The roles shifted instantly. Johnn became a golden streak of destruction. He ignored the bodies on the ground and focused entirely on the Elder Ent. He vaulted into the air, spinning his tonfas to create a vacuum that pulled the Ent’s attention toward him.

"Hurricane Drive!"

He slammed into the Elder Ent’s chest, the shockwave snapping the umbilical vines of another ten Green Men. As they fell like heavy fruit from the branches, Johnn stayed in the air, parrying the Ent’s massive obsidian-bark limbs to keep the clearing open for Maddy.

Below the chaos, Maddy moved like a shadow.

She didn’t use flashy magic or shouts. She stepped between the fallen Green Men with the silence of a reaper. Her blade moved in precise, clinical strikes—piercing the hearts of the overgrown vines and the centers of the parasitic growths. To any observer, she was simply "finishing off" the fallen, but to the Green Men, she was the first moment of peace they had felt in years.

As she worked, she stayed perfectly within the "safe zone" Johnn provided, never letting him see the divine coldness in her eyes. Every time a root tried to sneak up on her, Johnn’s tonfa was there to pulverize it, his protective fury acting as a shield for her grim task.

"Fifteen free!" Johnn yelled, his voice cracking with a mix of exertion and relief. "Partner, look out! The heart! The Ent is exposing its core!"

The Elder Ent, weakened by the loss of its puppets, pulled its massive limbs inward, revealing a glowing, pulsing knot of green mana in the center of its trunk. It was the source and it was angry.

Enough to stop Johnn. It let out a low, vibrating hum that shook the very oxygen in the air. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Suddenly, the Ent didn’t attack. It threw its remaining "puppets"—the last few Green Men—in opposite directions, casting them into the deep, thorny thickets far away from Maddy.

Johnn’s heroic instinct took over. He lunged after the flying bodies, his speed blurring as he sought to catch them before they were crushed by the falling timber. He succeeded, severing their umbilicals in mid-air and landing gracefully—but as his feet touched the ground, his heart plummeted.

He looked back and realized he was now fifty yards away from Maddy.

"Dammit! I fell for it!" Johnn hissed, his face pale. He knew better. He knew that in a forest this alive, distance was a death sentence. He had let his obsession with saving everyone pull him away from the one person he promised to protect.

The Elder Ent’s core flared a violent, blinding emerald. Its massive obsidian arms didn’t just swing; they distorted, the wood liquefying and re-forming into jagged, spear-like lances that stretched with unnatural speed.

The massive wooden spears thrust toward Maddy, who stood alone in the center of the clearing.

"NO!" Johnn screamed, his voice breaking.

In that split second, the world slowed down for him. The green gloom of the forest faded, replaced by a haunting memory. He saw a woman from his past, standing at that exact same distance, reaching out for him as a monster closed in. He saw the same look of impending tragedy. He felt the same weakness in his knees—the crushing weight of a Hero who was once again too far away.

"GET OUT OF THERE!"

He reached out his hand, his fingers straining against the air, convinced he was about to witness her end. The spears hit with the force of a falling star, a cloud of dust and splinters erupting where the "F Rank" girl stood.

But the sound that followed wasn’t the scream of a victim. It was the heavy, metallic THUD of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force.

As the dust cleared, Johnn’s breath hitched in his throat. Maddy hadn’t moved. She had her "round shield" planted firmly in the dirt, her shoulder braced against it. The massive, piercing branches of the Elder Ent were stopped dead against the shield’s surface, unable to leave even a scratch.

Maddy’s eyes, glowing with a cold, divine light beneath her hood, flickered toward the Ent.

"You’re loud," she muttered, her voice carrying through the silent clearing.

In one fluid, terrifyingly powerful motion, she reached for the hilt of the massive sword on her back. She didn’t just draw it; she unleashed it. With a single, horizontal swipe, a wave of dark, compressed force sliced through the air.

SHING!

The Elder Ent’s massive, stretched arms were severed instantly, falling to the forest floor like discarded twigs. The shockwave of her swing continued forward, carving a clean line through the surrounding trees and silencing the forest’s groan.

Johnn stood frozen, his hand still reached out, his mind struggling to process what he had just seen. The "baggage" he had been protecting hadn’t just survived, she had just disarmed a B Rank Elder Ent with a single hand.

"JOHNN!"

Maddy’s voice cracked through the clearing like a whip, snapping him out of his paralysis.

"The heart is exposed! It’s open! Finish it!"

Johnn blinked, his gaze shifting from Maddy’s impossible defensive stance to the Elder Ent. The creature was reeling, its massive spear arms severed and its glowing green core pulsing frantically as it tried to knit itself back together. That attack had been its trump card, and Maddy had effectively neutralized it with raw, heavy steel.

Johnn’s feet moved before his brain could fully process the shock. He didn’t have time to wonder how an F Rank adventurer had just parried a B Rank nightmare; he only knew that the opening she had carved was closing.

He lunged forward, his body moving with the violent acceleration of a released spring. He didn’t have a drop of magic in his veins, but he had spent a lifetime tempering his muscles into living weapons.

"SEISMIC BREAKER!"

He didn’t use a spell; he used pure, unadulterated physical torque. He twisted his hips, channeling every ounce of his massive physical strength into a dual strike. His tonfas slammed into the pulsing emerald heart with the force of a hydraulic press. The impact was so great that it didn’t just break the wood—it shattered the molecular bonds of the Ent’s core.