Chapter 23 23 Background

"Even you have a limit to how shameless you can be. I thought that you would keep insulting my intelligence for a little while longer." Zach smirked in contempt as he rushed towards Braxton.

Braxton panicked as he fell on his ass and retreated while crawling on all fours like a lizard with twisted limbs. He barely urged all the wood type mana in his body to form a shield in front of him to avoid the life threatening attack aimed at him.

Braxton saw death a little less than a foot in front of his face. His body hair stood on edge and fear surged through his bones softening them as if they were nothing but jelly. His body froze in its place as it trembled under the death glare of the soul reaper whose black dagger was currently stabbing towards his neck.

The wooden branches and roots of the giant trees helped him out in the last instant as they kept the tip of the black dagger from piercing his skin a little less than 6 inches away from his neck.

Braxton barely managed to keep his piss from leaking out. Maybe a little bit did slip past his control but in his desperate attempt to flee from Zach, he barely noticed such a thing.

"Tsk…" Zach felt it was a pity that he hadn't been able to get Braxton under control right away. Although he hadn't planned to kill him in a single attack, the fact that Braxton had managed to repel his attack in such a condition was a surprise to Zach who had thought that Braxton had lost all his will to fight. Survival instinct of living creatures could be a scary thing as it could bring out all the potential of that living being in moments of crisis.

The fact that Braxton had yet to fall could be attributed to his survival instinct. He was like a cockroach that could suffer a nuclear attack and still escape unscathed.

His wood type mana, while not very destructive, was probably the best for crowd control as its flexibility and range of control was higher compared to other elemental mana. Not to mention that its defensive capability could be boosted further in an environment like this forest where Braxton could keep on casting magic at the expense of a minimum amount of mana.

The trees and their roots became deadly weapons and the sturdiest of shields under the slightest control of his wood attribute mana. Tens of branches targeted Zach with their jagged edges, roots shot out of the ground with enough force to puncture several feet of the soil under their feet. All of them were targeting Zach who was dodging and jumping in order to avoid being turned into a sieve.

Faced with no other choice, Zach brought out the Flame Gloves and started to blow every single one of the tree branches to splinters and set fire to the forest around them bit by bit whenever Firestorm activated as a result of his fierce punches.

Braxton tried to escape but was being forced to expend his precious mana in order to defend against the monstrous power that his enemy wielded. The flames that spread out every time Zach punched the slithering roots singed Braxton's skin and his hair.

Zach's flame attacks were the natural predator of the wood element wielded by Braxton. The battle was practically pre decided. Wood couldn't possibly win against the fire that was capable of burning entire forests to ashes let alone some trees under the control of Braxton.

Zach didn't take long as he burned through the last of Braxton's wooden defenses. His flame that had been kept at bay by the trees finally got so close to Braxton that he could feel his skin melting from the close proximity to the source of the high temperature.

"Waaaaa…" A shrill scream resounded in the forest as if a pig was on its death throes.

"WAIT…WAIT…you bastard…I said wait." Braxton tried to back away as he growled at Zach to let him talk but Zach just pushed on as if he had not heard anything at all.

"Y..YOU… you will certainly die a horrible death if you kill me here…hahaha. They will definitely chase you to the end of the world." Braxton laughed weirdly as if he had given himself over to his cruel fate but not before threatening Zach once again. Braxton was hoping to intimidate Zach but only ended up pissing him off more.

"As long as I get rid of you here, no one will know at all. There will be no more threats and definitely no chasing me to the end of the world. So be obedient…and DIE!!" Zach launched a barrage of flaming fists as his words drowned Braxton into endless despair.

"Arggh!!!" A guttural roar pierced the silence of the forest as Braxton mobilized every little grain of mana in his body to save his life. A green layer of mana surrounded his body as the most terrifying burns on his body slowly healed and some small wounds vanished altogether like they hadn't been on his body in the first place.

As Braxton's body slowly healed, the forest around ten meters of him lost all its vitality and fell dead. Braxton could use the vitality of the wood based life-forms who were once his ancestors. At the same time, a new wooden shield composed of twisting and turning tree branches and roots enveloped Braxton like a cocoon envelops the caterpillar before its ascent as a butterfly.

Zach tried to break the defenses with Flame Gloves but to his surprise this wooden defense was considerably harder to break through than the previous defenses erected by Braxton. A hint of caution appeared in Zach's eyes which drove him to attack ferociously and consume the durability of the shield faster.

The wood that had previously burned as easily as kindling, refused to burn at this moment. The skill "Firestorm" attached to the Flame Gloves triggered several times but there was no effect at all.

There was a creeping sense of unease that was constantly disturbing him as if there was something wrong but Zach couldn't quite put a finger on it. His attacks increased in intensity and cracks started to appear on the turtle like shell that hid the body of his enemy.

By the time the wooden cocoon crumbled into pieces, there was nothing inside of it. Braxton was nowhere to be seen as if he had vanished into thin air.

Zach hadn't moved his eyes away from the wooden cocoon even for a minute since its conception but even then Zach had not solved the mystery of how Braxton managed to escape from him.

Activating his satellite map, Zach scanned the area for any kind of enemies. The red dot that had previously always been there seemed to have vanished without any trail. The more Zach tried to find out Braxton's location, the more puzzled he became as there was no clue that could reveal the whereabouts of the enemy.

Unable to think of anything else, Zach decided to return to the cave that he and Luna had previously hidden themselves in, while they tried to escape the pursuit of the Earth Bear. He had left Luna alone in that place without any safeguard and he was slowly beginning to worry about her safety. Now that even Braxton had run away from his grasp, there was no guarantee that Braxton wouldn't go after Luna who was defenseless at the moment.

Taking the shortest route, Zach reached the cave with agility surprised even him.

"Looks like there were some additional benefits to absorbing whatever energy I got from Luna." Zach thought to himself as he tried to measure his hidden growth. His body had become sturdier, his footsteps more firm and his senses even sharper than they had been before. No matter what, compared to his past self, the Zach of today was countless times ahead in terms of overall combat capability.

Even after running such a long distance, Zach was barely out of breath even though he had covered the distance with the maximum speed that he could have mustered. Taking a long and deep breath, he normalized his breathing rhythm and entered the cave with some caution. In order to not get caught by surprise, Zach had to remain open to the different possibilities awaiting him inside the cave.

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