Standing before the approaching Corrupted Tree-man, Kael's gaze gradually became calm.
Whenever he quietly stood there, it gave off the serene and content feeling of admiring flowers on a spring outing.
But the Corrupted Tree-man clearly wasn't the type to be merciful or delicate.
The moment its hollow eyes spotted Kael, it launched an assault without hesitation.
Unlike their slow movements, when they attacked, their thick roots, entwined like vine whips, lashed out with the force of a whip, causing bursts of sound in the air.
Fast as a startled rabbit and still as a maiden, where was the slowness in these Tree-men's actions now?
Just as Old White drew his sword, preparing to join the fray, Kael moved.
"Magic Silk Thread," activated!
He instantly shaped Magic Energy into silk threads. With a slight movement of his spiritual power, several pale blue threads formed between the trunk of the Golden Tree and the Corrupted Tree-man.
He lightly flicked his fingers, and the dense silk threads instantly tensed. The front row of Tree-men who were charging straight at him were now bound at their roots.
Reliant on their roots for locomotion, the Tree-men were already on unstable footing. Tangled up like this, three of them immediately lost balance and toppled over, their vine whips swaying erratically and raising dust as they missed Kael and struck the ground beside him.
Kael's face was the epitome of tranquility as he looked up at the subsequent Tree-men arriving,
"Silk Thread Manipulation," activated!
Threads, nearly invisible, instantly coiled around various parts of Kael's body.
As Kael's exclusive skill, Silk Thread Manipulation was essentially using Magic Silk Threads for traction, allowing him to quickly move short distances.
Since the pulling speed of the Magic Silk Threads largely depended on intelligence stats, with Silk Thread Manipulation activated, his dexterity value surged, and with the traction of the Magic Silk Threads, he achieved astounding speeds within a small area.
His body became like a puppet, with the lag of nerve reaction speed compensated for by the speed of spiritual force feedback.
Threads shot out, fastening onto one of the Tree-men that hadn't been restrained. In that instant, his body turned into an afterimage, pulled by a gust into the Tree-man's face.
Raising a leg, the outline traced by his shoe tip instantly came together to form a slender Water Blade.
Faster than the Water Blade was the sprawling Freezing Aura.
If that split-second approach and swift leg raise heralded the swiftness of the strike, then the Ice Blade, turned solid by the Freezing Aura and accelerated by the swung thigh, became a deadly edge.
The nearest Corrupted Tree-man, having fallen to the ground, let out an uneasy roar. It frantically tugged at its body with arms like wooden limbs, crawling toward Kael.
But the moment it raised its head, the cold light of the Ice Blade had already swept across its body.
Its actions stiffened for a moment, a fine line appearing on its body; the corrosive acidic water from inside the trunk began to seep out.
It was already dead.
Meanwhile, Kael was spinning in mid-air, instantly being pulled away from its vicinity.
Despite the approach being a movement that concealed a chilling intent to kill, one could still see his gentle turning form, as if he was dancing.
The threads linked from all around Kael to his body made one feel as though they were beholding an exquisitely carved puppet.
And the threads linked from his hands to the enemy, in tandem with his movements, came together and apart, giving a feeling of disjointed fragmentation, as if hands joined and then let go.
Old White, standing by with his sword ready to deflect any danger, lit up at the sight.
Graceful, so graceful!
However, before he had time to praise, Kael's movements became sharper.
Each strike's forceful power hinted that this dance wasn't meant for mere viewing, while the threads on his body gave an even stronger impression of a marionette, especially as his movements sped up and the light gradually left Kael's eyes, leaving him looking more and more hollow.
Just as Old White was shocked by his young master's deathly dance, he was indeed lifted by the threads, evading the attack of two encroaching corrupted orcs, stepping on the vine whip to rise into the air.
"Do you also wish to dance?"
Following the threads in his hands, he charged toward the enemy again, each strike swift and sharp, yet blending dynamics with elegance, like a solo dance, while the threads occasionally tugging on the enemy made it seem like a pas de deux.
While spinning, the Magic Silk Thread left more and more wounds on the corrupted tree-men, and Kael, not satisfied, shaped a large flow of water around him. Under the influence of the Freezing Aura, it turned into a huge Circular Ice Blade, which he grabbed in his hands.
The spinning accelerated, and the waltz flung out.
The Circular Ice Blades, suspended in mid-air by the Magic Silk Thread, spun at high speed and flew out, tearing out large gaps before being yanked back toward Kael by the threads.
With the dexterity bonus from "Silk Thread Manipulation," Kael dodged the returning edge of the ice blades, a level of agility impossible at his level, grabbed the handle of the Ice Blade, and with a turn of his body, accelerated the blade for another throw.
The high-speed spinning Ice Blades, like a cutter, whipped up an ice blade storm in the gaps of the forest.
Corrupted tree-men at the perimeter were startled by their comrades' pitiful howls and gathered in this direction.
Whenever the spinning Ice Blades slowed down, he would pull them back, physically accelerating them.
As graceful as a startled swan, as smooth as a swimming dragon.
When the 33rd corrupted tree-man fell amidst the flying ice shards, only a giant tree-man, a head taller than the others, was left on the field.
Corrupted Tree Elder.
This fellow counted as a rather threatening creature among corrupted tree-men; players exploring the Twisted Jungle for the first time in a past life had their fair share of troubles with it.
It was, in a sense, the Twisted Jungle's version of the Jackal Wolfman, Hog.
Even if it was those expert players from a previous life, truly adapting to the attack pattern of the Corrupted Tree Elder and completing a speedrun unscathed, that only happened sometime after the server opened.
But unlike now, where the tree elder, purportedly a stumbling block for new players in later generations, roared without managing an effective counterattack.
It was covered in wounds all over its body, and even the rationality that was suppressed by its frenzy began to resurface under the call of intense pain and the premonition of death.
But clearly Kael had no intention of delving into the backstory of the corrupted tree-man.
He just wanted to slaughter spectacularly!
This time, he didn't catch the Ice Blade pulled back by the Magic Silk Thread with his hands, instead, he kicked out with his feet towards the blade's body. The already terrifyingly fast Ice Blade, under the force of a more powerful kick, turned into a wheel slicing the tree elder's body in two.
Finally, he rotated and was lifted into mid-air by the threads, descending in a spin amongst the ice shards, like an elegant dancer performing an aerial waltz on stage, bringing the entire dance to an end.
The overwhelmed Ice Blades shattered into fragments of ice crystals and fell to the ground, alongside the Corrupted Tree Elder, almost split in two from the heavens, by the high-speed spinning Ice Blade.
Old White looked at the young master turning back to look at him through the ice shards, with the light streaming through the Golden Tree's canopy pouring onto the ice, reflecting a dazzling array of particle light effects, like a frozen world masterpiece.
By now, Old White was starting to feel a tinge of envy for the person who would be able to stay by Kael's side in the future.
However, for some reason, he always felt... it was as if the young master was not so much fighting as consciously performing.
But there were only the two of them, master and servant, so who exactly was the young master performing for?