Chapter 22 Set Aflame

*Sshhhhhhhhing*

The ax I threw had gained a terrifying amount of momentum, reaching a spinning speed that I could barely keep up with as it became a blur to my eyes.

However, I knew how much power that attack of mine had kept behind its blade, tearing through the air like a howling wind before finally digging itself deep within the neck of the treant.

I heard the flesh being torn apart, or should I say wood?

While treants were mostly made out of wood on the outside, the moment you went through one layer of wood you would eventually meet their real body which would contain its organs that while being similar to any other mammal's, also had their differences here and there.

The axe was stuck halfway in between its neck, not budging an inch either way as blood gushed out of the open wound.

The blood was a greeny red that shone under the lunar lights of the moon like the reflective waters of the forest, yet this time the green would be illuminated by the lunar light as if it had been charged, making it glow ever so slightly.

The tentacles of the treant stopped moving while its body wavered, rocking back and forth until it finally-

*thud*

With a soft thud, the treant had fallen off the tree branch it was situated on and landed on the hard ground below, my axe still in its neck, the blood continuously gushing out without any signs of stopping any time soon.

"KREEEEEEEHHHHHHHH!" The creature let out a gargled screech as it tried to get up, but it was quickly stopped by something on the side of its head stomping onto its right side.

The pain caused it to screech once again, but I did not stop and looked at it coldly, my crazed smile vanishing into the breeze of the forest as if it had never been there.

My eyes were ice-cold... They were the eyes of a killer.

A dark crimson killing intent washed over the creature and for the first time in its short life, it seemed genuinely scared.

Its eyes were filled with emotion it could not understand, but really, how could it?

It was a mere infant, but what did I know?

It had tried to kill me, immediately making it an enemy in my eyes. I knew that I would have to kill it, and I wouldn't have stopped even if you had told me it was a child.

Maybe it was only then that it had finally clicked in my head.

There is nothing in this world to judge my actions anymore.

I wasn't being watched.

Everything was an enemy.

Why would I care about morals?

Why don't I just do whatever I want?

Why don't I just destroy everything?

'Hahahahahahahah.' My eyes had become devoid of all emotion.

"Keke-hahahahahaha" I finally began laughing out loud.

The fear in the eyes of the treant deepened.

I could see its soul leaving its vessel.

It was terrified... of me.

A mere human.

A mortal.

I had nothing.

I was weak.

Just a normal armless human.

Yet, it had been forced to watch me as I killed all of its companions one by one.

One... By... One...

I stretched my only hand down to grab my ax. Gripping it within my hand, I wiggled it out, something that caused even more blood to gush out.

The stone that I had used the create the blade of the ax had been damaged severely, to the point where it might not even work as an ax anymore but more as a blunt object.

I quickly tilted my head to the left, narrowly avoiding the root that tried to shoot through my eye and into my brain.

I looked deep into the eyes of the treant and with a wry smirk, I lifted the ax to the right and swung it at the root that had attacked me.

With a single swing, I was capable of cutting the too right off, and with a second swing, I had cut its arm off cleanly.

"You think you can try killing me..." I breathed out.

The silence between my sentence was deafening.

My smirk to it must have been the smirk of a devil. How could something as weak as me kill it? I was nothing but an insect to them after all... Maybe I was playing with them? Maybe this whole thing was just a sick game to me? A game of life and death where I am the only decider who leaves this place alive.

Those were probably the thoughts of the thing I was looking at.

"There is no longer anyone to judge me for my actions... My parents are gone... My girlfriend is dead... My best friend had died in the hands of those... things... And my girlfriend's best friend happened to be a spy..." I kept blabbering on to myself.

"And I've been sent to a reality where they do not even exist anymore, or at least not yet, or maybe not ever."

"My every move could mean that the future had changed. Me killing you could mean that my family would never exist. But at the same time, me killing you could mean that they do exist in the future."

After realizing what I was saying, I finally looked down at its expressionless, yet somehow terror-stricken face.

I would have wanted to cover the smile that crept up from the corners of my lips, but I simply did not have another hand to cover my mouth with.

"What am I saying... It's not like you can understand me anyway." And with those words, I raised my ax once more to land the final blow... The blow that would end my current temporary misery while ending the treants misery permanently.

*Splitch*

[You have killed an Inftant Treant]

[You have gained +100 EXP]

[Level 3]

[Progress: 109/400]

Gradually, I lifted my ax off the treants face, it now being dyed with the reddish-green color of its blood and brain matter.

'Thinking back, I do believe that I might be covered in the blood of all of them.' I began to recall all the times they had been injured and other than the invisible creature, everything else had found a way to splatter their blood onto me.

'Lets just hope they didn't have aids... If that even exists yet.' I chuckled to myself, ignoring the feeling of the blood actively beginning to dry and clot on my face.

I gradually got up and stood up straight, now looking at the chaos that our battle had created.

'To think I would survive all of this.' I tried to chuckle again completely unaware of the unconscious tears that had begun to drench my face, merely mistaking them for some blood that happened to not have clotted yet and was beginning to fall down my face.

Even the blurry vision was something I cast aside as an aftereffect of having fought for so long and so hard.

With my ax still in hand, I walked out of the plains area and back into the dark woods taking one final glance back before moving forward to never look back again.

Or so I thought until I had chosen to run back, painstakingly create a fire before running away once again after making sure that the two corpses of the woman and the treant had been lit aflame.

'You can never be too sure.' I lied through my teeth.

I knew better than anyone else that they were dead, it was just that even in death, I wanted them to suffer a little more or at least not have a body to decompose overtime for the archeologists of the future to see, even though I knew that there was an extremely high chance that the people of the future would never find any of the fossils of the creatures that live today.

Who knew that, while being one of the worst decisions I could have made, the fire would eventually become the very thing that would save me from the troubles of the future?

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