The Leshen's weakness is the Igni Sign.
Most witchers know this.
Flames scorch its bark-like, rough and tough skin, causing it to howl in pain like a wild beast.
But few know that once the burning Sign fades, the Leshen's skin immediately carbonizes, becoming heat-resistant and even tougher.
This cunning forest demigod, fond of tearing prey apart with its claws, will summon flocks of crows and packs of wolves to attack, or manipulate inescapable vines to burst from the ground, punishing intruders in its territory.
Danthe had experienced that disaster firsthand.
Even so, he had to admit—the Igni Sign was indeed the best method to deal with a Leshen. The key was timing: strike when the flames threw it into chaos and confusion.
Otherwise, swordsmanship alone, while the Leshen might move more slowly than other large creatures, wouldn't be enough to survive its attacks.
Its ancient techniques made even slow movements unnervingly precise, and its vast hunting experience allowed it to spot even the smallest mistakes of its prey.
That's how it should've been—at least, that's what Danthe concluded after half a day of analyzing past encounters.
But now, what was he seeing?
Every one of the Leshen's attacks was being deflected effortlessly by an ancient-looking longsword, so easily that Danthe felt like he was watching a street cat toying with a panicked mouse.
Their roles seemed reversed.
Allen was the one with ancient precision and rich hunting experience—and the Leshen was his chosen prey.
"Impossible?!!" Danthe grabbed Vesemir's arm in shock, exclaiming, "Allen… Allen… he… he…"
"Strong?" Vesemir smirked slightly. "I told you earlier—he's changed a lot."
Strong? Changed a lot?
Danthe shot Vesemir a look. Compared to Allen after the Trial of Grasses, this wasn't just improvement—it was a complete rebirth.
Allen's strength had far surpassed his own…
If Vesemir weren't here, and if he himself weren't too weak now to act, he might've suspected the Allen before him was some elaborate trick.
"What happened to Allen in the past six months…"
His question was cut short again.
Danthe saw Allen sidestep the Leshen's claws, then twist and slash—
Crack!
The Leshen's arm, which appeared like a withered branch but was harder than steel, was cleanly severed in one swift stroke.
Thud~
The gaunt arm hit the ground, rolled a few times, and thudded against some unidentifiable shrub.
"He actually cut off its arm—without even using the Igni Sign…" Danthe stared, dumbfounded.
This… this… Is this something a witcher who passed the mountain trial just six months ago could really do?
Yoooo—!
The Leshen let out a terrifying, deer-like wail.
Its maddened cry tore through the night sky, shaking the gloomy oak forest. The sound rose and fell, trembling and unhinged.
Allen followed up with another sword strike, aiming straight for the Leshen's neck, just about to pierce—
When suddenly, his expression changed. He pushed off with his right foot and darted backward several steps.
Voom!
Danthe's school medallion on his chest began to cry out just as several thick, tree-like roots erupted from the ground—like black claws reaching from the depths of hell.
Dodging sideways, retreating fast, rolling low—
To Danthe's eyes, Allen nearly turned into a phantom, weaving, leaping, and gliding to dodge the vines and roots stabbing endlessly from the earth.
But the Leshen wasn't done yet.
Although the young witcher had just cleared out the crows and wolf pack, howls of wolves once again echoed from the dense forest beyond the battlefield. Even closer than the wolves were the crows.
Not long after the Leshen's agonizing scream, hoarse and grating caws of crows rang out from the nearby woods.
In the blink of an eye, a dense swarm of black dots shot out from the forest and into the moonlight, completely ignoring the oppressive presence of the royal griffin.
Unfortunately for them—
These crows never even had a chance to interfere with Allen.
Because Erni, Klar, Ice, and the others had already rushed forward.
"Hiss~ hiss~ hiss~"
With a chorus of hissing sounds, just as the crows emerged, they were instantly engulfed by hundreds upon hundreds of fiery sparks.
"You damn beasts—get through me first!"
Clay roared, the Igni Sign flaring even more fiercely from the palm of his right hand.
Although the Igni Signs of the seven young witchers were all just Level 1, they were more than enough against these crows—even if the crows had clearly been enhanced by the Leshen, their blood-red eyes gleaming with magical light.
"Caw! Caw! Caw!"
The crows shrieked in agony, their black feathers igniting, flesh melting, and bodies plummeting to the ground.
Within moments—
Over a hundred crows were completely wiped out. Not a single one escaped.
The swift response and perfectly synchronized actions left Danthe completely stunned.
It wasn't just the seamless coordination, more disciplined and unified than elite soldiers…
…Of course, the sheer impact of seeing so many witchers simultaneously and uniformly casting the Igni Sign was overwhelming for someone like him, who had never witnessed such a thing before…
But whether it was their footwork, their speed of casting, or the power behind their Signs—
Everything about them showed that, at least in terms of physical capabilities, these witchers had already caught up to the standard of trained witchers.
"Allen being a genius I can understand—but how have Erni, Klar, and the others improved so fast?"
"Did all the geniuses of the Wolf School suddenly show up last year?"
"But before the Trial of the Mountain, they didn't show any of this—did they?!!"
Danthe felt like he'd been surprised more times tonight than in the past fifty years combined.
In a daze, it felt not like half a year had passed—but half a century. Meanwhile, on Allen's side of the battlefield—
Despite the Leshen's spell that animated the plants, Allen wasn't being pushed back by the surging roots erupting from the ground. Instead, while constantly dodging, he was actually getting closer and closer to the Leshen.
The soft earth, slender shrubs, the trunks of oak trees—even the very vines and roots the Leshen had summoned—became footholds beneath him.
The crimson eyes buried deep within the hollow elk skull reflected Allen's figure again and again, his agile form slipping through impossible angles to evade the flurry of piercing vines.
Always just a hair's breadth away—yet the Leshen could never quite catch him.
It was as if the true master of this domain was not the forest demigod, but the two-legged beast before it, wielding a blasphemous blade of iron.
Then, in a single instant—
The Leshen was distracted by the sudden destruction of its raven swarm. The vines emerged just a moment too slowly.
Allen seized the opportunity at once.
Before the eyes of all, he lowered his body and pushed off the ground, shooting forward like a sharpened arrow aimed straight at the Leshen.
The Leshen, stunned, instinctively leaned back and swung its one remaining withered arm.
But it was too late.
In the flash of a moment, the sword carved a deadly arc through the air, slashing straight into a cloud of black smoke.
The strike found nothing.
The Leshen had vanished.
But it didn't leave empty-handed—a massive moose antler, severed in half, was left behind, skewered into the earth at an angle.
"Vrrrm~"
BalmUr gave an irritable hum.
"Thud, thud, thud—"
Allen's feet landed hard, stamping a series of deep pits into the ground as he slowed his momentum.
He gripped the hilt of Balmur tightly with both hands, calming the blade's unrest.
The fierce wind howled, flattening the wild grass of the forest floor and rustling the leaves of the towering oaks.
In the clearing Allen and the Leshen had carved out together, the moonlight poured down, revealing the tangled vines and gnarled roots that had burst forth—like some hideous tumor sprouting from the forest itself.
"Everyone stay sharp!" Danthe warned, sword raised, breaking the eerie silence of the woods. "The Leshen is watching us. It could strike at—"
Before he could finish—
Danthe suddenly saw a large patch of the ground darken.
"—anyone—!"
He spun with a shout, sword swinging wide. Even though Vesemir was carrying Fred on his back, he still drew his silver sword faster than Danthe.
Unfortunately—
By the time the two Wolf School witcher masters had their blades ready, it was already too late.
Danthe only heard from his side…
A wild, overwhelming roar tore through the forest's suffocating silence, resonating with the heavens and earth in a single instant.
Then—
Another furious, primal bellow erupted—right by his ear.
He hadn't even seen the Leshen yet, but the sudden surge of pressure left his mind completely blank.
His body simply continued its motion from inertia.
By the time he regained his senses—
A thin figure suddenly appeared before him, placing itself between him and the Leshen.
Time seemed to freeze in that moment.
In the remaining half of the elk skull socket, the Leshen's crimson glow flickered with terror—it hadn't expected Allen to arrive so quickly.
Danthe only noticed Allen's wrist move slightly.
The next instant—
Countless sword lights wove a blinding incandescent web across the Leshen's body.
"Yorrr——"
The Leshen instinctively threw back its head and let out a hollow, anguished cry.
As if that scream restarted the halted river of time.
Whoooosh—
A roaring gust of wind blasted from behind, staggering Danthe—Vesemir caught him just in time. But the Leshen's emaciated body had no one to steady it. Shattered into countless fragments, it was scattered by the wind.
Then—
"Boom!"
The ground trembled. A thunderous roar followed as a towering cloud of dust rose from the forest, blotting out the sky.
Feeling the vanishing pressure that had belonged to the Leshen, Danthe stared blankly at the slightly short figure in front of him—short only due to youth. His lips trembled in disbelief:
"The Leshen… the ancient Leshen… a demigod of the forest…"
"It's… dead?"
"It should be," Vesemir replied with a solemn nod. "The Leshen doesn't leave behind a corpse. That's mentioned in the Wolf School's witcher code and chronicles…"
"Having a physical body but no remains is one of the reasons it's considered a forest demigod. Once it dies, nothing is left—not even the elemental pressure it once wielded."
"That's not what I meant…" Danthe turned back speechless—only to see Vesemir smiling at him. He immediately realized he'd been played. "Damn mutant, you're messing with me!"
"Hahaha!" Vesemir laughed heartily.
Just then—
Allen suddenly raised his right hand and cast an Aard sign.
A semi-transparent shockwave burst forward, scattering the swirling dust cloud.
"Gulp…"
As the clearing revealed what had been hidden beneath the dust, Danthe swallowed hard and blinked in disbelief.
Gods…
What had he just witnessed?
Before Allen, the ground had been carved into three trenches—each at least a meter deep.
At the end of the grooves, a whole patch of oaks had been reduced to stumps, like a field freshly logged. Behind them rose a small hill of splintered wood, broken branches, and scattered leaves—likely the remains of the trees, blown there by the storm-like blast.
Allen, relying solely on the aftershock of cutting down the Leshen, had actually carved a forest path nearly a hundred meters long and as wide as three tree stumps through the oak woods...
"This... is this still power that a human... no, a witcher can wield?" Danthe was completely stunned.
Even veteran sorcerers' spells couldn't cause this level of destruction, right?
And this was just the aftershock...
For a moment,
he couldn't tell whether the true monster on this land was the Leshen that was utterly obliterated, or Allen...
"Ve... Vesemir, is... is he really Allen?" Danthe whispered, turning his head to Vesemir's ear. "Not some humanoid incarnation of a dragon?"
"Of course not..." Vesemir shook his head. This was nothing compared to the explosion in the Mahakam Mountains canyon.
Not that?
Danthe felt a bit dizzy from blood loss.
"Is it the year 1180 now?"
"Of course."
"Oh... so he really isn't a dragon? I heard that blue dragons in human form have blue eyes too..."
"No! Allen is not a dragon!" Vesemir glared at him with a scowl. "Besides... he can hear everything you just said..."
Danthe said nothing.
Honestly, given his usual personality, right now he should be joking with Allen—calling him something like "Drowner Slayer." After all, they were somewhat acquainted.
He had even helped Vesemir take care of him for a while.
But somehow, looking at Allen's lean figure, half a head shorter than him, Danthe felt a strange unfamiliarity and... awe...
It even reminded him of the feeling when, as a kid, he was handed over by his father as a bounty contract to the witchers, and first met Sol the chief at the camp...
While Vesemir was quietly pleased by Danthe's shock, he gradually sensed something was off.
But before he could figure it out, the young witchers finished off the crow flock, and hearing the wolf howls fading away, noisily sheathed their swords and approached.
"Oh my god... such deep trenches..." Spencer came over and gaped at the deep furrows Allen had plowed.
"Captain's move is so cool!" Ice smacked his lips, drooling with envy, his face shouting "Coach, I wanna learn that!"
"Can we learn this move later?"
"Probably, right?" Erni and Klar looked longingly at Allen's back. "From the way the captain roared, it's almost like a berserk shout..."
------------------------
Amid the young witchers' noisy chatter, Vesemir finally realized what was wrong.
Why, even though the Leshen was eliminated, was Allen still staring blankly at the spot where the monster disappeared?
Without the indescribable worries Danthe felt, Vesemir, carrying Fred, stepped forward and patted Allen's shoulder.
"What's wrong, Allen?"
.....
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