Chapter 140: Sword Intent
The air grew heavier the deeper Frank moved into the garden. Each breath carried the scent of ancient wood, dry moss, and the faint copper tang of blood long spilled.
A deep growl rolled through the air, thick and resonant.
[Rank 3: Verdant Maw Mutated Forest Lurker]
It emerged from the underbrush like a living landslide eight-legged, armored in bark-like plates, with a maw lined with bone teeth shaped like chisels. Moss covered its back, and thick sap dripped from its mouth like acidic slime. Its core pulsed visibly beneath its sternum, glowing with dull green light.
Frank didn't speak. His stance shifted, and mana surged to his limbs.
The beast lunged.
He vanished.
Reappearing above it, Frank twisted in mid-air and slammed his palm down a spatial ripple followed, crashing the creature's massive frame into the ground. Vines erupted in defense, but Frank's blade flashed, cleaving through them and into the beast's exposed back.
It howled, twisting, and launched a counterattack.
Its legs moved like spears, aiming to pin him. Its jaw snapped with crushing force, the shockwaves fracturing stone. Frank ducked beneath a sweep and drove a foot forward enhanced by space compression. The force caved the beast's chest slightly, but not enough. It reared back and roared, blasting a mist of spores into the air.
Frank held his breath, eyes narrowing. Toxic? Paralytic? Blinding? His enhanced senses filtered possibilities.
None of them mattered.
He bent space itself around him, forming a thin protective layer. The spores slid harmlessly off.
Then came the real counter the ground beneath him cracked open, and dozens of parasitic roots tried to drag him under. But Frank reacted faster.
He drove his hand into the earth, mana surging, and released a pulse.
Spatial Sever.
The roots screamed.
Not cracked. Not cut.
Deleted.
The Verdant Maw staggered, its body beginning to destabilize.
Frank's parasitic vine surged from his arm, latching onto the beast's wound like a feeding eel. It absorbed essence with greedy pulses, sending a new wave of vitality into Frank's bloodstream. His eyes flared. He yanked, drawing something ethereal out the raw vitality of a Rank 3.
He stepped back, breathing steady, as the creature collapsed husk-like, its core dim.
"Good," he muttered, flexing his arms as veins glowed faintly beneath his skin. "I need more."
Frank had lured a massive, obsidian-scaled razor boar into a dead-end gorge and engaged it in brutal melee. The creature had magma-infused tusks and a heat aura that seared the ground with every charge. Frank, muscles taut and body pulsing with tempered vitality, danced between its swings with practiced grace, carving at its flanks with spatial-edged strikes and focused blasts of wind pressure.
But the scream of the dying boar brought more.
The ground trembled as two more Rank 3 beasts burst through the treeline: one, a spectral serpent wreathed in frost and illusions; the other, a chitin-covered panther whose tail spat arcs of lightning with every flick. Frank cursed under his breath. He hadn't expected a chain reaction but the vitality-rich garden clearly attracted more than he realized.
He fought without rest, moving like a ghost, slipping between shadows, dodging, redirecting, cutting. Still, each clash left its mark. The serpent's mist dulled his senses, the panther's electric strikes lanced through his bone-hardened limbs. His parasitic vine now Rank 4 wrapped around his arm and occasionally launched tendrils to deflect critical strikes or latch onto weakened targets.
By the time the sixth Rank 3 beast a stone-shelled rhino with earth affinity charged into the fray, Frank was bleeding from multiple wounds, steam rising from his skin. But he grinned. His mana core was nearing critical. His reserves brimmed with essence. The battle, brutal as it was, became a forge.
The real danger came when two Rank 4 beasts emerged from the inner ring of the garden.
One was a four-winged lion with blazing red fur and molten breath a fire affinity tyrant. The other was an armored stag cloaked in silver wind, its antlers glowing with sharp kinetic force. They roared in unison, sending shockwaves through the battlefield. The remaining Rank 3 beasts immediately turned to support them, coordinated as if under a shared instinctual command.
Frank stood his ground.
He felt his bones crack and reknit as he drew from his vitality seeds four in total, burned in rapid succession to restore his physical body and boost his regenerative loop. At the same time, the residual vitality from the fallen Rank 3 beasts flowed into his network, feeding the Titan Hunger, which now pulsed like a living forge inside his chest.
Then something… snapped.
As the winged lion charged with a burning claw and the wind stag struck from the flank with a gust blade sharp enough to split stone, Frank's perception slowed. His mind entered a razor's edge a stillness amidst the fury.
The blade in his hand hummed.
He saw the path of the strike. The intent. The essence behind it.
He followed it, tracing a line only he could see
His slash no longer just cut. It willed the separation of space. When he swung, the world parted.
A single step forward and his blade met the stag's wind slash it shattered like glass. In the same breath, he turned and bisected the lion's fire breath with a downward arc, severing the flow of flame itself. The Rank 4 beasts staggered back. Blood sprayed from a deep cut on the lion's shoulder, and a gouge appeared across the stag's antlers.
Frank was bleeding, yes but now he was winning.
The remaining Rank 3 beasts hesitated. His presence was different now. Towering, anchored, grounded in will. The vines in his body surged driven by battle they grew sharper, deadlier, and more intelligent, now adapting in real-time to elemental threats. When the lightning panther tried to flank, a vine intercepted it mid-sprint and injected a weakening toxin before hurling it against a tree with crushing force.
Frank pressed on.
Each strike left a mark. Each movement carved reality slightly. He no longer wasted effort. He expressed intent.
In the final moment, as the lion lunged once more with a roar that twisted the air and the stag summoned a tornado-pointed charge, Frank poured all remaining vitality into his core, snapping open a spatial gate behind him. He vanished and appeared above them.
The final strike split the sky.
A silent arc of blade-light carved through both Rank 4 beasts in a clean, precise motion. They collapsed in staggered silence first the stag, then the lion leaving only the ragged breath of Frank and the slow return of wind to the shattered forest.
He dropped to one knee. The battlefield was wrecked burnt trees, shattered stone, and gouged terrain. A crater marked where he landed. But he was alive. Stronger. Tempered. Awakened.
His sword arm trembled slightly