2868 Not Here

“Die, you lowly human!” The Werewolf screamed and attacked; the old man wished he could defend himself, but he could not.

He is spent, he has used everything he had, but it is not enough.

Till now, he had been quite lucky; it is not like he had not come across any strong enemies, he had, but all of them were either killed by him, or he fought against them long enough that they gave killing him; the reason he had been lucky because he did not come across any Grand Lords.

p anda nOvel.cO,m

He had heard there were Grimms Grand Lords, this place had produced at least four of them, but he was lucky enough to not come across any till now.

He had thought he would pass this challenge too and might even excel at it, given he had special advantages in a place like this, but it seemed like his luck rang out.

He is very unwilling to die; he had sacrificed a lot, even bore the wrath of Grand Lords, all to reach that level, and he could see that it was finally within walking distance when death came.

‘I curse you with all my hate, you bastard!’ he cursed as the fiery claw of Werewolf broke through his last defense and closed his eyes, hoping that death would be quick.

Hun!

A second passed, but the death he was waiting for did not come; he immediately opened his eyes and saw empty space in front of him; the Golden Fire Werewolf, supposed to be there, had just vanished.

“Am I hallucinating?” he asked himself while looking around.

…

Seeing the old bastard wrestling with reality couldn’t help but put a smile on my face. I could have saved him earlier, but I waited till the last moment before making the enemy disappear.

Seeing himself with fear on his face made me quite happy; I watched him for a few seconds before resuming my journey while he began to call his savior, thanking me for saving him.

I did not reply, not because I wanted to stay anonymous, but because I wanted to let it wrestle with reality, questioning himself whether what he was seeing was the truth or everything was a hallucination.

I should not have done that; it increased the risk of the old man getting beguiled, but there is too much anger against this bastard not to let out in some way.

I left it behind and focused on the Grimm in my core; it is another unknown Golden Fire Werewolf, but this one has a core.

Buzz!

It took six seconds for runes to completely cover it and fifteen to fully harvest before the strengthening energy released, which was strong. Those with core never disappoint, especially those with the powerful bloodlines of Golden Fire Werewolf.

It took twenty-one seconds for me to absorb all the strengthening energy released from it; for growth energy, it took a little more time as I was diverting it to the specific plants.

It provided quite a lot of especially, more than what all the Grimms I have killed in the forest did, but still, it was not enough to satiate me. It had only increased my strength by a trickle; I would need hundreds of such and thousands of normal High-Grandmasters to reach the limit.

Which would mean killing the High-Grandmasters the Grimms have and some more; I could not do that.

There is a simple way, which is a Grand Lord, but I will have to find one first before I can dream of doing anything further.

Hun!

A little more than an hour passed when I suddenly stopped my swaying body and flew up while looking down in horror at the huge plant with very sharp teeth if I had fallen in its grasp. It would have been game over for me; the poison coating its teeth wouldn’t have given me any chance.

It is the second time in an hour I have fallen into the beguilement; things are getting dangerous with every step I cross.

A few more minutes passed when I stopped, not because I fell into a hallucination or saw an extremely rare and delicate plant that I had to harvest carefully, but due to the human.

A beguile human is not surprising; I had already come across one before; the special thing about this one is that he is sitting under the tree in a cross-legged position; like some kind of monk, it truly looked like a monk seeing he is bald.

If I did not see his meta-scan through my seed, I would have thought he was just meditating to calm his mind, but he is not. He is under the little plant behind him; it has something to him that calms his mind and forces it to meditate in some way.

I looked at what the plant was doing, and it was too complex for me to understand in a few seconds, which is quite surprising, as, with my knowledge, I could understand things by a glance.

I studied the scan for a moment, mostly calculating the danger of the plant; when I became sure that taking the plant would not affect him, I immediately harvested the plant.

Taking out the plant would stop things from getting worse.

Now I have to wake him up, but to do that, I will have to neutralize the complex compound of the powerful chemicals and soul energies that are affecting him, a very tricky.

Thirteen minutes later, my clone one went back to study, and I threw the formation before throwing the resources on it, more than half of which had been harvested from this jungle.

Buzz!

Formation activated, but unlike my quick heals, there was no reaction for nearly seven minutes before it finally scrunched and opened.

“Grandmaster?” questioned the man as he opened his eyes before understanding flashed in his eyes, “It looked like I had been beguiled,” he said before he turned to me.

“Thank you, Grandmaster Zaar,” said the middle-aged man; “I am just returning the favor, Lord Vikram,” I replied; this man had saved me once. I might not be standing here if it had not been for his breakthrough.

“This challenge is much harder than written in archives,” said the man and sighed. “It is, but we have to finish it,” I replied, and to that, he smiled.

I had talked to him for a minute before resumed on my journey, changing back to the original armor after I had created enough distance. I had changed back to my previous armor so that he could recognize me, and now, I am back in my real armor.

Time passed, and with each step, I got closer and closer to the last leg, and the closer I got, the dangerous things would become.

Saying I am scared would be an understatement; I have seen how humans and Grimms got by the forest, and I might get trapped, too, in such a condition, it is quite easy to kill me, and I don’t want to die, not yet.

Hun!

It had been not even a minute since I had gotten out of the influence of beguiling, which had kept me trapped for two minutes, when I sensed a Grimm entering my soul sense circle.

It immediately made me stop, as it was no normal Grimm but a Grand Lord, and I didn’t want to deal with it, not now, not here.