SSS Frost Sovereign: Rewinding The Apocalypse!-Chapter 77: A Treant’s threat

Icard and the rest remained rooted before the Treant.

They were desperate to break away, searching for a gap in the titanic monster’s reach, but the creature was actively suppressed them with its sheer mass.

The ancient giant made to move again, shifting its weight with a groan of timber as it readied a massive, sweeping blow with its right hand.

"Go ahead, I’ll distract it!" Arlon yelled.

He stepped forward, thrusting his palms out to unleash another high-velocity stream of hot cinders.

The glowing embers pelted the Treant’s torso, hissing as they scorched the mossy bark.

The creature let out a vibrating grunt of discomfort, its arm stuttering mid-swing as it instinctively flinched from the heat.

The Treant was forced to block more carefully this time as it enclosed its chest even more.

Seizing the opening, Eric fired another compressed fireball that exploded against the spawn’s wooden form, the concussive heat causing the giant to stumble back and slow down enough for a window to emerge.

"Move! Now!" Katar commanded.

The groups dispersed immediately, scattering in separate directions around the Treant’s flanks and disappearing behind the gargantuan trunks of the grove.

Icard glanced back at Eric one last time.

The young lad stood centered and firm, his hands engulfed in a steady, roaring orange flame as he stared down the wooden titan.

’Katar is right. He’ll be able to manage since one of its major weaknesses is sustained fire,’ Icard thought.

’But then again...’ He looked at the Treant as it shook off the latest blast.

The small fires clinging to its bark were being smothered out much faster than before, the wood seemingly secreting a damp, protective sap.

’It’s already trying to adapt to the fire.’

He faced forward again, pushing the worry aside.

He had to trust that Eric would find a way to overcome a spawn of this caliber.

"We’ll meet at the center of the grove, Eric!" Reya yelled, her voice trailing off as they gained distance.

"Good luck, Eric!" Alia added, her face pale but determined.

The party, Matt, Reya, Icard, and Alia with Katar, bolted into the gloom along with the remnants of the other raid group, who shouted their own well-wishes to Arlon.

They vanished into the emerald haze of the forest, putting the earth-shaking thuds of the Treant behind them.

’I didn’t get to know their exact numbers in my previous life since we were just spectators back then,’ Icard mused as they sprinted through the vertical labyrinth.

’But I don’t think there are many of them. High-tier guard spawns stationed near a Chieftain are usually few in number.’

Despite this logic, he remained tensely prepared.

He fully expected they might encounter at least one more Upper D-grade before they reached the Chieftain’s inner sanctum.

His eyes narrowed, scanning every shadow for the tell-tale green glow of a Sentinel as well.

They continued to advance, forced into long, winding arcs to get around the massive trees.

"What about the other raid group that went ahead earlier?" Matt muttered, his breath coming in sharp bursts as he kept pace.

"They must have taken a different route since we have to keep circling these massive trunks," Icard replied.

"Forget those fools and forge ahead," Katar snapped, his paws scratching rhythmically against the bark as he ran alongside them.

"They might be dead already or pinned down by another of the Chieftain’s guards."

Then suddenly, the sounds of a distant battle reached them, the sharp cracks of breaking wood and the muffled booms of energy discharges.

They tensed immediately, slowing their pace as their attention shifted toward the noise. It wasn’t far at all.

---

Meanwhile, in another part of the grove, a flurry of powers was hitting an Ancient Treant with aggressive futility.

One incarnation lunged forward, channeling a force-based palm strike against the monster’s leg with a loud grunt, but the blow failed to penetrate the iron-thick bark.

The Treant responded with a lazy swipe of its arm, sweeping the man away like a nuisance.

The rest of the party fared no better.

Their attacks left shallow gouges at best, and the Treant’s structure seemed to ripple, its root-like fibers moving to seal the wounds as if it were constantly regenerating.

Its chest and eyes pulsed with a malevolent green light, casting an eerie glow over the battered fighters.

This was the raid group that had broken off from Liam’s earlier.

"Boss!" the voice of Alvin, the party leader, yelled out as he spotted a figure approaching from the shadows.

And amongst them, he could spot Liam.

Alvin was the same man who had tried to provoke Redd earlier, but his arrogance was gone now, replaced by a desperate, roughed-up appearance.

He narrowly avoided a root being pulled from beneath his feet, though the upheaval threw another of his subordinates off, sending him crashing into a nearby tree.

"Boss Liam!" Alvin yelled again as he scrambled to a temporarily safe distance.

"We found the... the Chieftain! We’ve been trying to deal with it, but we can’t! It’s too strong!"

Liam observed the scene from a distance for several heartbeats before stepping forward.

With a long, confident stride, he swung his right hand in a sharp arc, sending a shimmering, blade-like wave of compressed air whistling through the space.

The cleave struck the Treant’s shoulder, but it barely bit in, merely severing the smaller root-tendrils that dangled from its arms.

"Tch. Just as I expected," Liam muttered, his eyes cold as he studied the giant.

"I used a Cleave, yet it barely left a mark. What kind of D-grade spawn can take my attack so easily?"

"This isn’t the Chieftain, Liam," Dane said calmly from behind him.

He stood at the base of a massive tree, his arms crossed, looking entirely unbothered by the giant.

"Huh?" Liam turned, wide-eyed, glancing first at Dane and then at the Erwald perched on the back of the other raid party leader with them.

It was a single-horned, grey creature, resembling a macaque with thick white and grey fur.

"Is that true, Dekheim?" Liam asked.

The Erwald, Dekheim, let out an unimpressed huff.

"I told you that you wouldn’t meet the Chieftain so easily, Liam. You would have known this yourself if you had bothered to make it to the inner sanctum in the first gate."

Liam harrumphed. The reminder of his past shortcomings annoyed him, but he was more upset by the wasted effort.

"Tch. I was just about to waste my energy on this crap," Liam said, his voice dripping with elitist disdain.

"Thanks. You just helped me save my strength for the main show. Although, you could have told me sooner before I wasted that Cleave."

"What difference does it make, Liam?" Dekheim added, his voice sharp.

"Seeing how your attack fared against it, I have to tell you: if you can’t even defeat this guard, you have no chance against the Chieftain."

"I didn’t put my back into that attack, Dekheim, so don’t give me that," Liam snapped, his irk rising.

Dane huffed quietly at Liam’s behavior, then looked toward the Erwald politely.

"Don’t mind the kid, Dekheim. But you shouldn’t underestimate him; we were trained well by our own Erwald."

The Treant, meanwhile, was still rampaging, having systematically taken down almost all of Alvin’s men.

"Boss! What are you doing?! Aren’t you going to help us?!" Alvin screamed in terror.

"They do need help, Liam," Dane noted, seeing their subordinate raid party on the verge of total collapse.

"I don’t care. You all should handle it if you want," Liam said, turning his back on the carnage.

He made to leave, his interest in the "fake" boss completely gone.

"Wait! Liam!" Alvin yelled, his face contorted with fear as he reached out toward his departing leader.

But the Treant’s attention had suddenly snapped toward the retreating Liam also.

Without warning, the monster’s arm elongated, its wooden fibers stretching out into a lash-like whip covered in jagged thorns and obsidian spikes.

Then, it whipped through the air with a deafening crack, hurtling toward Liam’s back just as he was stepping away, completely not expecting the sudden, lethal reach.

The massive thorn-whip whistled through the air with a lethal, high-pitched crack, moving faster than a blur.

Liam’s eyes widened, the pupils shrinking as his survival instincts surged, forcibly shifting his body into a state of hyper-reflexive clarity.

The world seemed to slow as he pivoted on his heel.

Before the spiked limb could crush him, he swung his arm in a violent, arc, manifesting a shimmering silver blade of compressed air.

The Cleave met the monster’s elongated limb with a sickening crunch of timber, the force behind the skill so immense that it easily severed the massive, root-like fibers.

The amputated length of the Treant’s arm, covered in obsidian thorns, fell heavily to the damp earth, landing only inches from Liam’s boots with a dull thud.

Liam stood in a rigid defensive posture, his chest heaving as he gasped for air, his eyes darting frantically across the dark grove.

His pulse hammered in his ears but he quickly calmed himself down.

That was really close...too close for comfort.

"Heh" a faint nervous smile tugged his lips.

But then, the Ancient Treant gave him no reprieve.

Before he could recalibrate his footing, the very ground beneath him buckled and groaned.

"What the...?" he muttered, his face contorting into another mask of shock as the soil erupted.

Thick, ropey roots surged from the loam like hungry serpents, instantly snaring his legs.

They coiled with terrifying speed, beginning to creep up his thighs and torso in a crushing grip.

"Damn it!" Liam roared, struggling against the wooden constrictions as more roots shot upward from the earth, weaving together to form a cage that intended to bury him alive within the forest floor.