I'm a Immortal Tavernkeeper, But My S-Rank Daughter Doesn't Know That!

The Aberrant roared in fury and pain as his arms fell off, but in the blink of an eye his arms regenerated, creating muscles, forearms and fists as quickly as a creature was capable of regenerating.

Victor clucked his tongue, envying such regenerative power, but at that moment, he realized that the Aberrant in general seemed to shrink considerably in size and mass as it regenerated.

"So, does that mean you have a regeneration limit?" Victor asked aloud.

The monster, desperate, launched itself towards Victor with a disorganized lunge, trying to grab him this time.

Victor quickly dodged the Aberrant and saw an opening to attack his opponent, so he decided to take advantage of it. With one swift movement, he advanced with his sword towards the monster, taking advantage of the split second in which the Aberrant was off balance due to the failed attack. His sword sliced through the air with a cutting sound, aiming straight for the creature’s chest.

The blow was accurate. Victor’s blade pierced the Aberrant and tore a huge gash in its chest, slicing through the wooden muscles that were quickly trying to regenerate.

The monster flapped its hands to try and crush Victor like a mosquito in mid-air, but Victor spun forward, drove his sword into the Aberrant’s chest and began to descend, tearing the monster apart from the chest down to the nether regions, which for being a monster there was nothing in.

Victor landed gracefully and firmly, his eyes fixed on the monster that was now writhing on its knees, desperately trying to heal its wounds.

Pyaxu was watching the intense battle between Victor and the Aberrant, so he gripped his sword tightly. His gaze was a mixture of respect for Victor’s skill and indignation at himself for not being as strong as that formidable warrior in front of him.

"He’s... incredible." Pyaxu muttered to himself.

Riggilo, the cleric, was right next to him and, at the same time as Pyaxu was being impressed by Victor, Riggilo was holding off a horde of Duplicate Blights with a small magic shield.

"Hey, Pyaxu! Can you give... a hand here?" Riggilo asked.

Pyaxu snapped back to reality, shook his head and focused on his own battle.

"Oh, yes, of course! I got it!"

Riggilo hesitated briefly, but let the barrier fall and stepped back.

Pyaxu took the lead in the battle against the Blights again, and felt the tension of combat reverberate through every muscle in his body quickly.

The Duplicate Blights were problematic to deal with, because every time one of them was split in half, or even seriously wounded, it split and so one of them turned into two, like a plague that multiplied before the eyes of the combatants.

To prevent the enemy numbers from becoming alarming, Pyaxu knew he had to be quick and precise, not only to protect Riggilo, but also to prevent the situation from becoming even more chaotic. He had to cut down only those who were deeply needed, otherwise he would just drive them away with kicks or thrusts that didn’t hurt as much. The problem with this tactic was that the numbers didn’t decrease either.

Luckily, as Pyaxu’s sword sliced through the air, he felt a gust of wind accompanied by a soft whisper and suddenly arrows started raining down from the sky, hitting the creatures with deadly precision, but not killing them but driving their feet into the ground like nails.

Pyaxu wasn’t surprised by the unexpected help. In fact, he had counted on it. The archer Orie was someone he could always rely on.

Pyaxu redoubled his efforts, slashing with even more ferocity and speed, coordinating his movements with the rain of arrows to maximize the impact against the Duplicate Blights.

After some time being protected by Pyaxu, Riggilo finally finished the conjuration he needed to do.

"... From the radiant forge of faith, a luminous armor rises, shielding with celestial grace in every battle’s embrace."

At that moment, a shimmering light began to shine around the cleric, forming a resplendent barrier that, from the staff, pushed the Duplicate Blights away.

This was a great sacred barrier in the shape of a cube, capable of repelling any monster inside and keeping them away for some time.

Therefore, the sacred barrier conjured by Riggilo had expelled all the Blights in a five-meter area and was preventing them from entering. On the other hand, the sounds of everything that was happening outside the barrier were also canceled out. Thus, a tense silence hung in the air and was interrupted only by the sound of the hunters inside the barrier.

Pyaxu fell to his knees, exhausted. "Ha... Ha..." He gasped, but with a smile on his face. "I’m amazing too." He muttered to himself.

The cleric approached him, a little out of breath too. "Yes, we are. Now, we need to finish the job."

Riggilo then looked behind them and saw that, as expected, the oak tree had ended up inside the great barrier he had conjured. The oak tree in front of them, and in the center of the clearing, pulsed with a dark energy, its roots extending through the ground of the clearing like spare tentacles.

Riggilo raised his wooden staff, and on top of the staff was a clock made of pure energy with the hands running. He looked at the clock and said:

"Pyaxu, that barrier will only last a minute. We have to finish off the nest now."

Pyaxu nodded, standing up with the support of his sword. "Let’s finish it off."

Together, they advanced a few steps towards the macabre oak in the center of the clearing. The ground around the trunk of this tree was marked by a dark aura visible as smoke, this was the corrupted essence of the magic tree itself.

Pyaxu felt a growing pressure in his chest, a sense of oppression that seemed to emanate from the oak itself. "That’s not good," he muttered to Riggilo.

The cleric nodded with a tense face too. "The energy here is intense. We need to be quick."

Pyaxu soon noticed something unusual: small cracks in the oak’s bark were where the evil aura was coming from, as if the evil that was consuming the tree was coming from the inside out. "Riggilo, I think the focus of this energy is inside the trunk of the tree."

Riggilo silently agreed, because he stopped walking, held his staff with both hands and whispered a few words. After a few moments, he opened his eyes and said:

"Yes, the whole tree has been corrupted from the inside out. It’s a shame to have to destroy the oldest tree in a forest, because they’re usually the ones with the highest concentration of magical energy, but there’s nothing we can do about it."

Pyaxu gripped his sword firmly. "Then let me do it. I’ll try to be quick."