Becoming a Monster

Chapter 496: Chapter 495: Run

Ethaniel was stuck with only two options. Even then, it felt as if he wasn’t given a choice.

There was no clear way out, and with his current condition, a clean escape was no longer an option, leaving him with only one choice.

To brute-force his way through.

He released his mana in a sudden burst at the last possible moment.

The violent force pushed outward from his body, repelling everything that entered its range and forcing a brief opening that kept him from being crushed in place.

He intended to use that moment to escape, but as his body lifted slightly higher, his perception caught onto something that didn’t align with what he had just seen.

In that instant, he registered that the roots descending from above had never been real.

They were illusions, and although his first thought was that there was another mage nearby, he dismissed that idea almost immediately.

While humans working alongside monsters wasn’t impossible, the likelihood of that being the case here was far too low, which led him to conclude that this was another monster entirely.

His mana had only bought him a brief second, and even within that short span, the tendrils he had failed to repel were already closing in again.

He was forced to act without hesitation as his hand tightened around his staff and a crimson glow gathered at its tip.

A ring of fire formed around him and expanded outward as it rotated rapidly. Before the next wave could reach him, he used wind magic to chop them back just enough to buy himself time, allowing him to complete the spell fully.

The flames expanded and took shape immediately, spreading into two blazing rings that encircled him.

As they flared outward, they grew larger, cutting through the incoming roots while setting everything they touched ablaze.

The fiery display forced a momentary pause in the assault. Under normal circumstances, a creature that was vulnerable to fire would retreat after taking that kind of damage, which was exactly what Ethaniel was counting on.

He was willing to expend nearly all of his remaining mana to force whatever was attacking him to hesitate, even if only for a moment, because that moment would be enough for him to retreat.

Now that his mind had cleared, he understood the situation he was in.

If the serpent had not killed Gwen immediately, then there was a reason for it, which meant she was still valuable to them and, more importantly, would still be alive.

He didn’t need to win here because survival was all that mattered, and if he could make it back, then he could return with others who were far stronger and far more prepared.

This was no longer something he could handle alone, and if it came down to it, then he would make sure that they brought enough force to tear this entire forest apart and take her back.

His free hand reached for the pouch at his waist. The bag was barely large enough to fit his entire hand, yet his hand dove through, quickly shuffling to retrieve another blue vial.

He didn’t want to drink another. The potions that Noah and the others were given from the system were leagues ahead of the potions in his repertoire.

The system gave them potions without side effects and with the highest purity of its grade, while the ones he could get could barely qualify.

Help with the rest.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers. His rank was high, but potions of higher purity were still far beyond what he could afford, and nearly half of what he earned already went toward paying a magic instructor above his rank.

The rest was divided between maintaining his gear, securing food, and keeping a place to stay. Because of that, everything he had now had to be enough.

Ethaniel steadied his breathing as he prepared the next spell, knowing full well that this would decide whether he lived or died, and as the mana gathered around him, the rings of fire began to take form once more.

Each ring he created increased the range and destructive power of the spell when it flared outward, and at its peak, five rings could be formed, with each one demanding far more mana than the last.

The final ring alone carried the potential to reach an S-rank level of power, but that level was far beyond what he could achieve in his current state.

He didn’t have the time, and he didn’t have the mana.

Every time he released a ring, his reserves dropped further, and even maintaining the ones he had already formed was beginning to take its toll, yet he didn’t believe that three rings would be insufficient.

Three would be enough.

When the third ring finally completed, the temperature around him spiked instantly, rising to the point where even the air itself seemed ready to ignite, and anything that came close would burn without needing to be touched.

Ethaniel held his ground, ready to burn through every root that came near him.

For a moment, it seemed as if it would work. The roots hesitated. This gave him the confidence that he was succeeding.

That confidence didn’t last. The following scene left him feeling that maybe three rings wouldn’t be enough after all.

Instead of retreating, the roots twisted together midair, merging into larger forms that continued to thicken as they combined, until each one became a massive structure that rivaled the width of a full-grown tree.

Ethaniel’s expression tightened as he took in the sight, because if it had only been one, he would have had nothing to fear, but there were six of them, each coming from a different direction.

There was no room left for confidence.

"Don’t mess with meee!"

His voice broke out with everything he had left as his mana surged violently, and rather than releasing a single wave, he forced more power into the spell, pushing it beyond what he had intended.

If one wave wasn’t enough, then he would release two.

Even if it meant collapsing afterward.

The final ring completed at the same moment his voice carried out, and all three rings expanded at once, nearly tripling in size as they flared outward.

From the outside, the blazing rings resembled an unstable sun about to consume everything within its reach.

The roots caught fire the moment the flames touched them, and for an instant, it seemed as though nothing would be able to push through that level of heat.

But in this case, it didn’t need to.

The first blast cleared everything in front of him.

Ethaniel’s breathing grew heavy immediately after, his chest rising and falling as his body struggled to keep up. It was hard to tell whether the sweat pouring from him was caused by the overwhelming heat or the strain of forcing out such a high-intensity spell.

Even so, he felt a sense of relief. There wasn’t a single root left in his line of sight. Instead of cutting through them, it felt like he had burned them down to nothing.

He didn’t plan to stay any longer after seeing his success.

However, he couldn’t leave immediately without making sure nothing could potentially pursue him.

His body wouldn’t be able to sustain the entire return, and at some point, he would be forced to stop and recover both his mana and stamina.

If something followed him now, then everything he had done would be for nothing.

He didn’t even get the chance to confirm it. Before the air could clear, a presence far more dangerous than before settled over him.

Before he could identify what that presence was, he heard a voice.

"Finally, you were willing to listen. You’re just as stubborn as your master. Wait... I guess he’s my master too now. Don’t tell him I admitted it. But I guess you can’t speak, so I have nothing to worry about."

The voice spoke casually, as if it had no concern for the destruction that had just taken place.

That tone alone sent a chill through him. Every instinct in his body told him the same thing.

Run.

Ethaniel focused on the direction the voice had come from, but the heat surrounding him distorted the air too heavily for him to see clearly, which forced him to release a gust of wind to disperse it.

The moment the distortion cleared, his body moved quicker than his mind could fully decipher what he saw.

He used everything he had left and forced himself into flight, abandoning any thought of holding back as he pushed his remaining mana to its limit.

The roots that he thought he had burned down... it wasn’t that they didn’t reach him.

The monster had merely retracted them. The scent in the air was nothing more than what hadn’t been fully retrieved.

But none of that mattered anymore.

His expression twisted as panic set in, and for a brief moment, he even regretted coming this far to save Gwen in the first place.

How could he have missed it?

He couldn’t care about that now. He was more concerned about that creature. There was no one from the guild who didn’t know about the drake that lived in this forest for centuries.

But he didn’t truly believe that the drake was sharing the same den with other monsters.

Even though he heard the reports of the two working together, he didn’t truly believe it.

The original king of the forest was still here all along.