The atmosphere as we reached near the boundary of the core region. Everyone felt little heavy as they saw woods in front of us. This feeling nothing to do with the surrounding, it’s all mental as we all heard about how dangerous is the core region. Every step had to be taken carefully, the slightest mistake could cost one his life. With Max and Rachel lead we entered the wood of core region. I took a step inside the woods with rest, inside the woods some kind of feeling enveloped me, it is not uncomfortable but also not comfortable. It had the same flavor as foreign energy of the forest, it’s just that the feeling is little dense. I kept my sword activated like everyone else for any monsters sneak attack. Everyone on their nerves, they would swing their swords around for a slight moment, many people injured people beside them this way. I am feeling little weird, we have been walking inside for five minutes but we had not come across a single monster. Not a live monsters, we had not even seen bones of the monsters which are normally found in forest like this here are none. This makes this place even more fearful, not I even max had a serious expression which rarely seen on his face. I feel relieved knowing that my choice is right for not letting out Ashlyn seeing the max serious face. Although I promised her that I will let her out after I felt relieved enough, I had to promised that otherwise, she would have forcefully gone out without care for my permission. Before coming here, Rachel had supplied us with all the information she had on the core region of this forest. Both about terrain and monsters but she warned that she had less 5% monsters information and nearly all the monster we will encounter will be unknown. Its good thing that she had given us an encyclopedia of rare monsters which found in places like this and will be helpful fighting the monsters which are mentioned in the encyclopedia. ’Rustle...’ i heard slight rustle but when I look back, there is just leaves rustling on the tree but the weird thing is, there is no wind. ’’That really scared me!" Said jill with a self depressing smile, she is not the only one, I also lost my shit hearing the leaves rustle. We silently tread the woods without much talking, normally we always talk to pass the time and release some pressure we are feeling but this time I am having this weird intuition that I am surrounded in danger. ’’Ahhhh!" ’Ahhh! Ahhh!.......’ I heard loud scream behind me suddenly and before I could look back at the scream, another scream rose and then another. They were far to ahead of me to see clearly but they seem to be in entangled in something. ’Durrrr’ i heard something coming toward me swiftly from the back, without thinking I whip my sword at my back in an unnatural angle. It’s a good thing that my body had become very flexible due to the fruit of rebirth and those weird exercise of Night Blade Style that I didn’t feel any strain swinging my sword backward. "Shluck!" My sword hit something and when I quickly move back to what it is, I left dumb struct. it is brach, a thick tree branch that coming out the tree and that tree that branch is come from is shrinking at a visible rate. As it shrinks, it started to release the release its aura of Initial level of Specialist stage. ’’Fuck me!" I said as the tree shrank to twelve-meter size from its above fifty-meter height, they have their branches like arms and roots as legs. Two large pair of eyes and huge scary mouth with sharp wooden teeth and tongue. ’’What the fuck is this?" I shouted again seeing this tree monsters, trees all around started to change in treeman form. I’ve never seen or heard about t this tree man-like creatures. The plant type monster I’ve seen are either in a snake form or in veil form. ’Durrr!" It again released its branches again but this time instead of one like last time it has released four. ’Shluck’ I countered two with my sword and shield while dodging the other two. "Damn!" I cursed again as the branches I dodged and counted turned on me as they are alive. "Grrrr!" The treeman made some weird grating noise that left my ears buzzing to no end. It had released two more branches, I already had a problem dealing with t four branches that are attacking me like a snake and it had released another two. Six branches of Treeman flailing around me like poisonous snakes, not giving me any chance to attack. ’’Jill what the hell are these monsters?" I shouted loudly while surviving from the snakelike branches of trees. When I got a quick look at jill while I am dodging treeman monster branches, I was shocked. There are fourteen to fifteen branches of two freemen monster attacking her at the same time but she not only dodging them but also attacking them at the same time. "They are Treants" she shouted from afar. Treant? I thought they were myths, only exist in legends. I seem to read about it a few years ago, they are supposed to be tree monsters, a very peaceful type of monster. When I think carefully about it, they did match the description of the treant somewhat except for their violent nature. I kept dodging and will attack if I got the chance but it is very difficult. Its branches look quite tough but they are quite flexible, no matter how much I try, they will always hit me. The only saving grace is that is my body is quite flexible which help me quite a few of these branches. ’’Zurrr!" Suddenly it released its big league at me. Its tongue looks really frightening as it is barbed with thousands of wooden needle. If it really hit me them my condition wouldn’t be better than a bloodied porcupine.