sense of danger overcame him. The strange tree was very tall and everything in the clearing was covered by its dot-shaped leaves so stepping foot in its circular clearing was to step foot beneath its branches. Adam was now only about five meters into the barren perimeter when he noticed something approaching him from above. This must be it, it's self-defense system, but he didn't want to stick around to find out what it did. He abruptly turned to face his fear and pushed more mana into his feet than ever before as his muscles visibly expanded and his veins became enlarged. The creature was barreling towards him at an extreme speed when Adam, who was still sliding forward despite turning around, pushed off the ground and jumped straight for the semi-invisible freak's head. The creature's body was so long that despite following him into the lime tree's perimeter, over three-quarters of its body was still outside of it. That didn't matter though since he would have to trust the tree to be able to handle this terrifying beast. Adam's last chance at surviving this was to use an untested method of escape he thought of when developing his mana missile spell.

Time was now moving at a crawl as Adam pumped every bit of mana from his core to make this work. He was currently only about a meter above the head of the giant centipede, and his jump would only land him in its maw if he didn't do something. Because he was running so fast, the momentum was still carrying him toward the tree even when he jumped in the opposite direction. The movement coming from above him was impossible to see but it felt like his end was imminent when whatever was coming arrived. Adam had no other options right now so this was do or die. He packed all the mana he could fit into his feet and released it in one huge burst right before he began to lose altitude. Like some sort of poor man's ironman, he shot away like a bullet with his body twisting and then spinning through the air since he wasn't balanced from the jump. He flew so fast that it would have killed a normal human from the sudden speed alone. Adam was sent flying through the air like a ragdoll and landed fifty meters outside of the broccoli tree's perimeter and well to the side of the centipede. His landing was not a smooth one either as he smashed and skidded into trees and bushes until his momentum ran out. His body hurt all over and he was out of mana. If the centipede came for him now, there would be nothing he could do.

When Adam managed to regain sight of the centipede, what he saw was so confusing to him that he had trouble understanding. Had something else joined the fight? No, that was the tree's doing.

What Adam was watching was a mass of long and dark green tentacles descending from the top branches of the broccoli tree and smashing into the tough shell of the beast as though it were paper. The beast had obviously had trouble slowing down as well since over two-thirds of its body was now being ruthlessly smashed by the tree's powerful extending leaves. What truly horrified Adam wasn't that if he hadn't zoomed out of there in the split second after noticing movement above, he too would have been annihilated, the mind-boggling thing was that the centipede was disintegrating right in front of his eyes. The dark green tendrils of the tree didn't let go to strike again after slamming into the beast, instead they remained and the centipede's body began disintegrating around them. In a few seconds, the dark green tendrils stopped their attack but the creature was already unmoving. It had hundreds of long dark tendrils penetrating every part of its body that the tree could access. Then it simply started disintegrating. With mana sense, Adam saw that the tree was absorbing its mana but also injecting its own into the creature. Within seconds, only ash remained and the long tendrils slowly made their way back to the top of the tree from whence they came.

The battered and bruised Adam was too shocked to even register the various pains all over his body as he replayed the scene in his mind. That centipede's shell was completely unbreakable, he couldn't even leave a scratch on the thing but this plant had completely obliterated it. Not to mention the fact that it seemed to suck the dead creature dry before it disintegrated. It reminded Adam of the blood-sucking vines from before. That was when Adam noticed something else, the fruits looked even brighter than only minutes ago and now exuded a refreshing aura that pulled at him. His bruised and tired body was trying to move forward to grab one of the fruits but his mind was now well in control and suppressed the desire.

“You bloody evil broccoli, so that's your game. You're a life stealer, aye?”

When the centipede was killed, he assumed it was to protect the fruits, but now he thought he understood better. It didn't have fruits, only bait.

When he explored the jungle, he found many patches of fruit trees that worked just like on earth. The fruits contained seeds and when those trees produced them, it was to spread those seeds and eventually form small patches of jungle filled with those same trees. It's how they reproduced. This tree on the other hand was unique. He couldn't find any plant or tree even similar to it. That reminded him about the fruit he had detached. Unlike the other fruits in the jungle, those coconut hearts only looked like fruits, when in reality they can neither spread seeds nor even be picked. Their fruits contained a mana-dense liquid with healing properties but no seeds. The stem of the fruit was completely fused and impossible to remove. He had to cut the fruit's top off completely in order to get it and now knew why. It was bait designed to attract mana beasts and feast on them. It must have life affinity mana or something similar. If it can absorb the creature's mana and turn it into ash, it must have power over life itself. The fruits glowed even stronger now and the tree was growing at a noticeable rate. He had assumed it was an old tree since it had grown so big but maybe its peculiar mana simply allowed it to absorb everything that was previously around it and rapidly grow itself as a result.

This tree was the answer to all Adam's problems only minutes ago but now seemed to be an impossible danger. There was nothing he could do against it and it would likely only continue to grow and become even more dangerous. The fact that it didn't attack him before he formed his core means that it has some sort of mana sight to detect prey. If he had eaten those blue cherries directly after getting the fruit, then would he have been killed too? Adam resigned himself to the fact that he would have no easy way to get stronger. In fact, this taught him that everything strives for strength and survival. No tree would produce the fountain of youth for any to enjoy, everything is only out for themselves. He could really have done with some healing fruit right now since the pain was starting to get to him. He didn’t appear to have broken anything but he would definitely have blue and purple bruises for the next few days. Leaving the evil vampiric life draining tree behind, he stumbled his way back towards his cave while his mana core was slowly being refilled. He had absolutely overdone it with that final blast and his every step felt like his legs were on fire. But he couldn’t stay this deep in the jungle while being so beaten.

He had escaped death once more… For now.