Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 311: Cleave

Stanley saw the sword appear before him, pure white with no hilt whatsoever. It had a crossguard, but even that was so thin. It was an odd sword where the edges flickered constantly, as though the sword could not decide whether it wanted to be sharp or not.

It hovered in the air before him, swaying gently in the wind.

Stanley instinctively reached out with his hand and the sword moved toward him, laying on his hand. The moment he touched the sword, he could tell it was something unique. Something that one could not come across just anywhere.

The 3 that stood away from him looked stunned and confused as the light turned to the sword and fell into Stanley’s hand. It was only a moment later that the man named Stark reacted.

"No!" he shouted, immediately trying to control the roots try and slam Stanley onto the ground. He wasn’t sure if it would hurt him. He just wanted to get the sword off his hand.

It was annoying what had happened earlier with the rest of his roots. Because the open meadow had no tree to use the roots of, he had brought the roots along from the trees far away.

But somehow, those roots had all retreated back trees in the distance, and so he couldn’t use them anymore. He could only use what was here.

He slammed Stanley up and down, but Stanley’s grip on the sword didn’t loosen. Even as he was slammed, Stanley continued to try and swing the sword to cut the roots.

He managed to cut a few but he was moved around so much that he couldn’t reach the rest of the roots, not with his left arm not helping him curl up further.

His left arm was being more of a detriment at this point than any help at all.

’I hoped I could heal it,’ he thought. ’I hoped Emma could heal it, even if it was dead.’

Alas, it seemed that was not something he would be entitled to. There was only one thing left to do.

Stanley swung the sword when he was pulled back up, the sword leaving a white trail as it cut directly above his elbow. The sword was light, but at the last moment, it seemed to gain mass on its own as it cleanly cut through his arm.

Stanley fell to the ground, both arm and roots having been cut up. He rolled for a bit and got up, breathing heavily. He felt disoriented, no longer having a mass on one side of the body.

He didn’t give any thought to that. He needed to fight the two men in front of him.

"Get him!" the dark-skinned man shouted, letting the shadow wolves all jump at Stanley at the same time.

Stanley got into a low fighting stance and dashed forward.

The sword left a white trail once again as it cleaved through 3 of the wolves at once. He stopped and spun as he cut through two more wolves.

The wolves vanished into a puff of black smoke, disappearing as though they were never there before. Stanley felt something enter him when he destroyed the wolves.

’Soul!’ he thought, feeling the power that he gained from destroying the wolves. There were souls trapped within these wolves.

It reminded him of the crawlers back in his town. That too had been things that held in the souls of others.

Stanley felt anger burn within him like never before. The hatred he held for these things was not something that could be quelled right away, but he chose to free them nonetheless.

He moved, going from all the wolves one after another. He couldn’t stop time at the moment, so he had no control over where he was and how fast he was going. He had to work with basic instincts to stop and attack.

He cut through more wolves, easily destroying them all. By the time he was done with the wolves, the dark-skinned man had run off to the edge of the forest once again.

Most likely intending to hide.

Stanley wondered if he should follow him, but that was not the time right now. He looked up, hearing the sound of the carrier that came toward the center of the grassland.

He felt something attack him from behind and turned around right in time as the roots came for him once again. His hands moved, cutting through all the roots as they came, chucks of wood landing all around him.

Stanley then looked toward the man who controlled the roots and rushed toward him.

The man acted immediately, controlling the blades of grass around him to create a whirlpool which he sent toward Stanley.

Stanley cut through the blades of grass, but it was not something that could be stopped just by stopping it. The grass began landing on his face, on his mouth.

It began shoving itself into him, beginning to suffocate him. There was enough in his eyes that he couldn’t see anything either.

With a single arm, Stanley couldn’t clear away his eyes either. If he let go of the sword, there was no telling how the man would use the roots to take it away.

Stanley kept his mouth and nose shut, no longer breathing anymore. He needed to kill the man before he needed to breathe again.

Just then, Stanley felt something coming from behind him. He ducked and swung behind, hitting something metallic. He heard the clang from the clash and the shriek of a woman.

’What the hell?’ he couldn’t help but think. Since when was there a woman on the battlefield?

He could swear it was just the two men. ’She must’ve been in hiding,’ he thought and tried to attack her, but he couldn’t follow her. He couldn’t see anything and even his ears were filled with grass by now, so he could only hear muffled sounds.

He didn’t know what to do anymore. He needed to know where the opponent would be, but none of his senses helped him.

And his oxygen levels were getting lower and lower by the second.