Chương 53: Gnashing

My body was a vessel for terrible violence. Everything in front of me was simply a target for what this vessel contained. The humanoid trees attempted to get in my way as I lunged for their leader. At the speed I was moving, they physically could not stop me. The old wooden doors I broke through earlier provided more resistance. Just splinters and dust flying as I collided with Brother Gleditsia. We both slammed into the wall with enough force the foundations of the house shook. The look on his face was gleeful.

"Now we're talki-" Didn't care. The hand I had dug into the Wyrdwood armor he wore nearly ripped a piece off as I whipped him through the foundations and out of the basement. The concrete and wood crunched and groaned from the force, leaving more loose dust and debris in the air. It didn't obscure my vision enough to keep my eyes off of the son of a bitch. Lunging hard enough that I could feel the ground under me give out, I refused to give up the chase on him.

As we both sailed through the air, I saw his arm stick out. Multiple tendrils of Wyrdwood flew out at me, crunching and crashing under my shield as we finally met in the air. I caught him by his hair as we both went crashing towards the ground. Mimicking the motions I saw from Christian's ambush at the warehouse, I made sure he landed head-first before my feet even touched the ground. More vines of Wyrdwood began to erupt from his armor, coiling around my arm and trying to jam barbs into me.

They were failing to get through my suit. To punish that behavior, I simply started slamming his head into the ground, but the topsoil was too soft for any real impact to be made. It was at that point he finally brought his arms up, grabbing my forearm. I tried to lift him up, only to realize my arm couldn't move. He was holding it in place. The realization set in too late as I was suddenly hurled through the air, landing on my back. A loose stone dug into my lower back and sent lightning bolts of pain through me.

His voice echoed through the woods.

"Did you think you were the only strong one?" As I clambered to my feet, I brought my shield up.

"Ah, a shield. A defensive toy. Here's what a real warrior uses." He reached off to the side, and Wyrdwood poured out from his hand and climbed out from the ground at the same time, filling his palm. It extended and reformed itself into crude shapes that coalesced into some ugly, gnarled sword of wood and thorn. Thing was the size of a car, and he was holding it like it was nothing.

"The soldiers and the gentry all used spears, but the great heroes of old wielded clubs and swords, Hercules. Let me show you how useless that shield is." Bullshit. I rushed towards him with my shield ready to knock him into the next zip code, Gleditsia swung the massive sword down and onto my shield. It withstood the blow without issue, not even breaking my stride. I just kept rushing past it, until I felt a sudden sharp pain in my upper arm. My gaze moved towards it, where I saw blood pouring out.

My shield was split vertically, and the barbs of the "sword" were digging into my bicep. That was the moment when I realized I was in over my head. With another swing of the blade from that position, he sent me and the two halves of the shield flying further into the treeline. Pushing myself back onto my feet, the asshole just kept talking.

"A real warrior like you doesn't need a weapon anyway, am I right? You were using that to hold back! You were worried you would kill me! I've some bad news for you, my friend, but you lack the strength for that." Even more bullshit. I brought my fists up, getting into stance. The cultist didn't cooperate with that, instead opting to slam the blade into me again. This time, however, I had the advantage. I had both hands at my disposal.

My left hand dug into a portion of the tree-like sword not covered in thorns, crushing the bark beneath my fingers while the rest of it was brought to a standstill. There was no taking ground from me now. BOOM! What the fuck was that? Why were noises blaring in my head? What was happ- He was already in my face. Fucker was fast, too. The bastard had let go of his sword. One of his hands was reared back as more barbs jutted out from his hand.

As he went for his own punch, I reflexively shoved a hand out towards his exposed head. I felt bone crack under my grip as his arm limply swung past me. The man's body stopped, stuck in a forward leaning stance while his head limply hung back behind him. KRK GRACK KRRRIK His head came back up. With a whipping about of his head, his hair swinging side to side, he gave me a grin.

"Oh, you thought you could kill me?" He healed. BOOM! He couldn't die. BOOM! I didn't have to hold back. Good. The two of us raised our fists at the same time, unbothered by the idea of defense now that it was made clear he had nothing to defend. My focus was on every hair-thin stretch of these movements. It felt like a decade of pulling every little detail in. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. His legs were wide.

His entire body was turning in his punch. It was clearly going right for my face. My trajectory was off. I wasn't able to turn my body as clearly. This was someone with a lot more experience. All I could do was readjust my aim and- KKKRAK Bark split and buckled under the combined force of our blows. My arm had sunk down past his fist, all the way down to his elbow. There was no blood. He had no flesh there. He was just wood in there. What the fuck did he let this shit do to him?

Vines coiled out from the split limb, tangling my forearm up and swinging me away. A tree snapped in half from my impact against it, an icy sensation shooting up along my spine from the agony. Looking up, I could see his split arm coming back together with those vines. Gleditsia squatted down, lifting up the hunk of barbed wood he used to somehow split my shield in half, and hurled it at me like a javelin. Couldn't just take that head-on. Had to retaliate.

I ran towards the flying, massive sword and reached out to catch it. A buzzing shot up my arms from the impact, similar to the falls. Even the stuff that didn't hurt was ringing through me. With urgency, I swung it around once before hurling it back at the cultist, with the idea of at least forcing some kind of distraction while I planned my next move. Instead, tendrils shot out from the weapon, darting towards me faster than I could react. They tied me up and left me unable to access my arms...

for all of a second. Nothing could really hold me. GRAK The... weirdwood? Weird Wood? Wyrdwood. That was the word. It splintered as I simply brought my arms out; there was no real use trying to hold me still. But it was at that same moment I realized it wasn't to stop me. It was to get me to look away. My gaze moved up as I saw Gleditsia hurtling through the air, body curled up tight with his feet towards me. As his legs extended, they crashed directly into my chest and sent me flying.

Pain drummed through my ribs and back from the force even as I was freely going through the air, ending with a cymbal crash as I tore through yet another tree and rolled through the dirt and leaves.

"I almost feel bad! You're quite strong, and there's almost some skill in you! But you're facing the one human the Arboreal Senate views as their hammer to crush the foundations man has built." More nonsense from a lunatic.

"It's like a man fighting a child! Though I will say you've put up a far better resistance than all the children we've collected." Words still hadn't returned to me. Every single one he offered took them from me, and left me in a state of needing to just tear his jaw clean off. The ground collapsed from under me as I pounced again, shooting off like a bullet towards him. BOOM! This seemed to consistently be my best bet, just lunging as fast as possible, as he wasn't able to avoid me slamming into him this time.

The force sent us both flying back towards the backyard of the brickshelterhomeplace. Whatever it was. I knew what it was, just not what to call it. Didn't matter. I had him pinned below me. I wasn't just going to grab his head and slam it into the dirt again. Didn't do anything last time. Raising both fists, I swung them down towards his head hoping to just split it like a melon that way. Fangs. These two mouths shot out from his chest and caught me in the biceps. Not really mouths, they just looked like them.

Snapping sets of wooden thorns the size of my thumbs, connected by loose vines from his shoulders. They were chomping down with the full intent of ripping the muscles out. Had to do something else. Instead of trying to bust his skull open, I grabbed the vines they were connected to and simply yanked, tearing them straight from his body. The force I had to use sent me stumbling off of him. He stood like it was just a minor inconvenience. BOOM!

"You're just desperate to hurt me at this point. You're going to be sorely disappointed, Hercules! Don't get me wrong, I'm quite entertained-" Another lunge, I just kept trying to slam into him. If I could keep him off his feet, I could figure out something. Just had to try and find another way to get him to stay still from there. He wasn't taken off of his feet this time. There was resistance. Looking down, I saw thick vines digging into the ground, holding onto his leg. Fuck.

"At least let me finish my banter!" He sounded more disappointed than upset.

"Now as I was saying, I'm quite entertained! But you're already starting to lose your novelty! You do understand I could simply kill you, here and now, right? At least one of those men in suits is alive. Probably. If you keep wasting time, or die, they might bleed out. Do you want that on your conscience, 'hero?'" That time spent talking was worth its weight in... whatever the expensive stuff was. Whatever expensive meant. I had time to figure out my position, where those vines were dug in.

They were pushing him, towards me. That's why I couldn't keep pushing him away. So if he was going a different way, the best move was to just keep him going that way. My body turned, yanking him off of the little vine supports. With him off the ground, I could throw him wherever. I just kept turning, before letting go and sending him flying towards the licking and rolling flames of the burning... whatever it was. Something bad was in there that had to be burned, I remembered that.

This guy wasn't any better, so fire was perfect for him. The sounds were different now. Just the fire popping and crackling as it danced the only dance it's ever done since man first woke it up. The thing that stood out to me most at that moment was that it was just the fire. No wind. There was not a single bird crying or bug chittering. They must all have been watching, terrified of making a noise and risking being caught in the wake.

The flames licked and rolled before a sudden billow opened the little gates of Hell that had been established. Gleditsia came flying out like one of its bats, covered in all manners of barbs and tendrils of bark. He crashed into me like a tidal wave, faster than I could even finish breathing. Any wind I had gotten back in those sparse seconds was knocked right out of me, and we both went crashing to the ground, him on top of me this time. Then came the blows.

Tendrils, fists, thorns, all constantly crashing into me in an avalanche of rage. In spite of the clear anger in every motion, all I could hear from Gleditsia was... laughter. Not even one of sadism, he was laughing like a child at play. This was the highlight of his fucking day, just beating me into the ground, trying to kill me. BOOM! And that godawful noise in my head. It just wouldn't stop. The focus was being drained from me as pain and stress and frustration took over in my mind.

All I could think about was the shortest possible motion between my hand and all of this stopping. Gleditsia leaned closer and closer during his barrage of blows. My arm tensed as he got just within reach- KRK Down to the elbow, straight through his chest. The avalanche ended. He simply looked down at my arm through his sternum. He slowly reached towards the affected area, fear and dread in his eyes. Then... A smile. Laughter. Through the little chortles, he spoke.

"Oh, Hercules. I gave up my heart long ago."