Okay, this guy is too big. Do I really need to kill him? I mean, Club was fun to hang around. What do I really have against this guy? Sure, he stole my kills, but other than the Orc who fucked up my now already destroyed puppet... Oh right... He destroyed my puppet, so he deserves death. Ugh.

  I spent the next few hours after sundown deliberating between killing the giant or not. In all honesty, I was trying to talk myself out of it. This giant was the first being to cause me to fear for my life. On one hand, I could probably get by with just pretending to be a normal tree, but on the other, I felt like I had a pretty good chance at survival if I attacked while he was asleep.

  But he tore through my puppet like it was nothing. Can I really do this?

  I went back and forth a few times before I remembered something. When the giant showed up, he attacked the puppet, thinking that it was the one attacking the Orcs. What would happen if I created a few more puppets and used those as fake foes for the giant to focus on? They didn’t have to even be detailed like the last one, just human shaped to draw its attention. It was dark enough that I wouldn’t be able to see much without my Domain of Awareness skill that lets me see everything in range.

  Now that I had a plan, I had to follow through before the sun rose. I started by making a few dummies way out by the edge of my vision. I made them vaguely humanoid, with two legs and two arms each. I made them in sets of two, with four sets at the four cardinal directions. These would be my main points of attack, but I also added two directly by the giant’s head, one on either side. Then I grew vines from the hands of each puppet, elongating them to be around 50 feet long. Then for some hopeful added damage, I added thorns to these new vines.

  I wish I had some poison to add too. That would have been a better use of my damn level up.

  I used almost 80% of my stamina to make all these puppets and their weapons, which really took a toll on me. I ended up using most of my Stamina Berries to recuperate the costs. It was an expensive endeavor, but it had to be done for my survival. I planned on going all out on this fight.

  As I prepared to engage, I thought about what else I could do to ensure my survival. As I examined the vines I made to use for the fight, I used my Vine Control skill to bring the vines attached to my main body up. I didn’t want my adversary to grab them by accident, thinking that the supposed normal tree was attacking it too. Then to make sure that it worked correctly, I used the same skill on the vines that originated from each of the puppets around me.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t count as vines, so the skill didn’t work. Since I had made the puppets out of the roots at the edge of my Domain, the puppets counted as roots, and the “vines” also counted as roots too. I could still manipulate them with Body Manipulation, but that costs Stamina, whereas Vine Control would have been free. Unfortunate, but damn I was glad I tested it before I started the fight.

  Let’s see, what else can I prepare?

  I went through my list of skills again and saw my Mana Circulation skill. This was a good reminder to activate that before the fight started. I also saw my various magics that I had at my disposal. I had earth, water, and mental available for the fight. It made me wish I had access to fire and air as well, as those would be a good addition to my arsenal.

  Since all the physical preparations have been made, it was now time to start the magical preparation. I started by turning on Mana Circulation and flooding the ground with my mana, going so far as to reach 4 feet under the sleeping giant. It stirred slightly as I did this, making me pause for a moment, thinking that the fight was about to start earlier than I meant for it to. Luckily, it was just rolling over onto its other side.

  Once the ground was properly saturated in my mana, I manipulated the root “vines” that my puppets carried and used them to wrap around the wrists and ankles of the giant. I wanted it as tangled up as possible. I had to dream of being able to draw and quarter it by myself, but I figured this could work to slow it down a bit.

  The giant snorted a bit when I made first contact with it, but it just scratched its left ankle and went back to sleeping. This made me go a lot slower than I planned, but I was determined to get it done.

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  After an excruciating 5 minutes of slowly wrapping around its limbs, I finally pulled the roots tight. The inch long thorns into its skin, drawing a bit of blood. It gave me a morbid idea, and I had my roots dig further into the giant. I spent a bunch of Stamina doing this, but the nutrients I got from its blood more than replaced what I spent.

  I had only a few seconds to dig into the giant before it woke up and started thrashing its arms and legs. My roots snapped taut, but they didn’t break, at least not yet. I kept the tension, making sure to keep it at a level that I can maintain without causing structural damage.

  My next move to incapacitate the monster was to shoot spiked through its arms. I used Earth Magic to force a spike of hardened rock through the middle of its arm, but the spike could only dig a few inches into the creature's bicep. It did cause a small trickle of blood to flow from the wound though. I quickly brought a few roots over to drink it up. I couldn't afford to let it go to waste yet. I needed all the resources I could get.

  Since going through the bicep didn’t work, I moved over to the elbow. Even if I could only go a few inches deep, I remembered how much getting poked in the funny bone hurt. I made another spike of hardened rocks, but poured in more mana to make it even denser than before. I wanted this one to hurt bad.

  I drove the spike through the elbow, and it went all the way through. And while I was sure that the giant was in horrible pain, it was still strong enough to yank its left arm hard enough to break through my trap. It brought its now free hand to its injured elbow and let out a mighty roar that shook my branches. It had to have some sort of skill behind that roar, because I was frozen in fear.

  With my attacks having stopped for the moment, the giant was able to free its right arm from the spike and its root trappings. But just as it was about to sit up for the first time since the fight started, I was freed from its fear skill. This left me free to bring the two puppets by its head into action. I had meant to use those two to wrap around the giant’s neck, but I was feeling more of a rush than I had thought and completely wasted that opportunity. But I guess better late than never, right?

  I thrust the two elongated roots forward and up to catch its neck and forced it back down. I used a bit more stamina to make the roots thicker than the others. I went so far as to use up the last of the Stamina Berries to do so.

  Right as the roots wrapped fully around the giant’s enormous neck, I made a rock spike right where its neck was on the ground. I had to force it up through a few Orc corpses it was using as its pillow, but it made it through. I spent half of my remaining mana making this the most dense rock spire I have ever made. When it was done being formed and hardened, I added a few barbs to its length. This way, even if it manages to survive, it would be stuck to the ground, unable to get up without causing even more damage.

  Now that I had the spike fully formed, which took only a second, I yanked hard on the roots around its neck. I moved the roots to create a hole in the formation right where the rock spire would hit, meaning that I wouldn’t have to cut through my own roots to get to its flesh.

  The giant fell back hard, and the spike went right through its neck. From what I could tell, I missed cutting through its spine, but I did do some serious damage. The fall of the giant caused some serious tremors around it.

  A veritable waterfall of blood came from the large hole in its neck. It let out a gurgled roar, which thankfully lacked the backing of a skill. It was still louder than I expected though. Its dying roar heralded the coming of three of its allies though. Fortunately, I was able to deal with the trio of Orcs with a quick flex of Mental Magic. Orcs were now nothing to me after this fight.

  When I got the notifications for the Orc deaths, I realized I hadn’t gotten the giant’s death notification. I used my Mental Magic again and felt its mind slowly fading. Despite it being close to death, it still had a larger mental presence than even the entirety of all the humans I have met so far. It made me realize how small I still was. Thankfully, I would be able to use its corpse as a nice resource packet, as its blood acted as an incredible fertilizer.

  I dug my roots into its body, using the wounds I had created in our battle as points of entry. I kept the roots thin, allowing me to reach deep into it without expending much in the way of Stamina. The further I reached, the faster I saw my resources refilling. Eventually, I had pretty much recreated its entire cardiovascular system with my roots, draining the monster of all its blood. Despite that, it had yet to fully die.

  Part of me knew that it was in horrible pain, as evident through the mental connection I had with it. I knew that I should kill it quickly to put it out of its misery. But the other part of me... The other part of me was growing at a previously unseen rate. As long as the giant was left alive, it continued to regenerate, making more and more blood, allowing me to drink from a seemingly endless pool of nutrients. I had already grown to 45 feet tall from this alone, my trunk reaching 6 feet in circumference. It appears that my height was starting to stagnate the longer I absorbed its blood, and the nutrients were going towards thickening my trunk.

  I resolved myself to allow for at most one day of drinking from this monster. That is, if it lasted that long. I really wanted to see how far I could stretch this growth spurt, but I also didn’t want to prolong its suffering for more than a day. I knew I was being selfish, but the growth this living corpse could provide me was astounding.

  It was just too good to pass up.