The Stonehearted Knight
Chapter 129: Through the woods

Chapter 129: Through the woods

"Let’s descend carefully. It will take half a day before we reach the first village."

Hex and Hestia nodded at Althea who took the lead in the subsequent part of the journey. She had journeyed through these parts the most recently among their group of three.

After descending a few tens of meters, Hex noticed bushes and sparsely growing small trees. Another hundred meters brought them almost to the flat ground. This is where the forest started.

Hex watched slack-jawed at the giant trees before him. They were easily over a hundred meters tall. Even though he heard about forests, he still felt intimidated by the unending line of trees. As soon as they entered the forest, Hex sensed the sun’s heat disappear.

Looking up, he noticed the sky disappear, leaving the tree crowns above. It wasn’t hard to move between the thick trunks. The coverage with leaves above didn’t allow much sunlight in the forest, making it hard for other plants to grow.

The ground was damp in many places, with moss-like growth everywhere. Some areas were slippery. Even the mountain goats used to traversing steep slopes and narrow ridges nearly went to the ground.

Now and again, Hex heard noises from beasts, some seemingly close, some far. Some of the beasts sounded extremely strong whereas others seemed weak.

Hex was on his guard. ’This place feels similar to the dark chasms inside the mountains. It’s dark and damp, and you can hear many noises but never the owner of those noises.’

"Shouldn’t we take a break somewhere? The mounts are almost done for," Hestia said suddenly. With a glance, Hex knew she was right. The goats seemed parched. They had been going for hours. These beasts were not equipped for continuous travel.

He was about to agree when they heard a scream. It was far but clear. They looked at each other, understanding each other instantly.

They urged their tired mounts toward the direction the sound came from. Luckily, the distance wasn’t great. They got near quickly.

Although they didn’t see the battle, the noises were clear. Hex heard human cries and a noise, resembling the mountain apes’ sound.

They dismounted and hurried through the line of short bushes, between them and the battle. With a few steps, they were out of the bush and finally saw the struggle.

A group of men stood in the middle of the clearing, fending off hundreds of demonic apes. The apes weren’t strong but neither were the humans. Hex sensed only a few men were at the Squire stage. The others were normal humans. They were protecting carts loaded with fruits and forest plants.

Hex noticed that the men were nearly out of energy. They could fall at any moment now. There was no time to waste.

"Attack!"

Hex shouted, lunging forward. His shout attracted the attention of the group of apes, luring tens of them toward him. Hex grinned. That had been his attention.

Almost thirty apes got close to him instantly. Hex didn’t flinch. Instantly a cloak appeared and wrapped around him. The apes were merely a meter away. He activated his newly learned technique.

Frost Dragon!

A dragon-like phantom appeared behind him. His dragon bear soul was a fusion of two souls. The frost dragon technique strengthened the Kobold soul more than the bear soul.

As soon as the dragon phantom appeared, the apes shrieked in panic. But it was too late. A flood of ice energy burst out of Hex, freezing all the thirty apes around him. Hex didn’t stop. He gathered his strength and activated his second blessing. His punch shattered the ice, destroying everything it had managed to penetrate.

Hex saw that most of the apes shrieked and wailed, losing a limb or two. Only a few had died.

’Tsk, my control is lacking,’ Hex thought unhappily. According to the description, proper execution of the ice freeze should have penetrated the apes completely.

Despite being unhappy, Hex didn’t halt his charge. He passed the apes on the ground and went for the ones ahead. Althea, who was just behind Hex, cleaned up after him. Her swift strikes pierced through the apes in a few seconds.

"Hold on," Hex said to the men, who looked relieved at his arrival. Their despair made a place for hope.

There were still hundreds of apes around them, growling at him. A few braves even jumped at him but were sliced in half with minimal effort from him. As a Knight, especially a strong one, Hex didn’t fear a few demonic beasts. He even could kill all the apes here but it would take too long. Luckily, he wasn’t alone.

The apes hadn’t noticed Hestia. Hundreds of snake-like vines grew around the trees the apes were in. When they discovered it, the vines were already wrapping around them.

With the apes bound, Hex jumped toward them, unleashing his Frost Dragon technique. After practicing a few times, Hex could easily turn ten to twelve apes into ice. Meanwhile, Althea went to the other side and practiced unleashing her spear rapidly, killing twenty apes in one move.

The men in the middle looked agape at the scene around them. Just a minute ago they had been on the verge of death. But out of nowhere, three people appeared and now the two kids seemed to be training with their attackers.

"Don’t mind them," Hestia smiled at them. "They are like that."

The men hurriedly shook their heads. One of the more elderly-looking ones stepped forward. "Miss, thank you for your help. We are just gatherers from Lasttown and were returning after days of gathering all the stuff here. If not for you guys, our town would face a shortage. Days of hard work would have gone down the drain."

"We are happy to help. Would it be okay if we traveled with you?" Hestia asked curiously. "We need a place to spend the night before continuing our journey."

"Of course," the man replied happily. "And don’t worry about a place to stay or food. We will make sure you are satisfied."

"Done," Hex said, joining them. He seemed content with the chance to train his technique. He had improved quite a bit.

The men looked shocked. The youngsters were too fast. When they looked around, they trembled at the carnage left. Corpses lay on the ground, on the branches, and dangled on vines.

But they still helped the Knights gather the cores. Demon cores were valuable and used as a form of currency. Hex also wished to experiment with them.

’The baron said I can use the monolith to increase my energy. But I have yet to try it.’

Soon the the men, accompanied by the Knights, left the area. The bloody carcasses remained where they were.

After a while, light footsteps approached the scene. The newcomer looked at the corpses with surprise.

"What happened here? The strings of fate showed the end of those people’s life. But they survived? How?"

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.