"Are you sure this is the place?" Felis looked around curiously, her vision blocked by dozens of trees and dense fog. Thirty minutes ago Ivan and the crew landed in the Reisen Gorge. Afterward, Ivan guided them into the Sea of Trees despite knowing that heading in without a guide would mean subjecting themself to the curse of the fog.
But he had faith that they'd be found, after all, he was the one who trained the Haulia. If they weren't able to detect a group of intruders entering the forest then their training might as well have been for naught.
"So you can't navigate through all this?" Rather than answering her question, Ivan went on to ask inquiries of his own. Other than testing the Haulia the other purpose of entering the forest recklessly was to see whether Felis and Canis could navigate through the forest as would a beastman.
"No, no. Not at all~ Even Canis seems to be having trouble!" Felis gave up as she laced her fingers together behind her head, nodding toward Canis who shook her head in return. It was quite a blow to the lioness who prided herself in her tracking skills.
"I see… I suppose that only a beastman born in the forest– No, that doesn't make sense either. There are plenty of examples of hunters using slave-born beastman to navigate through the forest for the rare monster pelts that reside here. It must simply mean that neither Felis nor Canis are true beastman besides their physical characteristics…"
Ivan muttered to himself, allowing his field to crush and distort the bodies of the monsters that lunged at him from four meters away. His proficiency was getting better with each passing day but so long as a being with a particularly strong physique entered his boundary then they'd be able to resist its effects before reaching his body.
And that's all it took to break his concentration, realizing that he wouldn't be able to crush a being that was able to get so close to him within half a second before they hit his face the best option would be disabling the boundary and using his physical attacks.
Unless the force of his boundary grew exponentially greater than what it was hoping that he'd be able to destroy what was able to push through his boundary in such a short amount of time was a futile effort.
There was one activity he enjoyed with his newfound abilities.
"GRAAAAH!"
The monkey-like monster sprung from a tree as if it were using a trampoline and dove straight for Ivan's torso. It had not witnessed the tragedies that had been done to other monsters so with no fear it entered Ivan's invisible barrier.
CRUSH!
Its body contorted and twisted like an abused marionette, the head facing opposite from the body. No doubt it was dead. Instead of falling to the ground the body of the monkey-like monster only hovered in the air. Then, as if time had reversed, each limb of the monster reverted to its former position. Its dilated eyes shone with renewed light, then, it fell to the ground.
"....."
It looked at its body in a cold sweat, examining each limb as if to make sure what had happened was no illusion. Even if its body returned to normal the pain remained embedded deep in its mind. Its limbs twisting, its eyes popping out of its head, the sound of their bones being crushed to dust, it remembered all of it.
STEP!
The monster awoke out of its stupor hearing the sound of crushed leaves, it turned its head up to meet the eyes of who it had attacked seconds before being broken apart. And then— it ran. The moment their eyes met the monster knew that the human in front of it was the cause of its pain. Being killed without a chance of fighting back made the monster realize that it was no opponent to the human in front of it.
"Hmm~ That was pretty good I suppose!" Ivan snickered to himself seeing the monkey run away rather than sling from tree to tree as it did when it first attacked.
To put it simply, he crushed the monster, killed it, restored its body, and then revived it. All without lifting a single finger. As for how long it took to complete the process, restoration and revival took up most of the time. Making a total of two minutes.
Then again it wouldn't be the same for another person, as it seemed a restriction of revival was that the more complex a soul was the longer it took to revive them. Restoration followed the same principle, the more intricate a body was the more difficult it was to restore it.
But now wasn't the time for a more in-depth discussion—
"Do you guys feel it? We're being watched…"
Felis' ears twitched upon saying those words. It couldn't escape her hearing, the crunching of leaves, the snapping of twigs. They had been surrounded. In the trees were their attackers. Ivan turned to her before signaling that their opponents must be incapacitated, unless they wanted a war with another nation not a single of their attackers must be killed.
Of course, only he and Yue knew the truth—
PHOOM! PHOOM! PHOOM!
It seemed the attackers had taken notice of the groups' sudden cautious behavior. A volley of crossbow bolts shot out of the tree and threatened to pierce the vitals of the group of invaders. Each bolt coated in a viscous green liquid likely to incapacitate whoever it scratched should they miss.
"....."
Yue silently moved to Ivan's side as she allowed his boundary to disassemble and crush any of the bolts that hurled their way. She dragged a confused Tio alongside her as she felt Tio would immediately invalidate the purpose of this test.
Felis, Canis, Ari, and Claire on the other hand took cover behind a couple of trees. They noted the poison coating the bolts and knew it'd be bad news if they were hit by it. They could probably reverse its effects using restoration magic but there's no telling if their opponents would let them.
A group of 15 garbed in black beastmen descended from the trees, their attire making their features indiscernible. Their goal was to push the intruders out into the open where their comrades still in the trees would fill them with bolts.
Canis, sensing this, dove deeper into the woods. Her claws protruded quickly as she nearly ran into a thin line of wire that was perfectly lined up to cut off her neck. She quickly cut the wires down before noticing that she was completely separated from the rest of the group.
Four shadows descended upon her, having built no momentum she held a defensive position and let her body get cut up with daggers. Her regeneration along with restoration magic minimize the damage to a point that it caught the beastmen off guard,
She took the opportunity to grab the elbow of a plunging beastman's dagger, bending it upward so the force of the action reflected and made her attacker stab their own shoulder. That single attacker fled while the remaining three formed a triangular formation.
Their archers had focused on the main group thinking this single lioness would have fled out of fear. The beastmen never attempted to communicate with her thinking she had been a manipulated beastmen brought to navigate adventurers through the woods, as such a situation was never unheard of.
The remaining three beastmen had never anticipated the brute strength of their opponent, their defenses were useless against the force that broke them with a few punches. Canis tied them up with a nearby wire before using the length of wire she cut beforehand as a fishing line that would lead her back to the main group.
Claire and Ari stood back to back, Claire's vacuum blades creating vortexes that consumed any incoming bolts while Ari's gravity-led chain chased the beastmen that hid in the trees. Like pigeons hit with stones, they fell to the floor after being suffocated by the snake-like chain.
Felis handled a large group of the attackers herself, copying fire magic she had seen Tio use before being restrained by Yue. Seeing a beastman cast magic, the attackers froze in place. Never did they expect to meet someone who possessed something someone of their race shouldn't just like their leader.
Their stupor was broken by the sea of flames, while they were a little peeved at having an inch of their forest burned they focused on the fight at hand. Many of the beastmen looked at what seemed to be their squad leader as they received orders to capture the magic using the beastman for questioning, a gift their true leader would surely appreciate.
Alas, they were no match for the flame user as their incapacitating bolts were incinerated to ash instantaneously, intending to catch the masked beastmen meant they had to rid themselves of their usual killing methods. Their strength declined several times because of that.
"Aiya, their first mistake was underestimating their enemies. Had staying in these woods as the strongest group around dulled your caution~?" Ivan had enough of being an observer, instead, he peered over and stared at a lone tree.
"Hehehe~ As expected of Iva– I mean Paracelsus… You've already spotted me~!" From the tree appeared a beastman far more distinct than any of the others. Nothing hid her features, her long rabbit-like ears stood atop her head with pride. Piercing blue eyes stared back at Ivan with excitement, a bloodthirsty grin adorning the girl's face.
Her bluish-silver long hair reflected in the moonlight, flowing over the coat that hung around her shoulders made of pitch-black monster pelt and bones.
The girl's snow-white skin was in great contrast to the brown and black bikini bra that hid her abundant breasts whilst leaving her midriff exposed. Beneath her midriff was a tight black miniskirt that wrapped around her thin waist, and below that black studded boots that laced up all the way to the bottom of her knees.
Shea Haulia. The girl Ivan and Yue had left in the woods months ago so she could pursue her dream. In her right hand was a double-headed war hammer made from thick wood and the remnants of strong beast-like monsters. She twirled it with one hand before positioning it in both, and then, she leaped—
"So you finally showed yourself, you bastard! Prepare yourself, I'll show how much I've been slacking off!"
Ivan smiled looking at the hurtling war hammer, tossing his helmet off to receive the blow with his fists.
BANG!
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