Chapter 256: Living trees
"It was good that I was able to leave them behind."
This time, I headed out alone since the place that I had chosen this time was a bit special.
It was better for me to go alone instead of being dragged down by anyone.
When I arrived, it didn’t seem that dangerous from a first glance.
In fact, it seemed like a normal patch of forest that was in this place.
However, there were no creatures that were in the surrounding area even though this was one of the rare patches of forest in the wilderness.
It seemed like there was nothing that dared to approach this place, but in reality...
"Look at all the little bone fragments that are scattered around." I said while narrowing my eyes to look at the base of these trees.
With my enhanced vision, I could see the various white pieces that were there.
These were things that had been left behind by these trees.
After all, these weren’t just any normal trees.
Once I had finished observing them, I moved closer to the trees.
As I came closer, I could see the tree swaying as if they were moving because of a breeze that was blowing through them. The problem with this was that there wasn’t a single breeze that was blowing through this place.
One might think that this was just because there was only a breeze where the trees were, but I knew that this wasn’t the case.
I knew that this was something completely different.
Still, that didn’t deter me from moving closer to the trees.
The moment that I came close, that was when the trees suddenly showed their tree form.
Of course, it didn’t come from the trees themselves.
Rather, it came from the roots of the trees that were under the ground.
Once I was in their range, these roots had no hesitation at all as they stabbed right at me from below. It was as if they wanted to cut me by the waist and split me in half with how they stabbed right at me.
But in the end, these roots weren’t able to pierce through my iron skin.
However, they did make me take a deep breath since the force that the roots hit me with did knock the wind out of me a bit. At the same time, these roots weren’t that weak either since they were able to hit my iron skin like this without shattering.
For these roots to actually hit my iron skin like this, it was a show of how hard they were as well.
Still, it only took a single flex from me to shatter them.
My muscles had become stronger than before, so I was able to push back these roots without a problem.
Once the roots shattered, I charged forward at the trunks of the trees.
It was as if they felt that something was off, so they immediately used everything that they had to attack me. There were all kinds of roots that came out of the ground that stabbed out at me, swarming me from all directions.
But I just pushed right through these roots with a single swing of my arms.
The force that was generated from them was more than enough to shatter all of these roots.
After they had been shattered, I charged right into the center of the forest.
One might think that this was a bad place to go, but the thing that I was looking for was there.
There was a reason why these trees had grown like this, it had to do with the thing that was hidden in the center of this forest. That was also the thing that I was trying to reach.
Seeing that I was getting closer and closer, the trees really became desperate as they used everything that they had against me.
Roots, branches, and even the trunks of the trees themselves came at me.
It seemed that they really were planning on crushing me with everything that they had.
Since that was the case, I didn’t hold back either.
"Burn it all away." I said before releasing flames around me.
Just because I was a barbarian king, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t able to use magic. Though this was part of the reason that I had come all alone.
It was all because I didn’t want to show anyone this magic that I possessed.
It was a good trump card for the future, but also...
"Pyro, don’t miss that spot."
It wasn’t something that could be shown to others since spirit contracts were contracts that should have been exclusive to high elves.
If it wasn’t for the fact that these trees were strong and I could only burn them with the flames of a spirit, I wouldn’t have called out a spirit to deal with this matter.
But with the flames that Pyro released, the trees just couldn’t withstand it at all.
In the end, most of the trees were turned to ashes.
There were only a few trees that were in the center of the forest that weren’t burnt away.
This was all because there was something here that was protecting them from being burnt away. There was something that was providing this green coloured energy that seemed to be shielding them.
This thing releasing the green coloured energy was the thing that I came to get.
Even if the trees hadn’t been burnt away by the flames, they were still weakened because they had been surrounded by flames.
A single punch was all that it took from me to break these trees.
In the center of this patch of trees was a small orb.
But this small orb was the thing that was releasing the green energy that protected them.
Once the trees were out of the way, I picked up this small orb and slowly revealed a smile before saying, "An Evergreen Orb. Not bad, it really is quite the bountiful harvest."