Hunter Of The Forest III

The branches bent to Nyana's will, moving and wiggling like they were alive. Well... They were technically alive, but they were moving around like an animal. Not exactly what one would see every day from a tree. The branches all twisted around each other, turning into a massive living wood drill. It sped towards Kies at an unimaginable speed, almost catching him as he jumped away.

Kies saw the branches dig into the sand and heard rumbling. He felt the ground shake and quickly moved out of the way as the branches suddenly burst through the ground under him. Kies shot a couple of Wind Blades at the branches, seeing if it would do anything, but it did nothing. The winds scattered upon touching the thick wooden bark, not leaving even a small scratch.

As expected, magic wasn't going to damage the branches unless he used a powerful spell. The branches went after him again, chasing after Kies as he ran across the sand. *Pew!* A green light shot past Kies' face, barely missing. He glanced back at the elf and saw that she had her finger pointed at him. Not only was she having the branches chase after him but she was also sniping him with her magic safe atop her branches.

The entire arena was filled with the sound of the crowd cheering. They were all rooting for Nyana to win. Normally, this would make someone very angry but Kies didn't care. He just stayed calm and ignored them. Getting riled up would do him no good.

A tingle went through his body as the winds warned him that the branches were getting dangerously close to him. It was faster than him despite the fact that he had his wind magic active. The sound of another green laser firing ringed through the air, catching Kies in the back of his right leg, causing him to stumble. Before he could regain his balance, Kies heard the rustle of leaves and turned around just in time to see the branches in his face.

Left with no other option, Kies held out his hands and called upon the winds, "Break." A mighty gust of wind soared to his palm and shot out of it, tearing through the branches like paper and destroying almost half of it. The sound was almost deafening and it silenced the entire crowd. Everyone, except Nyana, was stunned at what they saw.

"So that's your magic..." Nyana said with an amused face. The 'magic attacks' that Kies shot at her before all had no trace of magic in them and this was the first time that she felt magic from his attack. "So, what's the name of the spell?" Nyana asked, completely unfazed. She had expected something like this to happen as she was deliberately trying to force him to use his magic.

"Wind Cannon," Kies answered her. Though he didn't put much magic into it, it was a lot more powerful now than before because he had better control of the winds. By making it rotate faster, the Wind Cannon would become several times more destructive. He had experimented with it over the years but this was his first time using his new and improved Wind Cannon in an actual fight, and its results exceeded his expectations.

"Fitting name," Nyana agreed after seeing the firepower of the attack for herself. "For you to cast that powerful spell almost instantly... I'm guessing you've already mastered it?"

"Not quite." Kies didn't need a chant to cast the spell anymore but he needed a word to activate it, a trigger word. It was as Haro said, the amount of time needed to master a spell to the point where one could cast it just by thinking it was not short by any means. Even with his skills, he still needed more practice with the spell.

Well... This really should've only taken a year for him to master the spell but he chose not to and invested his time into creating new spells. The battlefield is an unexpected place and anything could happen. Kies needed various spells so that he could handle any situation. And since there was no point in hiding his magic anymore, it was time for his work on developing spells to pay off.

Kies held out his hand and ordered the winds to go to three locations, forming a triangle around Nyana. She felt his magic and looked around, unsure of what he was up to, but she knew that she needed to stop him before something happened.

Nyana clasped her hands together and began chanting in Elvish. All around them, the green particles began to emerge from the ground, flying up into the air, almost like fireflies. Kies didn't know what they did and was on high alert when suddenly, he felt the ground beneath him rumble.

The splintered wood littering the sand all started glowing and they flew towards the broken branches buried under the sand. The broken branches absorbed the splintered wood and the entire thing untangled and began tangling again, but this time, instead of becoming a lance or spear, the branches wrapped together and took the form of a massive tree. On either side, arms sprouted and it even grew legs.

The audience pointed at the monster which was even taller than the arena walls. The size of the creature was roughly a quarter of the size of the arena. It goes without saying that Kies was in trouble here...

The colossal tree monster stared down at Kies with its glowing green eyes. Standing on top of one of its shoulders was Nyana. Kies looked up at the elf and using the wing to project his voice, asked her, "Is this a treant?"

"No, it's a forest guardian," she corrected Kies. A forest guardian? Was there a difference? The only monster out there that Kies knew of which had the appearance of a tree was a treant. Nyana saw Kies' confusion and explained to him the difference between the two. "You see, a treant and a forest guardian are the same creatures, but one is corrupted by dark magic and evil while the other is not. While a treant seeks to destroy all living things, a forest guardian does not."

So the two things were essentially the same thing in other words. Kies didn't care much about the specifics since every tree monster he came across wanted to kill him so it made no difference to him if that thing in front of him was a forest guardian or a corrupted treant. Either way, he would have to fight it.

Kies swung his sword at the giant monster, shooting a Wind Blade at it. The attack was so thin that it was nearly invisible to the naked eye, even when seeing it from the side. It was sharper than any sword out there and could easily cut an armored soldier apart with ease. The forest guardian sensed the attack and brought his arm up to block it. The winds sliced in the thick wood, traveling around a meter before it stopped.

To Kies, that was a good sign. It meant that his magic attacks were still effective against the monster. Nyana saw it too and she was quite intrigued by how Kies was able to deal that much damage with just a simple attack. "Wasn't that the same attack you used before? How is it so much more powerful now?" she asked Kies.

"I can't answer that."

"Hmm... Sorry for asking then..." Nyana drew her bow again and also fetched an arrow from her quiver. "Well, it's time to end this." The crowd was getting restless again since the two of them were talking instead of fighting.

"Agreed." Kies raised his blade and charged forward. Nyana waved her hand and ordered the forest guardian to stop Kies. The forest guardian raised its left arm and brought it down on Kies. It smashed into the floor, sending a wall of sand flying tens of meters into the air. The force of the punch alone would be more than enough to kill even a demon. But that was only if it could hit.

As a drawback to its monstrous strength, the forest guardian was extremely slow and Kies had plenty of time to move out of the way before the attack landed. He moved to the side when the attack came down, using the wind to block the sand that went his way. However, the shockwave from the punch was something that he couldn't block and he ended up getting pushed away from the area of impact.

Kies slid across the sand and after coming to a stop, quickly jumped away. A loud whistling sound tore through the air, giving him a heads-up that an arrow was on his way. It flew past his face, missing by less than an inch. He landed on the sand a couple of feet away from where the arrow hit the sand and looked up at the elf who was preparing to fire another shot.

"What a deadly combination..." Kies mumbled to himself as he watched the forest guardian slowly raise its left fist, revealing a massive crater in the ground where the surrounding sand was slowly filling it back up. He had to fight both a ranged enemy and a melee enemy at the same time. To make things more difficult, the ranged enemy could use magic and the melee enemy could regenerate. The only real way for him to win was to either exhaust Nyana's magic or to take her out, both of which were pretty hard to do.

Kies sensed that the forest guardian was linked to Nyana, but the magic that was being used to sustain it didn't come from her, but rather its surroundings. It made sense as it was impossible for the elf to be able to supply that much magic to a being so big, and it was even impossible for him, who had the ability to regenerate magic at speeds that could only be described as unreal.

He could injure the forest guardian all he wanted but as long as there was magic, he wouldn't be able to kill it. His best option would be to target Nyana.

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