Chapter 11: The Burning Forest

I'm still surprised her nihilism was that clear… was she a remnant or something? Ah well, future me problem.

For now.

The plan.

While Cecilia was decent at fighting, and could now use nihilism, albeit on a very elementary level, the two of us combined can't do anything as of now.

I entertained the idea of burning it, but it just wouldn't work. It was an R-1 after. If it were that easy, we would be setting out with a flamethrower everywhere.

How was I going to beat it then?

Put simply we weren't going to beat it.

What did you expect? There is not a chance in hell that we could beat it. If David was killed that easily, we had no chance.

My plan was to make it break its own forest. No matter how big this place was, it couldn't have been infinite.

If I were to guess, the infinite trees probably had something to do with the tree's energy.

So if we drain it, we should theoretically be able to go home free. Theoretically.

With sweaty palms, and no confidence in myself, I went towards the tree.

I took my naginata and grabbed a twig lying around.

It didn't take me long to reach the place of the haunted tree.

David's corpse was still lying there. I was surprised the tree didn't consume the corpse.

I took a few deep breaths. I was about to throw it when I backed out. What was I going to do exactly? I couldn't do anything to it. If David couldn't dodge his attacks, what good could I do?

I collapsed on the ground, slowly realizing what I had gotten myself into.

Argh. To hell with it. I got up as fast as I could, and before I fully grasped the situation, threw the twig at it, with the naginata in the other hand.

*ROAR*

The screeching was horrific. I would rather listen to aluminum getting scraped than hear that again.

It turned its head towards it.

I heard rumbling underneath me.

Don't tell me-

Its roots were ripped straight out of the ground, and now it was standing on an amalgamation of roots, with the dry soil dropping from out of it.

Why didn't it go walking roots mode when fighting David? I thought to myself, trying to distract myself from the impending doom approaching.

I started to circle around it, trying to get away from it, but it was unusually fast. It went towards me, with blitzing speed.

On the bright side, it only seemed to charge in straight lines. On the not-so-bright side, I very narrowly dodged the tree, and the tree was already about to charge again.

I looked around for something I could use. Anything. Then I noticed something extremely important.

David's body. It looked hollow. Like as if the life was sucked out of it.

The natural assumption to make was that the tree grew stronger after absorbing David.

This was more than just bad. It meant the damn tree was stronger than it was before. Its mobility showed as such.

AAAAAA god damn it. What was I supposed to do now?

I could run back to camp with my tail between my legs. But with the new mobility of this tree, it could probably follow me all the way back to the little camp we set up.

That would not only not improve my situation but also endanger Cecilia. Wait why was I thinking of my punching bag in this situation? Either way, it wasn't an option.

Then what was?

I didn't have much time to think about that, because unfortunately, its hand was right in front of me, about to crush me.

I grabbed me like you would a rat. I activated my talent as fast as I could.

Luckily, my talent was able to stop it from crushing me.

Unluckily, the stopping of those hands took more nihilism out of me than I thought.

Nihilism is pretty dependent on stamina, and the less nihilism you have, the more tired you would seem.

Now my options had lessened even more.

It kept on trying to crush me, and I kept stopping it. It was draining my nihilism pretty consistently. There was no way out other than. I was surrounded by walls of wood, about to crush my bones to mincemeat.

At this point, I was in a deadlock. I needed a breakthrough if I wanted to survive. Fear started to set in. The fear of being crushed alive was a pretty big one. I started to panic.

What was I going to do? Was I going to die right now? My mind was blurred with thoughts of panic and despair.

I tried to slash the wood with my naginata, but nothing. What now? I could try to carve its hand out, but that would not only take too long, but also diminish my energy. I was also assuming the tree would just stay like that while I carve it out.

I calmed myself down, ever so slightly, and started racking my brains. Then I remembered something a teacher said in class. I didn't pay much attention to class, but one thing in particular caught my attention.

"Nihilism is like a form of energy. It can also be used as a form of fuel, as a combustible for example."

Wait, does that mean…?

I compressed a part of my nihilism to my naginata, and started igniting it. This was quite literally my only sliver of hope. If this failed I was screwed.

The flames looked quite pretty, a beautiful shade of crimson red. I would take more time to observe it but I didn't have the time.

I dug the naginata into its hand. It felt like cutting through butter. Unfortunately, its hand was thick. One slash could barely do much at all.

There was a bigger problem. The crimson flame was burning through my nihilism ridiculously fast. Like if I kept on going like this for about 10 more seconds, I would be unable to walk level fast.

In a panicked frenzy, I tried to cut through the tree thing faster, but my naginata just ended up stuck in there.

Did the thing adapt already?

Then I saw a light, a crimson red light, emanate from the tip of the naginata.

Shit.

Before I knew it, I was flying in the air, very badly injured. All those concentrated flames created an explosion. If not for my talent, which instinctively blocked some part of the explosion, I would be nothing more than a burnt corpse.

I was losing consciousness. What do I do now? What about…

.

.

.

*KABOOM*

I heard an explosion go off in the distance, which woke me up from my nap time.

The hell…? What was going on? Where is Maria? Oh yeah, she went to get firewood.

Wait then did that mean Maria was in that explosion? There is nothing else in this place other than the tree or Maria, which could make such an explosion.

Wait then did something happen to Maria? She was literally my only compass in this place. What was I going to do now?

I ran towards the sound of the explosion with my sword, knowing it was a very bad idea.

It didn't take me long to get to the scene of the explosion.

The giant tree had two of its hands burnt, and its main body was also damaged, but it seemed like it would recover, evident from the bark that already started to appear on its damaged parts, like as if it was regenerating.

The ground around it was also dead, like as if it was burnt due to something. Some patches of the grass were still burning.

It clearly didn't pay me much attention. This was the perfect opportunity. I didn't care what created this opportunity, but I was going to take full advantage of it.

I rushed to the trees around, and grabbed as many twigs as I could.

I went back to the burning grass, and lit aflame some of the twigs.

Then I threw them at it.

At the time, I didn't know the effects of wildfires, or the dangers of it. If I had known, I wouldn't have done what I just did.

On the bright side, the tree was lit ablaze. It started out slowly. Then it spread quickly to the rest of the tree. The tree tried using its other two hands to extinguish the flame, but it was already too late.

It howled and screeched. Its voice was horrific, like a banshee screaming, but it was burning edition.

*RUMBLE*

The hell? Was the ground… shaking?

The roots… why were they out of the ground? And why was it standing on its roots?

The roots also caught flame relatively quickly. The tree kept screaming, making my ears bleed… literally. Everything was all fine and dandy, until it threw a baby tantrum.

It started flailing around its flaming roots and leaves. The surrounding forest also started to catch fire.

The entire forest was burning now.