With a sharp exhale, her lips parted.
"Light Execut-"
*BAAAM!*
The earth erupted before she could finish. A massive root tore through the ground, lunging towards her with phenomenal force. She did not have any time to dodge and had no choice but to confront it head-on, using her khakkhara to intercept the incoming strike.
The clash of wood against metal rang out like a war drum. And as the one holding the metal staff, Seraphina felt the tremor of the impact pass through her arms, leaving them slightly numb. She planted the sole of her boots into the ground, not wanting to be sent flying. However, the impact still made her boots scrape backward across the dirt and she was shoved back by several steps.
The spell she had been chanting for over 20 seconds shattered like brittle glass. It was the one she had poured over a third of her mana to cast. Then, adding insult to injury, her failed spell had a backlash.
"Damn it! I would have called you a bad word, but apparently I'm still too young for that," she muttered between two ragged breaths.
Seraphina's vision blurred from the backlash and her mana surged wildly, as for how she learned the bad words well, she's an adventurer duh.
She felt her face twitch in frustration. If she had chanted her incantations even a second faster she could have already wrapped it up and saved herself a lot of trouble, no backlash and no headaches.
But now?
She couldn't cast anything at all due to her unstable mana and could only wait until her mana got back to normal.
Unfortunately, the spell's incantation couldn't be shortened and chantless magic was beyond her—only something an A-rank could achieve.
But Seraphina had no time to waste on regrets, what she needed the most right now was some time. In order to stabilize her mana she would need about a full minute.
Don't look down on a minute as if it was short, it was three times the amount of time she spent on her long incantation you didn't even read.
In the next moment , another root lashed out slicing through the air like a whip. Seraphina reacted instantly, and decisively rolled to the side.
*CRACK!*
The root slammed into the earth where she had just been standing. Dirt flew everywhere as the root smashed the ground. Her once white robe was now smeared brown and a streak of mud even splattered across her face.
"Eww, disgusting!" Seraphina groaned, she tried to wipe the dirt off her face using her right sleeve as she scrambled to her feet, not noticing that her sleeve was even dirtier than her face. When she finally realized it, it was already too late as she had already spread mud all over her face and ended up blinding herself.
"Ahh F@#€!" She was really annoyed to the point of losing her cool and even forgot about what she had just said about the bad words.
*BAAM!*
A really loud sound echoed from her left, and judging from the sound she could guess it was the tree who had attacked her and it must have missed. Despite how huge it's roots were compared to Seraphina, it had actually missed.
"Hah, what a terrible aim! I guess plants wouldn't have brains." She then tried to wipe the dirt which covered her eyes with her other sleeve, the one on her left.
However, this did not only not solve the issue but even worsened it by getting even more dirt in her eyes.
Seeing this, the tree prepared to launch an attack once again and gathered all of its power. This time it hit the intended target...as it always did.
*SMACK!*
The root struck her dead-on with perfect accuracy. Seraphina who was violently hit was flung across the forest like a rag doll, crashing into trees after trees.
The pain Seraphina felt was unbearable, her bones shattered from the initial collision as well as the multiple ones she had with the bystanding trees.
By the time she slammed into her final tree, she couldn't feel her body anymore. Nearly every bone in her body had been crushed into fine powder, her spine included.
And it had only been a little over 25 seconds since the initial backlash she had from her spell. And most of the time had been spent flying.
Currently, her vision was clearly the least of her worries as the tree rapidly closed in, aiming to finish her off.
'Sigh... I really should have blocked it instead of dodging.' was something she wanted to voice out loud but could not for obvious reasons.
Earlier, she had decided to roll to the side in order to avoid getting hit by the Venomtree's second attack instead of blocking it like she did with its first one.
She had two reasons. First it would've hurt, a lot. Second—well, that tree was basically walking...crawling or whatever, money. Accidentally damaging its root was like throwing your gold coins into an endless abyss.
But now, with most of her bones turned into powder, looking back at it, she regrets it deeply. It hurts a lot more to have your bones crushed than having your arms feeling a little numb.
And judging by how the tree was closing in, using the quickest route aka, destroying everything in its way. It wasn't like she was going to accidentally damage it.
'I don't want to die to a f@#% plant...'
The monstrous roots, now a few steps away reared in for the final blow, ready to pulverize the girl who had killed its infant child, whose body now lay paralyzed against a tree trunk.
However in the next moment, the girl's gauntlets emitted a faint hum and a blue light emerged from the gauntlets, enveloping the girl's body in a blue aura.
Then, unexpectedly to the Venomtree, despite her body being injured to this extent the girl stood up again.
"You B@$#@%, you really thought I'd die to a lowly plant like y—