305 To the core (1/2)
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After resting through the night, Raven ended his meditation and went out of his tent.
He noticed that the poisoned beasts were still here. Some of them were resting while some of them had drawn their last breath. He sighed as he saw the decayed corpses, he looked away and went towards the spot where fire previously was. He threw in yet another batch of flammables and set the whole thing alight. Once he's done, he turned around left after tidying up.
Today, his goal is to go towards the core of the forest.
Raven moved at a moderate pace, neither slow nor fast. He is aware that he had to be more careful about his surroundings the deeper he went. As gets closer to the Withered Dream Tree, his presence will become more and more obvious to it. And since the tree is sentient, it could guess the Raven's intentions by coming closer.
He's keeping an eye out for the retaliation of the tree since he knew that it won't just allow him to get close without defending itself.
And he was right to anticipate this…
*Creak* *Creak*
As he ran, Raven suddenly felt movements around him. The withered trees suddenly twisted, and from their trunks, thick and thorny vines popped out and blocked Raven's way.
*Pshew!* *Pshew!*
The vines then unleashed a rain of thorns covered in Withering Poison. Thousands of thorns were shot in an instant. No matter how swift Raven is on his toes, there's no way he'll come out unscathed from this barrage, there not even a room to dodge since the vines were surrounding him.
Raven's eyes flashed and suddenly, a bubble made out of solid and transparent energy covered him. As the thorns hit the bubble, not even a single one managed to burst it. The thorns were deflected by bubble and Raven continued moving forward.
On normal cases, an Energy Barrier wouldn't work against this attack. Not only was it strong, the vines shoot thorns almost indefinitely. To top this all off, the Withering Poison could seep in through the energy, which means that blocking this way would only be courting death.
What made Raven different is the fact that his barrier is not just any Energy Barrier, it is composed of Chaos Force, the result of the perfect merging of Energy Essence, Vital Essence and Spirit Essence. It's more robust in structure, allowing it to defend against these unceasing waves of thorns.
As Raven got closer, the vines attempted to slap him away. But before they could do so, Raven's hammer materialized on his hands. Adjusting it to size that he could hold using one hand, he stomped forward and performed a mighty swing.
*Boom!*
After running for a couple miles, Raven found the next barricade. He tried dashing through it but there was a surprising development in front of him which prevented him from doing so.
The soil swelled, suddenly vomiting creatures buried underneath. Bones flew up and swiftly arranged themselves to form what they used to be. Skeletons of dead beasts big and small, barred their fangs at him. To top everything off, they were covered with a thick goo of Withering Poison.
”Oh? This can happen too? I didn't see this in the records.” Raven muttered to himself, gripping his hammer tightly with an amused expression.
From what he could see, the Withering Dream Tree animated at least twenty beasts who were all at least Tier 3 in strength. As all of them charged towards Raven, he smiled and released a powerful momentum building up inside him.
*BOOM!*
The whole forest shook from the sheer impact of Raven's strike. Chunks of rocks flew everywhere and the charging beasts were decimated. Some of them were lucky to remain intact from Raven's attack, the others were being pieced back by the power of the tree.
And since these beasts were dead already, they knew no fear. They recklessly charged towards Raven once again. On top of this, at least thirty vines filled with poisonous thorns emerged around him and started shooting him down with thorns.