Sometime later—
Solaris had finally reached the 49th layer of the forest.
All around him, the air felt heavier, thicker with the scent of rotting leaves and raw mana. Giant, walking Monster Trees lumbered behind him, their twisted trunks groaning with each step. Their gnarled faces, carved into bark like nightmares made flesh, glared with empty, hollow eyes. Ahead of him, countless others stood waiting, each one a grotesque caricature of horror straight out of a dark comic—faces contorted in eternal screams, mouths open wide as if to devour him whole.
Whenever they lunged with their thorned vines or swung their massive limbs, he moved like water. Smooth. Effortless. A single slash of his sword, and their limbs, vines, or entire trunks were shredded into thousands of pieces, falling like chopped firewood around him. Not a single tree managed to graze him.
Solaris thought as he ran, leaping from one broken branch to the next, landing silently on moss-covered roots: This layer… this layer has far more Monster Trees than the ones below. The density is insane.
But they were all the same—ugly, loud, horrifying in appearance, but weak beyond belief.
It was like every layer of the forest added a little… flavor. Below, they were simpler. Here, they were grotesque, more animated, their bark faces twisting and contorting like something out of a horror comic—but still, the same brittle bodies.
They're all the same. Weak as hell. Walking firewood pretending to be monsters, he thought with a smirk, sliding his sword through the next vine with precision. Every single one of them wants to be chopped.
---
His thoughts were interrupted—
He hadn't even realized it, but they were already coordinating. The Monster Trees around him, dozens of them, were no longer acting alone. They moved together, forming a tight circle. His eyes widened—not out of fear, but from mild annoyance.
Then, with absolutely zero warning, they all jumped at him simultaneously. Every gnarled trunk, every thorned vine, every grotesque, screaming face lunged like a coordinated army.
Solaris's expression didn't change. Calm. Cold. Unmoved.
He gripped his sword tighter, letting the familiar weight settle into his hand.
"Nah, bro," he muttered, his voice low but dripping with confidence. "Nah… I'm not in playing mode today. Don't waste my time. Go give me the highest rank Monster Trees already."
For a fraction of a heartbeat, he paused—just enough to let them fully commit to their attack.
Then, Solaris moved..
He spun. And spun. And spun.
The air around him tore apart, leaves and dust caught in the violent motion, forming a tornado of silver and cyan energy. His sword became a blur of steel, slicing through the air with a sharp, whistling roar.
In an instant, the forest shook. Every Monster Tree in his immediate vicinity was shredded. Bark, wood, vines, and leaves exploded outward in countless pieces, raining down like a brutal, precise storm of sawdust and debris. Not one survived.
It was over before it even began.
Solaris stopped spinning, letting the tornado dissipate naturally.
In his head, he muttered, "What was this technique called again…?"
He scratched the back of his head, frowning slightly. "Ah, doesn't matter. Forgetting the name won't hurt anyone."
From his belt, he pulled a small pouch—a compact, pouch-type bag—and slung it across his shoulder.
"Might as well collect their stones too. At least if I don't run into the highest-rank Monster Trees, I can say I tried my best. That's a fair excuse, right?"
With that thought, he started walking casually toward the deeper part of the forest. The broken trunks and shredded vines from his tornado technique littered the path, but he paid them no mind.
"I still don't get it," he murmured under his breath. "How does Father pull off something like that so easily? My head is still spinning a little from my own moves, and he does it without even breaking a sweat… unreal."
---
Solaris walked a few more steps and suddenly stopped in front of a shimmering barrier-like wall.
Curious, he reached out his hand—but it passed through as if the air itself had no substance.
He frowned and tilted his head, mentally analyzing the phenomenon.
"Hmm… calculation complete," he muttered to himself. "This has to be the entrance to Layer 50. But… the atmospheric conditions, the mana density… it's completely different from the last layer. Interesting."
A slow, mischievous grin spread across his face.
"Highest-rank Monster Tree… I'm coming for you, friend."
With that, he stepped forward and passed through the barrier.
The moment he entered the 50th layer, the ground shook violently. A skeletal arm burst from the earth, followed by another, until a full undead skeleton clawed its way out. Its hollow eye sockets glowed faintly red, and its bony fingers flexed as if testing its own existence.
It started moving toward him, and he stopped in his tracks, lowering his jaw slightly. His mind whirred in disbelief.
Then he noticed its speed—or rather, the lack of it. Every step forward was painfully slow, as if it were wading through molasses.
"Wait… is this undead really trying to attack me?" He thought, blinking at the creature.
"Seriously? Is it a descendant of a turtle or something?!"
In the back of Solaris's mind, he imagined an invisible knight standing behind the skeleton, shaking his head in shame, hiding his face under his helmet. "Oh, come on, even a training dummy moves faster than this…"
---
Despite the absurdity, Solaris kept his guard up, he didn't even bother to hesitate. With a simple, clean strike, he smashed the first skeleton monster's skull. Its bones crumbled and scattered across the forest floor like brittle leaves.
"Alright… now I can start scanning the area properly," he thought, stepping carefully over the remains. The forest around me felt eerie—like a town built entirely for the dead. Gravestones, broken branches, hollow echoes.
Almost immediately, another skeleton—same humanoid form—shambled into his path. He sighed, lifted his sword, and smashed its skull without any ceremony. "Seriously… are all of these undead extras or something?"
By the time Solaris reached the 56th layer, he was still trudging through the forest, searching for the so-called high-level Monster Trees. Instead, he kept encountering the same skeleton-type undead.
"In the 50th layer, I was meeting one skeleton every 100–200 meters," he calculated mentally. "Now? Five to ten in every 100 meters. Honestly… I'm starting to feel sorry for them."
As he was thinking, a skeleton suddenly lunged at me from behind, brandishing a dull, rusted sword. He didn't even flinch—just sidestepped it effortlessly, letting it swing past harmlessly, leaving it alone as he moved forward.
His cyan-blue eyes softened, following his steps as he moved forward, "How pitiful… they don't even have proper weapons. Who could possess such cruelty to make these poor things fight?"
But then, behind him, without his noticing… something strange began to happen. The skeleton that had attacked him moments ago—its body started to blur, lines of light running along its bones, shimmering like a dash of pure energy.