Claff
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Chapter 34
🕑 Added 2025-03-28 23:41:43 +0000 UTCJesus, this growth rate boost is amazing! In only 24 hours, I have grown from being under 50 feet tall to over 80 feet! My trunk hasn’t fallen behind either, standing at almost 11 feet around. And this Giant’s blood has done wonders for my branch growth as well. Each of my 5 main branches has grown to be 3 feet at their separation points. I truly feel like a giant in my own rights now!
Unfortunately, the time has come for me to release the beast into its afterlife. I know that I could never have taken it down while it was awake, and the pain I can feel radiating from the mental connection I formed with it has only been increasing. Over the last day, pain has been all it knows, and I can feel some confusion as to why.
I try to think of myself as an... ethical tree. Sure, I may have done some sneaky stuff to get to this point with the giant, but all is fair in love and war, right? If I hadn’t brought the beast down, then it was likely that it would have gone on a rampage and killed a bunch of innocent people.
Besides, it’s not like monsters are sapient beings, right? Sure, Dagger and Club were at least somewhat intelligent, but from the way Lilly acted, they appear to have been outliers. And really, it was only Dagger that was the nice one. Club wanted to eat Lilly. So, in reality, I could have killed Club without there being any moral conundrum. The same way that I killed all the Orcs.
Well, I guess I haven’t even tried to connect to an Orc the way I did with the goblin brothers. I’ve pretty much been slaughtering them on sight. Should I give them a shot? Lilly and the Laughing Viper trio seemed adamant that all Orcs be slain. Of course, the Laughing Vipers were all people who excelled in killing monsters regardless. They gained their strength through killing probably countless monsters. The same way... I... have...
Hold on now, I’ve only killed Ants that attacked me first, and Orcs that are also known for their aggression. Well, and BBW, but he was going to pee on me, and I didn’t hurt him that bad. He’s fine. Him and his pack passed by me safely enough. I didn’t even mess with them besides making sure they didn’t “mark me” as their territory. I wonder how they’re doing nowadays. There must be thousands of Orcs out there, judging by the small sample I’ve been getting in just this one clearing. I bet they’ve either gained tons of levels, or they’ve been wiped out. I don’t think there’s much room for a middle ground on that guess.
I shook my now giant branches. I knew that this moral quandary is only a stalling tactic for me killing this poor bastard that’s been left in my care.
Well, I say left in my care, but in reality, he is my prisoner. Which brings up a good point about Geneva Conventions of this world. Is what I’m doing to this Giant considered torture, and will there be a governing body that would care enough about the poor sap to come try to bring justice?
I shook my branches again, causing quite the ruckus. I was stalling again.
Now that I was fully determined to slay the beast, I needed to figure out the best way to go about this. His brain must be oxygen starved by now since he hasn’t had blood to carry any to it. His heart stopped beating after the second hour of having no blood. So, what else is there left to do? Do I need to destroy its brain?
I focused some Stamina into the roots that were wrapped around on the inside of his skull and sort of used them as a blender. They whirled around causing quite the mess, except that it was all contained within the brain. Thankfully there was still plenty of liquids in the form of other brain juices in there. When I was done, it looked like a meat smoothie. Not quite as appetizing though.
When the brain was fully blended up, I still hadn’t gotten the system notification that the giant was dead. I checked for its mind thinking that it was just some sort of error, but there was definitely mental activity present. All I felt was strictly anguish and pain, and it was dulled significantly from the last time I checked, but the monster was still technically alive.
What the actual hell? How is this thing still alive? Its brain is pudding, it has no blood to supply oxygen, and I AM its cardiovascular system. There is no logical way it should be alive right now. Do I need to use Mental Magic to kill its mind? Or do I need a way to figure out Fire Magic to burn it to death, like a hydra or something. Oh god, I hope there’s no hydras on this planet. That would be a nightmare to kill.
Rather than dwelling on it, I turned to my Mental Magic and started sharpening my mental blade. I was almost tempted to free it to provide me with some mental training, but that would just be prolonging its suffering even more than it already was. As it stood, I could feel its brain reforming in its skull, slowly retaking shape around my roots while I continuously drained the blood from its husk of a body.
When I felt properly prepared to end it with a swift mental blow, I attacked. It was a clean and precise hit, splitting its mind in two. Unfortunately, it was too clean of a slice, as I watched its mind stitch itself back together again.
Well damn. That was unexpected.
Rather than let it heal completely, I made a few more mental blades and attacked with them all at once. I diced its mind over and over again. Its mind was like a candle in the wind. My first attack was a small gust that almost blew it out. But my second attack? That was a raging tornado, leaving nothing to chance. I refused to let this damned monster live any longer.
I only stopped when I couldn’t sense its mind any longer. I was planning on keeping going until I got the kill notification, but the damned thing’s body was still regenerating and producing more blood for me to drink. While I was glad that my ticket to never before seen growth was still around, I was utterly perplexed by the sheer tenacity this thing was showing. It was essentially brain dead. There was no presence of mind to it. The giant was now just a lump of flesh, ripe for my taking.
I guess... Since it no longer felt pain, I could technically ethically keep it?
Before I could talk myself out of it, I began the process of preserving my blood bank. I flooded the ground under the monster with constantly replenishing mana. I went down as far as I could, which was actually quite far now, as my roots had kept growing further down while my canopy grew up. I was able to penetrate around a hundred feet deep.
Now that I had plenty of mana to work with, I used some Stamina to adjust the roots that were in the giant's body in a way that would let me bring the whole thing down as far as I could.
As I was about to start digging with my magic, I reconsidered and brought the mana back up to only 40 feet deep. I decided that keeping my resource battery close was paramount to its effectiveness.
When the roots were ready to be moved, I started shifting the dirt. I didn’t exactly dig in the normal sense, but the dirt was definitely getting moved out of the way. I basically kept shifting the dirt and rocks from under the giant to being directly over it. If someone were to watch it from an X-rayed side view, it would look like it was sinking in really murky water.
While I was at it, I took all the Orc bodies down too. Rather than bring them all forty feet down though, I just dropped the bodies 10 feet down from wherever they were when I started. I wasn’t about to waste too much mana on the trash mobs right now. I had other priorities.
As the giant reached its end point, I adjusted its positions by using the roots in its body. I curled the monster’s body up into a fetal position and started growing some roots around it. I was basically building a giant coffin around it, making sure that nothing would be able to reach it without getting through me. Literally.
Now that its body was encased in one giant root, I started compacting the dirt around it using some more Earth Magic. It was just me being paranoid, but I was determined to not let this monster get away. I was sure that if it weren’t sleeping, I would never have stood a chance.
That’s just your fear talking. You can totally take one out now that you have an endless supply of resources. You’ve got this.
With the giant and its Orc companions buried, the clearing suddenly looked a whole lot emptier. That being said, I still had a whole bunch of new neighbors being revealed to me as I continued to grow. The number of other trees inside my Domain of Awareness skill will keep growing as long as I do too.
Speaking of them, I think it was about time I tried taking another peak at their minds and trying to see if I can make a sort of connection with them. Sure, most of them were a good bit shorter than I was now, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t use them in some way. If I could steal their resources, then my rate of growth would increase even further than it already was.
But that felt like something to do later. I’ve been through a lot these last few days, and I felt that I deserved a good break.
I stretched out my mind through a few of my branches. It was just enough for my perception of time to be slightly altered, but not so much as to have whole days pass by me in the blink of an eye. This was my sweet spot for enjoying the warmth and energy of the sun while still maintaining a general consciousness.
