Multiply

Jack's body healed rather rapidly, focusing on the giant hole in his gut. However, he wasn't going to be given the time to just heal as he wished. The tree's originally glowing blue leaves had dulled, but at the same time, two other trees began growing out of the ground around him, looking nearly identical to the original one.

Unfortunately, the leaves on them were bright blue, unlike the original ones.

All of them pointed in his general direction, prompting Jack to spring forth. He let out a whistly giggle as he did so. While the trees were charging up, he got as close as possible to the original tree.

As for whether that was on a whim or that he wanted them to friendly fire was up in the air. Regardless, the trees showed no sign of stopping their attack, and launched dozens of beams of water towards him, sealing all of his entrances once more.

Jack cozied up right next to the tree as the beams of water flew past him.

None of the beams directly hit him, but most of them grazed him, some more severely than others.

Several concerningly large semi-circles were suddenly in places where his flesh was supposed to be, though he himself was still alive. While every single beam of water had come incredibly close to hitting the tree, unfortunately, they all just barely missed. However, considering the sheer volume of them and how exact they were, this was intentional.

Unlike the fox that ended up being the one most responsible for its own death by slamming into the trees over and over, this one had no intention of hurting itself through friendly fire.

In other words, his glaring disadvantage coming in a lack of offensive power couldn't be made up for using what he did last time. Although Seedy was quite strong as well, he also didn't have his incredibly strong regenerative powers, meaning it wouldn't take long for Seedy to be obliterated by the high-power beams.

Jack was still smiling as brightly as ever, though his situation really put him between a rock and a hard place.

The leaves of the two trees had dimmed down. Though at the same time, the original tree's leaves had started to glow rather brightly. Seeing this, Jack pulled out the knife from his storage deck, reached up, and stabbed the tree. Using it as a hold, he hoisted himself up quite high and grabbed onto one of the branches with the other hand.

He made his way into the branches themselves. And while they were quite bendy, they weren't able to do a full 180 to target Jack. Like this, he bought himself a couple of seconds when the tree couldn't do anything.

Using this time, he took out his katana from the storage deck and slammed it into the trunk of the tree. At the same time, he pushed his face up against one of the branches, lifting up his mask a bit, before biting down on the branch, sinking his teeth into some bark.

It wasn't the most pleasant feeling, but Jack was enjoying the novelty nonetheless.

Large portions of bark were ripped into from the katana, while he bit off a rather notable chunk from the branch. Though whether or not his actions truly had any results was hard to know, since the tree didn't really react.

Still, Jack did what he could to damage it. Large portions of the trunk were ripped into, revealing black bark inside.

Eventually, the glowing blue leaves pointed themselves away and fired water beams into the distance, unable to hold onto their charge for much longer. Each of them either blew a large amount of dirt into the air or directly knocked down a tree in the distance.

Jack noticed the other trees glowing and positioned himself behind the trunk for cover.

Though as he did so, three other trees suddenly grew out of the ground around the other side, surrounding him on all ends. He froze up for a moment after seeing the nearly hundred glowing leaves all around him.

He looked around, taking the situation in for a moment while all the leaves began pointing at him.

A whistly giggle escaped him.

"This looks fun..."

...

"Why did you give the kid the Joker card already? Something like that should only be bestowed on someone who has earned it. I do not have a problem with trying to raise a candidate for it, but he has yet to prove himself of anything."

A chuckle resounded.

"If he truly isn't worthy, then it will simply be given to the one that had stolen it from him. From there the cycle will continue. Then it will simply be the strongest one that will get the card in the end. Is that not the so-called 'Law of the Jungle' that you believe in?"

There was a low grumble.

"That thinking is not wrong. But there are better ways to go about it. He is weak. Far weaker than many other suitable choices."

"Perhaps that is the case. Yet, you would be hard-pressed to find someone like him. Despite his limited education, he is quite sharp. Though even more than that, he easily survived when I tested different ways to kill him. If nothing else, there is simply something about him that just refuses to die."

...

Not only were nearly a hundred different glowing leaves now pointing at him, but the tree he was currently on also pulled its branches away to make it as clear of a shot as possible. Still, Jack hung onto the base of one of the branches and simply remained there.

Unfortunately, moving from his position would only attract more beams of water. At least in his position, it would block a few of them.

With no other solution, Jack simply curled up into a tight ball, putting his hands on the back of his neck. He did it so naturally, one may guess that he was used to doing something like this.

His knees were uncomfortably pressed against his chest, while he began to hum some sort of simple tune. It was almost as though he had completely forgotten why he was doing this in the first place.

Regardless, while many of the beams were unable to hit him directly, most of them were at least able to graze him, while a few of them were direct hits.

Mia, who was watching, couldn't help but let out a gasp.

"Jack!"

As for Emma, she was watching closely and quietly with narrowed eyes.

"Surely he must reveal it now..."

However, Jack did not do any kind of special reveal that she was hoping for. Instead, his body fell from the top of the tree and fell down with a thud, as though he were dead.

"JACK!"

His arms were bent in the wrong way, while his spine twisted in a strange way, making his back awkwardly positioned. If nothing else, his legs weren't bent in the wrong way, though they were missing a significant chunk of flesh.

Jack coughed several times, moving his body around like he was a broken toy that was supposed to be walking, but only spasmed in strange ways. Cracking sounds resounded one after another as eventually forcibly reoriented his bones in the proper ways.

Thankfully, his bones had regenerated incredibly quickly, though the muscles were taking a bit longer.

The original tree was now pointing at Jack, with its glowing blue leaves. But even worse than that was the fact four trees in the distance had grown out of the ground and were each pointing at him from a different direction. This pattern seemed to be repeating and was continuously getting worse with how many trees were appearing, and the rate at which they appeared in the first place.

It didn't seem like he had any realistic way of winning, since his best efforts didn't even seem to damage the tree.

Regardless, Jack still had a bright smile on his face, just barely visible from underneath his mask. He only seemed to be having the time of his life, and with his leg muscles that had just healed he jumped into the air once more.

"HAAhaAA AAHA!"

He dug his fingers into some of the broken bark he had cut before, crawling up. It cut up his hand pretty badly, as it was a rather jagged surface to climb, but those injuries were incredibly minor compared to his actual scenario.

After getting to the top of the tree once more, the branches once more got out of the way to let the others get a good shot at him. And the four trees that had just grown were already pointing their glowing leaves at him.

If he followed the same strategy as before, then he should be able to at least survive the blast. However, this was not a fight where stalling would help him, even if that was one of his only options.

In the end, Jack didn't stay in the middle, seemingly betting it all on something else. He looked at a fairly dense cluster of branches and ran on top of them.

His eyes were on the glowing leaves.