Brand attacked the spider repeatedly, but all of his attacks were blocked by the spider.

When the spider freed itself from the powemarph's tail, it jumped several meters up and tried to crush Brand.

He saw this coming and immediately dashed to the side.

When the spider landed, he threw his sword at its head with all his might and immediately started running toward it.

*Ding!*

The spider caught the sword with its mouth.

However, Brand was already in full swing towards him. Dodging its two front legs, he grabbed the hilt of his sword and thrust it into the spider's head.

All of his longsword went inside the spider's mouth.

As the spider's body stiffened, he raised his sword and crumbled its head.

"More to come…" Brand looked gloomily at the spiders descending from the trunk of the tree.

The powemarph's long, broad tail became longer but more slender. It struck one of the incoming spiders like a sharp whip, causing a part of its body to be torn off.

Brand sighed when he saw the scene and charged towards the spiders.

After a long struggle, all the spiders there were killed by the two of them.

Brand had been fighting incessantly for a long time, and he plunged his sword into the ground and kneeled down to get some rest. However, the powemarph came near him and began pointing at the tree with its tail. Then it rushed to the tree.

"What is it trying to say?" Brand frowned slightly. He got up from the ground and followed it.

Powemarph went to the tree and pointed to a strange crust in the center of its hideous trunk.

"What is that?" he frowned.

As he examined it more closely, he thought that this crust looked like a glass layer with a jet-black tumor inside.

The powemarph swung its tail through the air and struck directly into the crust, but it was unaffected in the slightest.

Brand got that what the powemarph wanted was to destroy that crust. He drew his sword and swung it to crush the crust.

With a loud rumble, his sword landed on it, but his thrust repulsed violently.

His move couldn't even cause a scratch on it!

"How can it be so hard!?"

Gritting his teeth, he thrust his sword into it with all his might, hoping to pierce it this time.

However, the tip of his sword did not pierce the crust by even an inch.

"Will I have to use my willpower?" Brand roared and began thrusting his sword with willpower.

A few moments later, with a resounding sharp crackle, the crust pierced, and his sword plunged into the trunk of the tree.

The tree began to tremble and shake non-stop as black smoke began to gush out of the crust. His eyes widened when he saw the black flames spreading from the trunk of the tree to its branches and from its branches to its leaves.

In a short time, the black flames completely engulfed the tree, and not even its ashes remained.

The powemarph came in front of him and made a few gestures as if it wanted to say something. However, he did not understand what any of these gestures meant. Moreover, he had no idea what was going on. He had managed to destroy the huge tree, but what was the point?

"I had to use some of my willpower to destroy that tree."

Brand's expression darkened as he looked at the powemarph in front of him. He did not know when the Test would end, and he was aware that his willpower was dwindling.

After turning around a few times, the powemarph began to run.

Brand desperately followed it, not knowing what else to do.

****

"Dammit! Dammit!"

Brand's expression was quite ugly as he made his way through one of the wide paths of the maze.

Not long ago, he had destroyed the fourth tree, and this had weakened his willpower even further. Part of his mind thought that the powemarph next to him was actually a trick of the Test and his goal was to make his willpower dwindle.

But on the other hand, when he thought of the times he wandered aimlessly in the maze, he admitted that he had no other choice.

He sighed heavily and looked up at the sky. There had been no change in the sky since arriving in this damned place. It was as if the operation in the sky had somehow stopped when there was a solar eclipse.

When he and the powemarph next to him came to a crossroads that connected to several different roads in the maze, he saw that one of these roads was covered with a crimson mist. This was an anomaly he had never seen before, so he gathered his full attention and began to act cautiously.

Without a second glance, the powemarph rushed straight to the crimson mist-covered road.

Brand followed right behind him.

When they reached the end of the long and wide road, they saw another tree. However, this tree was completely different from its predecessors. Its trunk, branches, and leaves were all black; there was a kind of crimson aura moving around it as if a snake were hovering in the air.

The black tree was shorter in size than other trees inhabited by spiders and was generally smaller in size. Its roots, sprouting from its back, enveloped the huge wall behind it like a sea of ivy. On these arms were strange organisms that looked like large tumors, with red and black fumes coming out of them.

*Ding!*

A loud, tinkling sound of unknown origin engulfed the entire maze.

The crimson aura swirling around the tree engulfed its many branches, and those branches lost their stability and began to curl and lengthen like hundreds of snakes attached to its trunk.

"What the hell?" Brand's face turned pale as he observed this strange tree.

The powemarph twisted its body strangely, and suddenly its body began to expand. Dozens of queues appeared behind it, all stretching to tens of meters.

"Bastard! If you could do it, why didn't you do it before?" Brand hissed inwardly after he had shaken his momentary surprise.

The powemarph swooped into the tree and began attacking it with its tails.

The crimson branches of the tree moved, leaving traces of color in the air, and collided with its tails. As a piercing sound that disturbed the ears began to echo in the air, air currents that could be felt in the environment emerged.

In just a few seconds, the powermarph was already coming under overwhelming pressure. Its tails could not resist the dozens of crimson branches of the tree.

Gritting his teeth, Brand drew his sword and began to run toward the tree. When the tree realized that it was moving, its black leaves snapped from it and they flew toward it in a whirlpool dance in the air.

"This is bad!"

He knew that these leaves were not ordinary and should not stand against them. With a sense of danger rising within him, he rolled forward and continued for several meters without stopping.

Over a hundred black leaves pierced the ground, cutting through the air.

Although he reacted early and took action, a few leaves hit him as he rolled and mercilessly pierced his skin.

"Argh!" Brand couldn't help but groan at the sight of leaf cuts, which caused much more pain than ordinary cuts. He quickly pulled out a few leaves that had stuck to various parts of his body.

The three branches of the tree rushed towards him relentlessly.

He parried the branches with his sword and dashed towards the trunk of the tree.

He could see the malignant black crust on its trunk.

When the tree realized he was getting close to its trunk, it directed some of its branches toward him, which it had used to attack the powermarph.

The powemarph became independent of the tree's branches and began attacking the tumors after climbing up the spreading roots against the wall behind.

Against the crimson branches ripping through the air, Brand twisted his sword nonstop on his wrist and began slicing through the scarlet branches. The tree trembled violently and directed no more branches at it.

He suddenly turned all his focus to the powemarph, which had already escalated to its roots.

A few branches that Brand had chopped had fallen to the ground and blackened as if they had been burned in a fireplace. However, the tree regenerated its felled branches with incredible speed and was restored in just a few seconds.

All the branches of the tree violently charged at the powemarph and completely engulfed its body after deflecting its tails. Then, the branches began to pound it to the ground with a force that shook the entire region.

"Here's the chance!" he rushed toward the crust on the trunk of the tree. Using some of his willpower, he began to deliver successive cuts and thrusts to the crust.

However, he failed to do enough damage to it.

The tree trembled with anger, and its trunk curled a little like plastic. Then, with the extra momentum it got from the curving of its trunk, it directed many crimson branches towards him.

"Shit!" Brand cried out with a sense of crisis rising within him and blocked the branches with his sword. But the attack was fierce enough to break through his defenses. The crimson branches crossed his sword and slammed into his body violently, blowing him several meters back.

Blood gushed uncontrollably from his mouth as he swung back in the air.