Off to the right, Nilbog noticed that Caldain’s party remained to the sides, not pushing through to the center.

Wait, if they’re not getting involved, then why are-

Because Caldain is a coward, dear. Lives are the only things he won’t gamble away.

Most notably, the Guardian had disregarded his armor; no amount of steel armor was going to protect him from the giant logs being thrust about.

The Giant Undead Ent had two different attack methods; one was the slower, giant logs the size of normal Ents attacks, and the other was quick thorns that were thin and numerous and long-reaching. The logs were near unstoppable with their size, and the thorns could not be blocked by either sword or shield as they would simply swing around their target like a flail.

Nilbog found these circumstances similar to a circus he once snuck into, where men and women hopped around from one platform to the other, dodging blades, fire, and ravenous beasts, on a thin thread nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye. He had imagined what it would have felt like, to move with such agility and grace with death a few breaths away.

Well, at least he had a lifeline--two, in fact. Nilbog was sure Kara would take over when if things got messy.

Oh, Kara began to Nilbog’s dismay. As long as its not life-threatening, I won’t be intervening.

Why the fuck not?

Because our future success depends on how much you can pull your weight--and watch your language.

Fuck you. You’re forcing me into something I’m against, but still won’t help me through it?

You’ll never get stronger with that attitude. If you’ll die by something as petty as this, then why bother at all?

Nilbog hated to admit it, and that saying repeat itself a lot, and she did have a point. She was a wretched being who he hoped would die by getting her bone pulled off one by one, but she had a point.

Refill Life Force Empowerment again, it’s going to run out.

Just as before, he gathered his Life Force and spread it out within his body. The pain and soreness dulled, vanishing as new vigor fell into it. He breathed a little easier as he began to jog forward.

The timer in the corner reset to 10 minutes. The MAX stayed at 156, but the 32% was taken out of his current Life Force because the skill was already active. It cost him 64, leaving him at 75 Life Force.

He nodded to whatever she said, avoiding replying to her. It hasn’t been long since he had met her, but he knew that talking to her for extended periods of time was not healthy.

He still remembered the absolute horror he had felt when she tried to peer into him-- a hundred-meter tree was not as horrible in comparison.

The plan was simple: After the Giant Ent used its heavy attack by smashing its branch into the ground, or a set of unfortunate people, a slight pause would occur before the branch ascended. Nilbog would jump on then.

An important detail was that the long branches the Giant Ent used for its slow attacks had a shorter range than the thorn, the attacks which were arguably the more difficult to dodge. Anyone within range was occasionally targeted, meaning that the less time Nilbog spent idling about, the higher the chances of his flesh stayed where it currently was.

Some people were targeted by dozens of different thorns, however, and that Nilbog did not understand why.

Nilbog ran towards a group of people ahead of him. He preserved his STM.

Far to the right, a large thorn was coming with a low attack. Everyone jumped up when it neared, dodging easily, though a few unlucky ones were struck by their guts when the thorn twisted up to their surprise.

Nilbog studied the pattern intently, and when it came to his turn, he lunged as high into the air as he could, making his body parallel to the ground as he flew.

The thorn twisted up, its pikes missing his chest by a few inches, and then fell away.

Nilbog landed awkwardly but kept moving forward.

Adequate. You couldn’t figure it out, so you just jumped higher than its range in both situations, Kara commented.

It was tiring to do constantly, but it did guarantee his safety. The thorns attacked in other directions, as well. A few whips came down from above him but those were easily dodged with his superior Speed.

He did feel stronger and faster. It wasn’t just body--everything moved better. His movements were smoother, and he no longer felt like everything was leagues quicker than him.

He sidestepped most of the attacks, and when the whips came in a horizontal, sweeping pattern once again, Nilbog was confident enough to wait until the last moment to jump or duck.

With the added bonus of his Dodge, he was pretty safe.

The closer he got, however, the less time he had. From one sidestep to a dock to a lung and a roll, a certain pattern became familiar to his body. It flew naturally from one movement to the other, his Empowered Body pushing through at higher speeds than he had ever reached.

Don’t run too quick. You’ll regret.

A branch began its swing. It was just the thing he was waiting for.

It was not aiming for him, as he was too far. Instead, it aimed for the group Nilbog had been chasing. It was nearly perfect. Nilbog just had to speed up a bit to hop on before the branch would lift.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Nilbog heard Kara say again.

He could make it. He felt it. Nilbog sprinted with full power. The air blew past his ears as he pumped his left arm. His right stayed to his side, holding his sword. Everything began to become a slight blur as his brain struggled to keep up with his body. Each step was a leap as he began to cut the distance towards the-

A thorn came from the top right corner. Nilbog stepped to the left, and then to the right as another came down from the left corner. He jumped, dodging a sweep, and instead of landing on his toes Nilbog rolled forward, dodging a thorn as it swiped above his head. He crawled up, breathing tightly.

More thorns reached forward. Dozens of thorns swung into the air, suddenly aimed towards Nilbog.

Ah, he thought nervously. The thing targets Life Force, doesn’t it?

I told you, Kara said, though Nilbog could have sworn she knew he was going to ignore her.

She's trying to teach me a lesson, this vixen, just like the guards back then. Humans, they're all the same.

The thorns fell from the sky like a hail of arrows, piercing through the rough dirt. A line of thorns marked each step and abrupt turn he took. Some even sprung up from the dirt, the spikes aiming for his kneecaps.

Each one grazed his skin, but with a dozen grazes the bleed damage began to add up. He crawled and rolled, jumped in between the thrusts and sweeps and ran on the thorns in attempts to escape the increasing onslaught.

He could not slow down. He needed to keep moving. He heard a humming.

Your Siren Sings for you.

A Dance Of Thorns

Each successive movement increases your movement speed by the difficulty and execution of the movement. Abrupt or sharp changes to momentum will reduce the bonuses.

Current increase to Speed: 29%

MAX bonus to Speed: 50%

You may sacrifice a portion of your Song Bar in order to momentarily gain a huge boost to a single uninterrupted Flow movement.

Nilbog could not think; he didn’t have the time to. The pain did not register, either, nor did the sensation of his wetness from the blood seeping from his skin bother him. All he could hear was the beat of his feet, the amused, nearly humorous, humming of Kara’s song, and the thorns. The sound they made as they cut through the air next to his ears, the sound they made when they crushed the dirt under him.

Soon it became impossible to dodge. His hands knocked aside the thorns aimed for his important bits, letting them dig into his hands instead of his heart. He was already bleeding, more would not make any difference. Time began to lose meaning, and whether it was him or Kara in charge of his body he was not sure anymore.

His sword had long vanished from his hands, in one scuffle or another.

181, 162, 151, his HP rapidly dwindled a the bleeding damage accumulated. Minor Bleed Resistance could barely do a thing to stanch the bleeding at this point.

The earth shook. Nilbog gasped, looking up to his right mid-flight. Through the barrier of thorns, a few long leaps away, was a fallen tree. It held no leaves, just long springy lines of dead, gray wood. At the junctions, where the branches attached to the drunk, a dark brown ooze seeped out through the cracks.

When it began to rise Nilbog remembered that it was his lifeline.

Without thinking, his right hand reached to the side. He grasped the thorns tightly and did his best to ignore the fire growing within his palms.

He then swung mid-flight, not only dodging the hail of thorns lined up ahead of him, but also throwing himself in the direction of the rising Giant Ent limb. He landed on his left foot, pushed forward with it, and the leaped up with his right with one clean movement.

He rose higher than he ever did before, but even that was only good enough to get one hand over a skimpy branch. He pulled on it as the tree rose, not truly expecting to be able to pull himself up.

Somehow, however, he did. With only the strength of his left arm, he propped himself up to the branches and onto the trunk. In the corner of his vision, Nilbog noticed that the Song Bar had decreased from 50% to 21%, removing the enormous Speed bonus.

Kara did not say anything. He could only hear her humming increasing in rhythm, increasing in volume with each step.

He ran ahead with only the slightest pause, his muscles screaming. He had to keep his Song Bar up and to staunch the bleeding at some point.

The thorns did not relent. Through the branches they snuck their way, attempting to spear through him as best as they could. Surprisingly, though the limb moved and was difficult to traverse, the Giant Ent did not seem too keen on puncturing itself. The attack pattern of the Giant Ent became limited.

No thorns came from below the bark or from above him. No sweeps either because of the branches attached to the branch. Some tried to sneak from below and around the branch, but once again Nilbog’s speed rendered their efforts useless.

They chased him still from behind, attempting to catch up. Slowing down meant being skewered by at least half a dozen different thorns, but at the very least his job was simplified: find a footing through the branches and the incline as he goes full speed, dodge the thorns that sneak around the branches and thrust at him from the front, and watch for the STM that was running out faster than his HP was.

He smiled. Everything hurt and there was nothing to smile about, but he smiled nevertheless. He would have chuckled too, but he did not have the breath for it.

Nilbog quickly caught up to the party that had boarded ahead of him, and then quickly raced past them. A few of them uttered a few confused statements before the thorns caught up.

They had been running, but not nearly as fast. It gave Nilbog a much-needed rest, his sprint winding down to a fast jog. The branches, though they got in his way, also prevented the thorns from trying to hold him, meaning they could only attack in a straight line, allowing Nilbog to dodge them without high speed.

He had nearly 41 STM left, but that did not mean he could spend it consecutively. His lungs could barely keep up with his heart.

102 HP left. He was going through that bar like it was cheese. 13 HP a second, to be precise.

He was hungry enough to eat a leg.

49 HP. 36 HP. He began to wonder what will happen when the bar hit 0.

Stay awake, you clumsy fool, an annoying voice in the back of his head said. H

How he wished he squash it.

You can heal yourself. You lost HP because of blood loss; if you replace it the damage will-

Nilbog was now a Shapeshifter. An important thing to forget, he realized numbly, but he could hardly blame himself. He felt light as a feather with eyelids heavy as a giant rock. Coldness began to set in.

He tried to access his storage then, that deep and fathomless spot below his ribcage, but his concentration broke each time a thorn reached for him. He had to keep dodging.

Let me take over, she said again. His body began to move without his direction, and now he could truly tell it was Kara’s doing. He paid attention to the way Kara used his body for only a few seconds; he was three of the quarters up, and he did not want her to take all the credit.

She did not dodge as much as she just moved out the way, if what he was seeing made any sense. Her movement seemed rehearsed, almost as if she planned her steps beforehand and was now simply playing to the script.

He returned his sights inward. Closing the countless open wounds was far too difficult to do while that flesh was moving, and with his wanting to drop. Pumping blood from his storage, however, was doable, even with all the pain hammering him. He opened the flood, attempting to bring back his blood levels to normal.

His HP went up to 159 over the next ten seconds before his stored blood ran out.

Material Used

Rank D: 44%> 27%

The rest were other organs that he had no need of at the moment. He did not touch his C Rank blood not out of stinginess-- though that did have a part in it-- but at the realization that the more blood he put in, the higher the bleed damage increased.

I’ll have my body back, thank you very much, Nilbog said as he took back control. He stumbled for a few steps, had a couple of close encounters with a few pesky thorns, and nearly fell over the side when he realized he had climbed over 70 meters. He resolved to avoid glancing below him--he did not want to think about what would happen if he fell.

That was too close for comfort. He had nearly fallen asleep standing on his feet.

A couple more steps were all that required. The entrance to the Giant Ent’s true body was slightly concealed by the wood raising higher at the end.

Finding his breath, Nilbog ran on, vaulting over the mound and throwing himself straight into the crevice.

The wood parted for a few feet into the trunk and then narrowed to a closing. Nilbog stuttered to a stop, nearly crashing against the rough wood.

It was blocked.

“shit,” Nilbog whispered, spinning around. He had to quickly move before-

The thorns reached over the small mound. They rose into the air and then snapped down towards Nilbog.

His only escape route being caught off, Nilbog leaped over to the side.

For the first time, Nilbog saw what was below him. Countless different branches protruded from the trunk, hulking around as they struck the ground. The thorns, also attached to the trunk, darted in the air attempting to pierce the pests that climbed its branches.

Nilbog caught the branches hanging under the limb he was climbing and swung forward, catching one after another. The limb began to move once again, attempting to shake him off, but that was a lesser worry than the thorns hooking around.

Before they reached for him Nilbog threw himself towards one of the bigger, more reliable branches, and took a wider swing. Using his momentum, Nilbog tugged at the branch as he pulled himself up.

The branch snapped off, tossing him forward instead of up. He screamed, his hands reaching towards a different branch, but it was already too late. He began to plummet towards the ground, his blood trailing behind him.

His mind went blank as he tossed his limbs about. He had missed every other limb that would have slowed down his fall, and touching any solid ground would turn him into cheese. Squished cheese. Damn it he was hungry.

“Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-”

Nilbog’s Life Force yanked itself from every inch of his body into the palm of his hands, causing it to glow. His body cried as if he had torn off his own skin. Kara spun his hands in circles, and something spun with them. Just when he was about to fall past the lowest limb, she tossed the lump of Life Force over that branch. A bright yellow line extended from his palm to it.

Third Movement: Deviation.

His body swung, passing the ground by a few feet, and then flung him back in the air, narrowly missing other limbs. The momentum was so powerful that Nilbog found himself far above his previous position when his Life Force line finally snapped. He floated momentarily in the air for a moment before dropping a few feet into an open crevice.

Kara walked in without as much as a pause. His sword, having floated beside him this entire time by Life Force, pierced the wood in front of him. Without breaking stride, she picked up the sword, swinging it around.

“Rule number one: Always listen to me,” Kara said with a chuckle, in his own voice, and then began to hum.