SSS Frost Sovereign: Rewinding The Apocalypse!-Chapter 76: The upper D grade Grove Sentinel

They had reached a significant depth within the grove, the air growing colder and the shadows more profound.

They had just encountered a lone Thorn Knight, the last of its kind in this sector, and had dispatched it with a coordinated effort.

Now, silence reigned.

Liam and his raid party hung around the area, recovering from the skirmish. Their group was large.

Over ten members, mostly women who leaned against the colossal trunks or sat on the thick, moss-covered floor to catch their breath.

Another smaller raid party of five stood nearby, their gear clattering softly.

Not long ago, one of the raid parties from their initial coalition had detached and pushed ahead, a move Liam had aggressively encouraged.

"Are you sure we should have pushed them off just like that?" one of the ladies in his party asked, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face as she looked toward the dark path the others had taken.

"Does it matter? They were making some noise about going ahead, so I let them to it," Liam said.

He was sitting on a fallen piece of wood that had been smoothed by centuries of damp rot.

He wore a skin-tight, long-sleeved charcoal top with leather straps crisscrossing his chest and waist, holding various weapons in place.

His eyes remained cold as he scanned the gloom.

"If they end up finding the Chieftain first, they’ll be stupid to fight it or too weak to escape. It’s their business either way."

"They are not likely to find the Chieftain here, though," the Erwald belonging to the other raid party spoke up.

He was perched on the shoulder of their raid party leader, Galt.

The Erwald was a small, sleek creature resembling a marmoset with glowing indigo markings.

"You all have rested quite enough. We should all get moving."

"Wait. Hold on," the same lady from Liam’s group said, her voice dripping with a sluggish, reluctant tone.

She wasn’t truly exhausted, but she possessed a chronic lethality to her motivation. A lazy indifference to the danger.

"We barely passed through that root maze together. I’d have died to one of those things back there if not for Liam. And now, we just had to meet another of those disgusting spawn things. Let’s just take our time and rest enough."

Mr. Dane stood by a corner meanwhile, his back against a massive tree, observing the exchange with a quiet, unreadable intensity.

He said nothing, acting as a silent anchor in the restless group.

Liam huffed at his teammate’s words.

’These guys... they’re just drawing me back,’ he thought, suppressing a flash of genuine irk.

’I’d seen Zayne pass through much more effortlessly. He even helped a few people, but he still didn’t let himself get dragged down by stragglers.’

His mind then shifted to another rival.

’Even that bastard Icard was quicker with his party.’

At this point, Liam was mostly bored; the minor spawns no longer offered the thrill he craved.

He needed the rush of facing the Chieftain.

He exhaled quietly then, his demeanor sharpening.

"Let’s move," he said firmly. The girl looked at him, her expression a mix of pouting annoyance and a lingering fear of his temper, but seeing the cold visage he wore, she kept her complaints to herself.

Liam’s group of ten followed. Most of the women would have preferred to linger, but in this oppressive environment, they had no other options but to follow the strongest lead.

"O...okay," the girl muttered, standing up and dusting off her gear.

Liam advanced with an unreadable expression.

’From what Dekheim said, this Chieftain is C-grade. It’s nothing like the ones we’ve faced so far.’

Then, a faint, crooked smile tugged at his lips as a sinister thought crossed his mind.

’Not even Icard can handle that. Honestly, it won’t be bad if they actually die here, including that bastard, Albert, and anyone affiliated with them. This time, I’ll make sure to take the spotlight for myself!’

Although they had a clear destination in mind, they couldn’t advance in a straight line.

The trees in this sector were gargantuan, with diameters spanning the width of two large trucks parked tail to tail.

This forced them into a constant, winding path, circling around the massive wooden pillars as they walked deeper into the grove.

They advanced for a while, the silence of the forest floor occasionally broken by the distant creak of shifting branches.

Then, they began to hear sounds. They were faint at first, low thuds and cracks...followed by much louder, violent concussions.

It wasn’t far, perhaps just a few massive trees away.

The rhythmic sounds were unmistakable: a battle.

Liam’s ears twitched. His entire body coiled as he prepared to sprint toward the noise.

"Let’s go!" he shouted, suddenly bolting ahead.

"Huh? Liam, wait for us!" the girls yelled, scrambling to follow before they were swallowed by the dimness of the thicket.

Liam tore through the foliage, a dark excitement creeping up his spine as he felt a raw, surging energy emanating from the clearing ahead.

It was a different pressure entirely. Much more potent than the spawns they had encountered thus far.

He arrived at the edge of the clearing to find a scene of absolute chaos.

Energy attacks were flying through the air, and a heavy, force-based shockwave slammed into a giant, wooden figure.

The impact splintered the outer bark, but it seemed to do little more than irritate the titan.

The giant flailed its arms, which were wrapped in root-like chains, throwing several incarnations back with bone-breaking force.

This was the Ancient Treant, locked in a fierce battle with a raid group that was barely managing to hold their ground.

Liam watched the faint glow in its hollow chest and its burning green eyes.

Then he let out a short, incredulous laugh. A "what the hell" sort of chuckle.

"How the fuck is it that one so big?"

---

Meanwhile, in a different part of the grove, Zayne and a number of raid parties advanced together through the gloomy forest.

"Thanks a lot, Zayne. You’ve really been saving our skin. You’re amazing," one of the raid party members said, voicing a sentiment that had been repeated countless times over the last hour.

It was a warranted praise.

Zayne had saved the unaffiliated raid party more than once, guiding them through the treacherous root zone before they ultimately stuck to him.

Then, once inside the grove, he had saved them again from a Thorn Knight they were unable to handle on their own.

His abilities were a mystery to them.

A subtle, shifting power that dealt with spawns with an efficiency that bordered on the supernatural.

Quite a complicated force-based space.

The young man named Ken, the leader of the group that had attached itself to Zayne, leaned closer.

Ken had a sharp face and light, messy hair, looking tired but eager to prove himself.

"You’re amazing, Zayne. But... what the hell was that power? It was really..." Ken trailed off, searching for a word to describe the invisible pressure Zayne exerted, but he couldn’t find it.

Zayne breathed out, his gaze fixed forward. He didn’t answer the question.

And so, an awkward silence followed.

Ken could tell he had overstepped, but his curiosity and nerves were getting the better of him.

"Well, do you really think the Chieftain is there?" Ken asked, gesturing toward the center.

"Yeah, I guess," Zayne replied shortly. He huffed quietly to himself.

’This guy’s a bother, honestly. How the hell did I get stuck with only these guys. Did circle round the grove too far?’

Just then, he felt a tug on his shirt from behind, taking him off his thoughts.

It was Regel, his Erwald.

"Huh? Is something wrong?"

Zayne then stopped in his tracks, his posture going rigid.

He could suddenly feel the tension in the air, a cold, sharp spike of hostility.

The others stopped with him, sensing the shift.

"What...What’s wrong?" Ken asked, his voice dropping to a whisper, his eyes darting around.

Then the feeling reached the rest of them. It was an eerie, skin-crawling sensation, as if they were being watched by something that didn’t just want to kill them, but to erase them.

Then, they heard a sound, the heavy dragging of something across the dirt.

Ahead of them, a figure stood still in the shadows between two massive trees.

It was holding something partially off the ground with one hand.

As it stepped into a sliver of ambient light, the group gasped.

It was holding a corpse.

The tension in the group spiked into pure alarm.

"What... what is that?" one of Ken’s teammates, a young woman, muttered, her voice trembling.

"That’s a spawn. And it’s really strong," Zayne replied immediately, his own body tensing as he analyzed the threat.

It was far beyond any regular Bark Guard.

"Ready yourselves, everyone!"

The creature approached them with measured strides and then stopped.

With a casual, chilling flick of its wrist, it threw the corpse before them like a piece of refuse.

It then raised a slender, jagged sword of black wood, pointing the tip directly at the group.

Ken glanced at Zayne for a second, then gritted his teeth.

A mix of shame and a desperate need to prove they weren’t just baggage surged through him.

He stepped forward, ahead of Zayne.

"We’ll handle it this time, Zayne. We’ve defeated them before together, but we’ll do it on our own this time!" he declared, his voice filled with a forced confidence.

He flared his powers, a crackling purple aura beginning to dance around his fists.

’What is he saying? Does he think this is like the other ones?’ Zayne thought, eyes widening.

It hit him then: Ken thought this was just another Thorn Knight.

"Ken, wait!" Zayne called out.

But it was too late.

The Sentinel blurred. It didn’t run; it simply existed several feet closer in a flicker of green light.

It was too fast for Ken to react. The jagged black sword swung in a horizontal arc, aimed to cut Ken clean in half.

Ken saw death coming. He was inches away from being severed when he felt a sudden, violent surge of repulsion.

A powerful force slammed into the space between him and the creature, pushing them both away from each other with the force of an explosion.

Ken fell and rolled across the mossy earth, gasping.

Zayne stood where the collision of forces had occurred, his feet skidding slightly before he halted.

He breathed calmly, observing the spawn with a grim focus.

"So this is the upper grade, huh?" Zayne said, a tense, cold smile tugging at his lips.

"Damn it."