Chapter 22: The Giant Tree Troll’s Revenge

Back in the secret realm, Freya had settled into a meditative position inside the pavilion, her back was straight, her breathing controlled and her attention pulled inward. It was working until it wasn’t.

The pacing behind her was relentless. Back and forth, back and forth, the soft sound of footsteps cutting into her focus every few seconds.

Freya opened one eye to see Zelda moving side to side across the pavilion floor, arms crossed, wearing an expression that sat somewhere between panic and barely managed panic.

She stopped the moment she noticed Freya looking. The calm in Freya’s single open eye seemed to confuse her more than it helped.

"How are you able to stay calm right now?"

Freya closed her eye again. Then opened both and exhaled.

"You’ve known Winston for six years. The least you can do is trust the decision he made."

"I trust Winston." Zelda’s voice was steady but tight. "Trusting him and not caring about his safety are two completely different things."

Freya didn’t have a counter for that. She looked at Zelda for a moment, the exhaustion still sitting in the edges of her expression, the three days of holding this base together, and now the weight of watching her best friend walk toward something she couldn’t follow him into. Telling her to relax wasn’t going to land.

"Find something to distract yourself," Freya said. "Pacing isn’t helping either of us concentrate."

BOOM!

The sound hit the cave walls hard enough to feel it in the chest. Both of them were on their feet and moving before the echo finished. Mark came at them from the direction of the disturbance, expression sharp.

"Boss, it’s bad." He didn’t slow down as he reached them. "A Level 28 Giant Tree Troll breached the secret realm and it brought Tree Trolls ranging from Level 5 to 18."

Zelda’s expression hardened, as she turned to Freya.

"Is this the distraction you had in mind?"

Freya was already moving toward the sound.

Zelda turned back to Mark.

"Get the agents and the other supervisors. Have them coordinate with the students on the smaller trolls." She started moving after Freya. "The Giant Tree Troll is ours."

Mark nodded and broke into a run in the opposite direction.

Zelda caught up to Freya in seconds. Freya had already stopped, standing a few meters from the Giant Tree Troll, violet eyes locked on it, completely still.

[Giant Tree Troll — Level 28]

The creature was moving erratically, sweeping its gaze across the secret realm like it was searching for something specific. Behind it, the smaller Tree Trolls — Level 5 to 18 — were already tearing through the outer sections of the cave. Zelda let Mark handle those. Her focus stayed on the one in front of them.

"What’s the plan?" Zelda asked.

Freya didn’t look at her. "We attack."

Zelda considered that for exactly one second. "Works for me."

『RELEASE』

『EMPOWER』

Both Sacred Realizations activated simultaneously. White fox ears pushed through Freya’s hair, the tail forming mid-motion as she drew her katana in the same movement.

Zelda’s transformation was less visible but immediately felt, compressed pressure waves building outward from her hands, the air around her fists growing dense and volatile.

The Giant Tree Troll locked onto them the moment their Realizations flared. Something shifted in its posture, it was a mad fury replacing the erratic searching and it charged with full force.

Zelda moved first. The two golden bracelets on her wrists dissolved into light and reformed as open-fingered steel bracers; they were Level 9 permanent spells from the secret realm’s reward, solid and proven.

She drove forward to meet the charge head-on. The Troll swung its club with both arms behind it. Zelda planted her foot and sent her fist straight into the incoming strike.

BOOM!

The collision was thunderous. Force pushed both of them back in equal measure, the rebound creating exactly one window of instability.

Freya was already through it.

She came in from Zelda’s side while the Troll was still catching its footing, energy coating wrapping her katana as she activated the Level 12 spell she’d earned over three days of clearing the forest.

『Sword Slash』

The energy blade launched from the katana’s edge and slammed into the unbalanced Troll with enough force to drop it. The creature hit the cave floor hard.

Zelda and Freya rushed it at the same time.

The Giant Tree Troll’s eyes hadn’t left Freya since the moment it entered the secret realm.

There was a reason for that. The scent on Freya wasn’t the scent of the one who had killed its mate, that presence was somewhere else, somewhere this troll couldn’t reach.

But Freya had been there. The scent told it that much. She hadn’t been present when its mate died but a trail of that same scent had led the troll and its offsprings directly to this hidden place.

It hadn’t breached the secret realm by accident. It had tracked her here.

Zelda and Freya closed in on the downed creature, moving fast as the kill window narrowed. The Troll’s eyes stayed locked on Freya the entire time and it was not the unfocused rage of a beast, but something more deliberate. Something that knew exactly who it wanted.

The Troll slammed its palm into the cave floor.

Roots erupted from the stone in every direction, thick, fast and bursting upward in a ring around both of them before either could react. Neither Zelda nor Freya had seen it coming.

The attack wasn’t a mindless thrash. It was precise, timed for the exact moment they committed to the rush.

Freya’s katana was already moving before the roots fully cleared the stone.

She sliced through the first cluster in rapid succession, each cut severing a root before it could wrap or grab. Beside her, Zelda’s bracered fists worked like pistons, hammering into roots and shattering them on impact.

The compressed force behind each blow was enough to split stone, let alone wood.

But it wasn’t enough. The Troll was generating them faster than they could clear them. Every root destroyed was replaced by two more pushing through the cave floor, the wave constantly replenishing itself.

The pressure built steadily and both of them were pushed back, losing the kill window they’d opened.

The Troll used every second of it to get fully upright.

Back on its feet, it sent another wave of roots angling from multiple directions to cut off retreat as well as advance. It wasn’t fighting like a wounded animal anymore. It was fighting like something that had a plan.

"I’ll create an opening," Zelda said.

Freya adjusted her grip and nodded once.

Energy drew inward around Zelda fast, as 1,500 points pulled from her pool in a single instant and something materialized between them and the incoming wave, solidifying quickly into a broad, stone-bodied shape with arms spread wide. The Rock Golem — her Level 15 Sentient spell — planted itself directly in the roots’ path and let out a grinding roar before opening its arms to absorb the full wave at once.