God-Tier Extraction Talent: Reincarnated in a Game-like World! Chapter 669: The Forest Is On Her Side [3]
Previously on God-Tier Extraction Talent: Reincarnated in a Game-like World!...
Unfortunately for that hidden attack, Sophie saw him in time.
"Don’t."
Her voice was not particularly loud and could hardly be called a command. But outside the barrier, where the forest’s natural mana had not been severed, the ground exploded.
Five massive roots burst from the earth. One struck the ritualist from the side. The other four wrapped around his arms and legs before suspending him in midair.
The man struggled frantically as protective mana erupted around his body, but the golden green light covering the roots only grew stronger.
Crack!
His wrist broke first.
"ARGH!"
His scream echoed through the forest.
The roots tightened again, and this time, his shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle, while another root began coiling around his chest.
Upon seeing this, Sophie froze. She had wanted to stop him. She had not wanted to crush him to death. But the forest did not seem to understand the difference.
...Or perhaps it understood perfectly and simply did not care.
It had sensed her fear.
Her anger. Her desperate refusal to let anyone hurt Gabriel.
To the Sacred Forest, the simplest answer was to erase the threat completely.
"Sophie." Gabriel’s voice cut through the noise.
She immediately looked at him.
"Control what you want it to do. Don’t control the power. Control the thought."
Sophie stared at him.
Control the thought?
Gabriel turned back and smashed Crimson Judgement into the barrier once again.
Boom!
"You’re not casting a normal skill," he continued. "Stop thinking about how to move the roots. Tell the forest what you actually want."
His words exposed something she had been unable to understand since the World Tree first responded to her.
Sophie had instinctively tried to interpret everything through the methods she once used to learn magic. She thought she needed to concentrate, mobilize her mana, and construct some form of nature element spell.
But whenever the forest truly answered her, she had done none of those things.
The forest was not merely a source of magic... It was alive.
It felt what she felt, but its anger was older, deeper, and far more merciless than her own.
Sophie slowly lowered her hand and whispered.
"Stop him, but don’t kill him."
The roots tightened once more before abruptly becoming still.
The ritualist remained suspended in the air, both arms immobilized and one wrist broken, but the root around his chest loosened enough for him to breathe.
Sophie exhaled shakily. Then she looked through the isolation barrier toward the gray black main root at the center of the altar.
Pain. Anger. Fear. An exhaustion that had persisted for countless years. Those emotions did not belong to her, yet they continued flowing into her mind through the earth outside the sealed zone.
Her eyes reddened as she clenched her fist.
"I want to save it."
RUMBLE!
The moment those words fell, a roar far more terrifying than any previous tremor surged from the depths of the Sacred Forest.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
Outside the isolation barrier, three enormous roots, each nearly three meters in diameter, rose from underground.
They did not penetrate the sealed zone or casually command the roots trapped inside it.
Instead, all three wrapped themselves around the barrier from the outside.
For the first time, the silver masked captain’s expression truly changed.
"Strengthen the formation!"
"There’s no time!" one of the two ritualists maintaining it shouted.
Golden green light spread along the surfaces of the three gigantic roots.
Sssssss...
The exterior of the isolation barrier began to hiss.
Massive cracks spread across the translucent screen as the forest’s power attacked the formation from beyond its boundary, corroding the very structure designed to sever natural mana.
Gabriel saw what was happening and raised Crimson Judgement for one final strike.
Mana flooded the blade. Then he swung.
BOOM!
The impact landed directly upon the largest fracture.
Crack!
A complete split appeared through the center of the barrier.
The three gigantic roots tightened. Then the isolation barrier shattered.
Bang!
Countless fragments of mana scattered through the air like broken glass.
The two ritualists maintaining it coughed up blood and collapsed to their knees.
Natural mana immediately flooded back into the altar.
The roots trapped within the sealed area twitched and began moving again.
At almost the same time, Gabriel disappeared from where he stood.
"Damn it!" The silver masked captain drew his black sword.
Clang!
The blade collided with Crimson Judgement.
The tremendous force cracked the stone beneath his feet, and Gabriel did not give him an opportunity to redirect the impact. His left foot stepped forward, his shoulder pressed into the greatsword, and his entire body pushed ahead like a mountain advancing without pause.
"You seemed determined to take her away earlier."
The silver masked captain’s arms began trembling.
"This has nothing to do with you. Why can’t you fucking mind your business!"
"Sophie, is mg business." Gabriel abruptly exerted more force.
Boom!
The captain was thrown backward.
Before he could regain his balance, Gabriel was already upon him again with another strike.
The black sword blocked it at first, but as the exchange continued, the web between the captain’s thumb and index finger split open, and his entire right arm went numb.
Before the fourth strike descended, he abandoned the attempt to block and slid sideways while throwing three silver discs from his left hand.
Buzz!
Three magic formations unfolded in different directions and white beams blasted toward Gabriel.
Iron Body!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The white beams exploded against Gabriel bod. Iron Body reinforced him against the physical force of the impacts, but it could not nullify the magical energy burning through his armor.
The shoulder and chest of his armor blackened, the cloth beneath them scorched, and thin trails of smoke rose from his body.
But he remained standing not even moving and ich from where he was.
The silver masked captain did not wait to see more. He turned and rushed toward the seven dark red spikes.
"Protect the mediums!"
The original operative and the single ritualist who had remained beside the spikes moved simultaneously.
The operative attacked first, driving a narrow blade toward Gabriel’s throat.
Gabriel tilted his head, let the blade scrape past his cheek, and slammed the pommel of Crimson Judgement into the operative’s abdomen.
The man folded around the impact, but without giving him a moment to recover, Gabriel caught him by the shoulder and threw him into the remains of a broken wall.
Bang!
The operative collapsed beneath the rubble, alive but unconscious.
The final uninjured ritualist tried to retreat toward the spikes, but a hand seized him by the back of the neck.
"Did all of you forget..."
Gabriel dragged him backward and smashed him into the ground.
Bang!
The ritualist’s protective mana shattered.
Gabriel planted one foot against his chest, pinning him in place.
"...what I actually came here for?"
The scorched sections of Gabriel’s armor were still smoking when he reached toward the nearest dark red spike as he consciously activated the Extraction System.
[Ding! Do you wish to extract the Divine Corruption Medium?]
