The wall of trees blocked the view of the horizon in front of me. No matter what spells I used, the trees came back faster than I could cut them.
By the time I recognized my surroundings again, it was the next day's morning.
I rested before preparing myself to send out a miniaturized version of the Eclipse symbolled spell, but I'd use multiple of them in fast bursts to get through the wall.
The backlash of using that many spells in that short of a time frame would probably get my fingers tearing off. To mitigate that, I decided to use around twenty percent of the spell's full power and then increase it in increments of five in each burst. I'd also need to constantly take in and put out the mana around me.
After thinking for a bit, I readied myself and started putting out mana with an Eclipse symbol. The only difference is that instead of fully extending my two fingers, I only extended the index fully while keeping the middle at halfway. It'd make the spell lose half of its power and size, but it'd be fine since It'd give it a faster charge and would be less taxing on my hand.
The symbol was made. The mana rushed to my hands. I controlled it and started sending it in bursts. The arcs of the spell incinerated everything in its path, but the heat never spread across the trees. The trees fell in the first wave. I saw the horizon in a blink.
The trees soon started regenerating. I kept sending bursts and ran across the logs of trees strewn across the horizon. I felt the stumps shiver and start growing under me. I sent another burst forward while making the Sol symbol with my other hand to send a small spark of fire to burn the growing trees. The trees in front of me were still strewn across the horizon while the sparks incinerated the budding stumps under me.
I kept doing that and soon felt exhausted, but I could see that the end was getting closer than ever.
My hands ached for rest, but I never gave them that. It would spell the end of me.
I kept running across. My mana replenishing it due to Hyftri being in a slumber and causing the mana to lose its will. Mana across this forsaken planet gushed to enter any host. Luckily, I was the only host around to the mana here. All the mana gushed in, and I sent it out just as quickly with spell bursts and Sol symbols.
The spells shot forth, I gained mana, and the spells shot forth again. It was a cycle that was tiring when you added in the running and mentally taxing as well when trying to hinder the mana into bursts.
The heat was bad as well, but it hindered the trees' growth. Not much though. It might have added a half-second more to the regenerative process.
It was all I needed. I soon spent a night chopping down the trees and running across the charred and shivering stumps.
I chopped down a tree with another burst. The horizon indicated I was almost about ten percent done with the wall…
I wonder if I'll be able to sleep before this week ends.
The bark on the trees started to bald the further I went on. The trees started to become shorter than before, but it was only a minuscule decrease that I only noticed after cutting about fifteen percent of them.
I decided to recite every word 'I' said or thought of throughout the loops, all of this was thanks to the mind palace, and all of this was to stave off my boredom. '-Was this the tenth or eleventh? I got it off my trail again. Let's test out more ways to trigger -it- whatever was keeping me here. Finally, I got that out of my system. It feels good to let loose once in a while. Hooray? I guess. Help… There are monsters nearby… Most of my group was killed off but some of us managed to run in different directions. This is a nice change of pace from being shot with a silver bolt to being questioned on how to help me and the rest of my imaginary group. I don't know where the others went but, in the morning, I could show you where most of the group died. I can't believe it… Is there something with this group? What causes the loop's timer to increase…- '
Two days passed like that. No matter how long he took, the trees never ended. The only thing encouraging him was the giant horizon that kept motivating him to keep going. It also was good for tracking his progression through the trees and was a compass for him. The trees were big enough that one could easily get lost if they didn't have something keeping them in the right direction.
A bit more than three days in, he finally reached past twenty-five percent of the wall-like forest. Whenever he needed to eat or drink, he needed to do it with the added difficulty of running while doing it. He'd need to multitask and second try and take a bite or sip before throwing another Sol symbolled spell. Eventually, he'd finish after hours of using his left hand to try and eat or drink something in one-second increments.
After finishing the food item, he made a mental note to eat and drink three days later.
Three days later, he did the same thing again but was now almost fifty-five percent through.
The trees became much shorter than before. However, they still were three meters higher than two average-height humans.
My hands were past exhaustion. They felt numb and creaky, like an old wooden door, but I still moved them either way to force out spells with the help of the surge of mana around me.
A week has passed since I first cut off the first segment of trees. I might be about fifty-nine percent through. It became sixty after an hour.
I heard more giggling. They were louder than before, but I knew if I lost even an ounce of focus it would spell the end of me due to these damn trees.
It is day eight. I am now sixty-four percent through. The trees are getting tougher to burn with the Sol symbolled spell. I upped the power a bit and went into a routine.