SSS Frost Sovereign: Rewinding The Apocalypse!-Chapter 74: Upper D Rank Treant!

The deeper they delved into the mega-cluster of trees, the more the atmosphere shifted from chaotic to deathly.

The light of the outside world was a memory now, replaced by an oppressive, emerald-tinged gloom.

At the same time, another raid group that had advanced deep into the heart of the grove tore through the thick underbrush.

The air here was heavy, smelling of damp earth and ancient, stagnant sap.

They were pushing further and further into the shadows, their common destination finally within sight: a vague, pulsing glow in the distance.

"Are you ready?! Remember, the Chieftain is nothing like anything you’ve seen!" their raid party leader shouted, his voice tight with a mixture of adrenaline and dread.

He was a veteran of several skirmishes, but the weight of this place was beginning to press on him.

"We might even meet stronger spawns before we reach it, so stay sharp! Don’t let your guard down for a second!"

The raid party of five nodded in grim unison.

They moved with practiced caution, weaving between the massive, pillar-like trees that seemed to watch their every move.

The light was ahead. Just ahead. A beacon in the suffocating dark.

Then, without warning, a sharp movement erupted from the periphery of their vision.

Despite having their guards up the entire time, the transition from stillness to violence was too swift to track.

It wasn’t just a blur; it was a predator’s strike.

A silhouette, darker than the surrounding gloom, lunged at them.

And a large blade, fashioned from what looked like obsidian wood, swung in a wide, whistling arc.

The suddenness of it was eerie, a silent executioner appearing from the very bark of the trees, its weapon already halfway through its deadly trajectory before the group could even gasp.

---

Meanwhile, farther out toward the fringes of the inner grove, Albert and his group stood amidst a field of carnage.

Around them lay the twisted, unmoving remains of defeated spawns.

Bark Guards with shattered torsos, Thorn Knights with their armor cracked open, and Moss Hounds dissolving into heaps of grey sludge.

They had just broken through the thickest part of the spawns’ resistance at the entrance of the grove.

It had been a brutal slog, yet they were still meeting remnants of the horde.

At this point, Albert raised his hand, signaling a brief halt. They needed to catch their breath.

Men and women leaned against the gargantuan roots, their chests heaving.

Luna, her face smudged with dirt but her eyes still sharp, straightened up.

She looked into the deep, dark heart of the grove, her gaze fixed on a vague, shimmering light emanating from the center.

It looked like a distant star trapped beneath the canopy.

Gremit sat on Albert’s shoulder, his quills vibrating with a low, rhythmic hum.

His sights were set in the same direction, but his ears twitched constantly, monitoring the shadows behind them.

"Be careful, you all," Gremit rasped, his voice a low warning.

"Something much more formidable is lurking just around the corner. The air here tastes different... heavier."

A few remaining E-grade spawns, the stragglers of the wave, shambled toward them from the brush, but they were little more than an afterthought now.

The incarnations dispatched them with efficient strikes.

As the chaos of the immediate battle subsided, the silence felt even more threatening.

Luna’s eyes continued to drift, scanning the vertical labyrinth of trunks. Then, she saw them.

High up on one of the massive trees, partially obscured by a thick curtain of hanging moss, a pair of green glowing orbs flickered.

They were eyes, cold, intelligent, and ancient, watching the group with a chilling stillness.

And in the blink of an eye, the orbs vanished.

Luna stared, visibly startled. And Albert noticed the change in her posture immediately.

"What’s wrong, Luna?" he asked, his hand drifting to the hilt of his weapon.

"Oh. Nothing..." she murmured, though her voice lacked conviction.

"I thought I saw something... but it’s gone now. It was probably just the light playing tricks."

Albert breathed calmly, exhaling slowly as he stepped forward, his eyes never leaving the path ahead.

"Hmm. At this point, those who have managed to make it this far must be the true elites, according to our analysis," he remarked.

"I intended for as many as possible to face the Chieftain this time. Based on our previous data, I expect it will be at least as difficult as the last one we encountered."

He paused, a shadow of doubt crossing his face.

"But why does it feel like the Chieftain isn’t the only thing we have to worry about in this place?"

---

’Sentinel, Treant,’ Icard thought to himself, his mind racing through his memories as they advanced through the forest.

’Both of them are upper D-grades, unlike the lower D-grade Thorn Knights we’ve been fighting.’

He stared intensely at the floating system panel before him.

Within the hierarchy of spawns, the grades were further divided: Lower, Middle, and Upper.

This distinction became dangerously common from D-grade upward.

’Both are high-end D-grades... the same level as a Chieftain in a Yellow Gate. The threat is massive. This whole situation is messed up because of that raid group that ran ahead and triggered the defenses. We were supposed to hold as much of our strength as possible for the Chieftain, but if that’s the threat level standing in our way, we have no choice but to burn through our reserves.’

"Alright," Katar said.

The snow-cat Erwald was currently squirming within Alia’s shirt, his head poking out with an expression of sheer irritation.

Alia remained frozen however, her hands clutching her chest as if not wanting to let him go.

"Let me off, you clumsy brat!" Katar snarled, glaring up at Alia.

She fidgeted, her face flushing with apology, and immediately opened her collar to let him out.

Katar leaped to the ground, landing silently on the damp, mossy floor, then following them on their light sprint.

He shook his fur out, electricity crackling in small sparks across his back.

However, before he could give the group any further instructions, a sound echoed from the path ahead.

Footsteps. Heavy, panicked, and uncoordinated.

The group tensed instantly, as they stopped immediately and assumed a defensive stance.

A figure stumbled into the faint light ahead: a man, his clothes torn to ribbons and his skin bruised and bloody.

He looked like a man who had just escaped the jaws of death.

"It’s coming! It’s coming! The Chieftain!" he yelled, his voice cracking with hysteria.

"Hey! What’s wrong?!" the leader of the other raid party in Icard’s group shouted, stepping forward to catch the man before he collapsed.

The survivor was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering.

Between ragged gasps, he began to speak, his words tumbling out in a frantic rush.

He described a nightmare immediately. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Green, shining eyes that appeared from nowhere! It ambushed us and began cutting through everyone!"

Icard narrowed his eyes at the description, a bead of sweat tracing a line down his face.

’That’s not the Chieftain. If it cut through everyone, that’s most likely a grove sentinel’

Giant Upper D grade spawns that usually camouflaged perfectly into the trees.

Katar narrowed his eyes as well, his tail twitching in contemplation.

’I see. We’ve reached the inner sanctum. No wonder we don’t see the usual trash spawns around here. They must have been withdrawn, called deeper inside by the Chieftain. It’s gathering its defenses for a final stand. It’s that intelligent.’

"Calm down! Where is everyone else?" the raid party leader asked, shaking the rattled survivor.

"They’re dead!" the man screamed, his eyes wide and vacant. "All of them!"

The news sent a shockwave of unease through the incarnations.

To hear that an entire party had been wiped out so quickly was a sobering reminder of their mortality.

Just then, a pair of eyes stared at them from above!

The survivor was the first to notice. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream.

"What the hell?! What the hell is that?!" he finally shrieked, pointing a trembling finger upward into the canopy.

As soon as he yelled, the shadows themselves seemed to detach from the trees and move toward them.

A towering tree giant, nearly ten meters tall, stepped into the dim light.

Its body was a horrifying construction of knotted, ancient trunks, with faces half-buried in the rough bark, distorted masks of agony that seemed to shift as the creature moved.

This was the Treant.

It didn’t roar; it creaked, a sound like a ship’s hull breaking apart in a storm.

Without a moment’s hesitation, it swung a massive arm, a limb the size of a battering ram, down at them in a crushing blow.