Snake raised his trident within the energy shield.
The dark green light at the tips of the trident suddenly contracted before violently exploding outward.
A shockwave rippled from the surface of the energy shield, blasting all the leaves into drifting ash.
Exerting force through his legs, he burst through the screen of leaf debris and lunged straight at Ethan.
His speed this time was even faster than before.
His eight-meter-tall body tore through the air as he sprinted, the resulting sonic boom causing loose stones on the surrounding ruins to shower downward.
Ethan could only struggle to defend himself.
He rapidly conjured thirteen consecutive layers of vine walls in front of him.
Each wall was woven from arm-thick thorns, their surfaces shimmering with emerald-green defensive runes.
The thirteen layers stacked on top of one another, reaching a total thickness of over ten meters.
The trident slammed into the first layer.
The first vine wall was instantly torn apart, failing to hold for even half a second.
The second, third, and fourth layers followed. The speed at which the trident tore through the vine walls surpassed the limits of the naked eye, piercing through seven layers in less than a second.
The remaining six layers of vine walls lit up with emerald-green light simultaneously.
Vines surged from the walls, wrapping around the trident's prongs and attempting to lock the shaft in place.
The dark green light and the emerald-green light corroded each other on the weapon, producing a sizzling, burning sound.
The vines constantly dissolved into nothingness only to regrow just as quickly, slowing the trident's speed by half.
Ethan seized this brief window to dodge to the side.
The trident crashed past his side. Its tip grazed the surface of his Thorn Blood Armor, instantly vaporizing a large patch of the red wood fibers.
The shockwave blew him off his feet, sending him crashing through a ruined wall. Rubble pelted his body but was deflected by the blood armor.
By the time he hit the ground, vines had already grown beneath his feet to catch him and push him back into the fray.
Snake pulled back his trident, his vertical pupils locked onto Ethan.
“To think a First-Tier Wizard could block so many of my strikes,” he said, his mouth splitting all the way to his ears in a hideous grin. “You are indeed worthy of being remembered by my master.”
“It seems you Sea Race members have your ways to obtain such detailed information about me. Who gave it to you?”
“Ha! Do not think you can pry information from my mouth, wizard. Die!”
The rubble beneath Snake's feet exploded.
The ruined wall collapsed entirely. Shattered stones shot out in all directions, crashing into the surrounding ruins and kicking up clouds of dust.
His eight-meter-tall body tore through the air, the resulting sonic boom causing the remaining flagstone fragments on the plaza to tremble violently.
He swung the trident, the dark green light on its three prongs exploding as they dragged three dark green afterimages through the air.
As the strike descended, the air was pushed aside first, forming a visible white ring before the physical weapon itself even arrived.
Ethan gripped the World Eater with both hands, holding the staff horizontally to block.
The moment the trident and staff collided, the ruined ground beneath them exploded into a deep crater two hundred meters in diameter.
The rubble was ground into powder by the shockwave, which was then swept into the air by the blast.
A faint cracking sound echoed from the bones of Ethan's arms. The Thorn Blood Armor began to shatter at his wrists, with cracks spreading along his forearms up to his elbows.
Using the recoil, Ethan flew backward fifty meters.
When he landed, his feet plowed two deep furrows into the ground, pushing fragments of flagstones to either side of his body into half-man-high piles of debris.
He raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked up at Snake.
The eight-meter-tall body was falling from midair. Snake swung the trident in a half-circle, pointing the prongs downward as he drove them toward Ethan's head.
The ground split open, and three Giant Wood Spikes erupted from the earth.
Each spike was three meters thick, their tips as sharp as cones, and their surfaces shimmered with emerald-green runic light.
The three massive spikes crossed over each other to form a barrier above Ethan's head.
The trident slammed into the first spike, snapping it cleanly in half.
It struck the second, sending wood splinters flying.
When it hit the third, the trident's tip was deflected by half an inch, grazing Ethan's right shoulder before burying itself in the ground.
Boom!
A twenty-meter-long crack tore through the ground. Flagstones at the edge of the fissure were thrown into the air by the shockwave, tumbling far into the distance.
The Thorn Blood Armor on Ethan's right shoulder shattered completely. The fabric of his robe at his shoulder was torn open, revealing a wound that was already rapidly healing beneath.
Using the shockwave to slide over a dozen meters to the side, he pointed his left hand repeatedly at the Sea Race advisor.
Seed Bombs shot from his fingertips one after another, falling as thick as rain.
Each seed was only the size of a fingernail, but the moment they touched the Sea Race member's scales, they exploded into bursts of emerald-green flame.
The explosions crackled like popping beans, hundreds of fireballs bursting simultaneously across the Sea Race member's chest, abdomen, and arms.
After two seconds of continuous explosions, Snake charged out of the flames.
There were scorch marks and cracks on his scales, but not a single spot had been truly penetrated.
The impatience in his vertical pupils had turned into pure rage. He swept his trident horizontally, the dark green energy clinging to the shaft dragging out an arc-shaped shockwave.
Ethan leaned backward, the shockwave brushing past the tip of his nose.
A half-collapsed stone building behind him was sliced clean in half by the shockwave. The upper half of the structure slid down, crashing to the ground and throwing up a massive cloud of dust.
Before the dust could even settle, the trident arrived once more. Clang!
The dark green light on the prongs was highly compressed, tearing through the surrounding air. The resulting sonic boom caused loose stones on the ruins to rain down.
A vine wall rapidly materialized in front of Ethan.
One layer, two layers, three layers.
Each layer was woven from arm-thick thorns, their surfaces flowing with emerald-green defensive runes.
The vines constantly intertwined as they grew, their weaving density far exceeding that of his previous thorn walls.
The trident stabbed into the first layer, and the vine wall instantly exploded, failing to hold for even half a second.
The second and third layers followed.
The speed at which the trident tore through the vine walls was so fast that the vines had no time to regrow. All three layers of vine walls shattered within less than a second.
The prongs continued to thrust toward Ethan's chest.
The wood fibers on the surface of the Thorn Blood Armor grew frantically, piling into a thick defensive layer over his chest.
The blood-red fibers stacked layer upon layer, each one flowing with emerald-green runes.
The moment the trident's tips touched the blood armor, the outermost fibers were instantly vaporized, and the second and third layers disintegrated in rapid succession.
Although the trident's speed of penetration slowed slightly, it still pressed forward inexorably.
Ethan gripped the shaft of the World Eater with both hands, holding it horizontally across his chest.
The prongs slammed into the shaft, and the collision of the two energies exploded into a ring of shockwaves.
The shockwave pulverized all the rubble within thirty meters into dust, which was swept into the air by the blast to form a small mushroom cloud.
A faint cracking sound echoed from the bones of Ethan's arms.
The Thorn Blood Armor shattered from his wrists upward, the cracks spreading along his forearms to his elbows, and then climbing past his elbows toward his shoulders.
The ground beneath his feet shattered, and his legs sank into the stone floor up to his knees.
The shaft of the World Eater bent into an arc. The emerald-green light on its surface and the dark green energy at the trident's tip corroded each other, emitting a piercing, sizzling sound.
Ten minutes.
A full ten minutes.
Ethan unleashed every single one of his methods.
Giant Wood Spikes, thorn walls, Seed Bombs, Thousand Leaf Daggers, Entangling Root Traps, and Vine Strangles—he cast every single cantrip with effortless ease, executing every combination without the slightest delay.
He swung the World Eater continuously, its emerald-green light flashing repeatedly over the ruins as he awakened every plant within a radius of several miles to join the battle.
Rate on N.U.
