SSS Frost Sovereign: Rewinding The Apocalypse!-Chapter 68: Advance! (2)

The battle raged on for a while, bursts of light and flame flaring between the trees.

Green clouds erupted at intervals as spore rats detonated, sending people stumbling back, gagging and wheezing before forcing themselves upright again.

Gradually, the pressure eased.

The tide of spawns thinned.

Their numbers dwindled until only a few stragglers rushed in from the edges of the forest.

"Are they gone?" Matt muttered, eyes darting across the ground and into the shadows.

Those positioned at the outer edges of the formation finished off the remaining weak spawns, seizing the lull to clear the perimeter.

"Most of them are, I think," Icard said.

A brief calm settled over the group. Some people bent over, hands on knees, dragging in rough breaths.

Others groaned quietly, shaking out their limbs and wiping spore residue from their clothes.

The forest fell unnervingly quiet again, the strange background sounds retreating into the distance.

Then something moved.

From the direction they had been heading, a tall figure emerged between the trees, its heavy steps pressing into the soil.

"Another one?" someone muttered, staring at it wide-eyed.

"It’s...bigger."

The creature strode forward with slow, deliberate steps.

It stood nearly three meters tall, its body formed of layered plates of bark that overlapped like crude armor.

Broad shoulders supported a heavy, rigid torso, and its long arms hung with an unnatural stiffness.

Its face was little more than a mask of carved wood, blank and expressionless.

As it advanced, its forearms warped and thickened.

Wood split and reshaped itself, forming a crude club along one arm and a broad, knotted shield along the other.

This one did not rush.

It did not roar.

It simply advanced, relentless and unhurried.

Everyone could tell at a glance that this thing was not on the same level as the spawns they had just faced.

This was a rank above F grade.

"I’ll handle it!" one of the incarnations at the front shouted, lunging forward despite the calls to hold back.

"Arghh!" he yelled, pouring everything he had into a single attack.

A dense wave of compressed force erupted from his outstretched palm, the air itself buckling as the shock blast slammed into the bark guard.

The creature was hit head-on and blown backward, its massive frame skidding across the forest floor before crashing into a thick tree trunk in its path.

The impact sent splinters of bark flying.

The attacking incarnation staggered, chest heaving. That strike had taken a lot of energy.

But it was not enough to take it down and claim its mana essence.

The bark guard twitched, then slowly began to rise.

Wood creaked and cracked as its layered plates ground against one another.

A low, hollow groan rolled from its chest, like dead branches being bent under strain.

The young lad’s eyes widened. His strongest attack had damaged it greatly but it wasn’t just enough.

Before panic could take hold, two of Albert’s men rushed forward.

One drove a focused kinetic spear of pressure straight through the creature’s torso, the force drilling into its bark armor and bursting out the other side.

The second followed up with a fiery blast, blowing up the spawn from another direction.

The bark guard shuddered once, then collapsed in on itself, its form splintering apart and falling still.

At last, it was truly dead.

For a moment, it seemed like the coast was clear.

Only a few F rank spawns still stumbled out from the undergrowth, and they were cut down almost as soon as they appeared.

Having observed enough, Gremit’s expression hardened.

"We should hurry there now," he said, urgency in his voice as he faced deeper into the forest and back to the lighter part.

Even Katar agreed.

"You all need to escape this forest as soon as possible," he said from inside Alia’s clothes, only his head poking out.

His ears were flat, eyes sharp with unease.

No one could argue with that. More spawns kept emerging, and the forest felt far from done with them.

They needed to advance. But could they simply push forward when the spawns kept coming from all sides endlessly?

He could sense another wave coming.

Albert thought for a second.

"Bring the chart," he ordered. One of his men quickly brought out a small stack of papers.

’The raid parties we have graded are here,’ he thought. ’Some of them can hold a zone like this. The rest of us can press forward.’

Some would not like that decision.

A major reason many incarnations came into gates was to grow stronger through combat.

But this place was already proving quite persistent.

If they moved and left this place this way, the spawns would definitely follow them and drag on them.

They needed to keep those spawns busy here. And they needed the right raid party for it.

"Richard!" Albert called.

The young raid party leader who had charged the bark guard earlier looked up.

"I need you to hold this part," Albert said firmly. "The rest of us have to advance."

Richard’s face twisted at the order, his expression souring instantly. His jaw clenched, frustration flashing in his eyes.

"What? That’s not fair," the overly ambitious incarnation started, his voice rising.

Being placed at a low threat level zone was quite embarrassing in itself.

His Erwald interrupted him, a small, fox-like creature with oversized ears and a faint glow beneath its fur.

It tugged at his sleeve.

"You should take this, Richard," it said quietly. "This is good for us."

For a raid party of ten, holding back weak and mid-level spawns would be steady growth with far less risk.

Richard hesitated, then swallowed his protest.

The fire in his eyes dimmed, replaced with reluctant understanding. He nodded.

Albert gave him a brief nod of approval.

"Everyone, move on!"

Just like they thought, they were already headed in the direction the bark guards were coming from.

Gremit was sure they were heading the right way at this point.

More bark guards were appearing in the distance.

The main group pushed forward, cutting through waves of E rank spawns.

Attacks flared in quick succession, blasts sending creatures tumbling aside as the formation advanced out of the forest zone.

As they moved, Icard’s memories stirred.

In his last turn, they had advanced through this zone into the next.

And back then, he and his raid party had not been registered members, just like many of the incarnations here now.

An advantage they weren’t able to get back then.

The forest thinned ahead until, finally, the open.

Above then hung a sky of mixed colours, much more unnatural than that on earth.

And before them was another stretch of twisted woodland. The trees in this expanse were fewer and scattered about.

But then, their size and height were much more than the trees of the forest they had just come out from.

The ruins of a root labyrinth, a maze formed from massive interwoven roots, some as wide as houses, winding and overlapping beneath towering trees.

Further still, dominating the horizon, stood an enormous tree, its stem so tall it looked more like a mountain of living wood, its canopy blotting out a section of the strange sky.

They paused briefly, taking in the sight.

But before anyone could dwell on it, Gremit barked, "Forge ahead!"

Albert moved at once, leading them toward the massive tree in the distance.

It was the most obvious destination, the heart of this twisted forest.

Icard and his raid party advanced with the group.

But the moment they entered the root labyrinth zone, another panel flickered into view before him.

[Multiple Spawn Detection]

[Threat Level: E, E+]

[Spawn Names: Bark Guards, Venom Spitters, Moss Hounds]

The fight was only beginning.