Poincaré was in the palace and listened to the emperor's declaration of the legitimacy of his dragon slaying, as well as the praise from the entire court.
Then he and his two followers mounted their fast horses and headed out of the city.
The common sense of Gnostian people is that facing a giant dragon, no matter how many people there are, it is useless if there is no well-trained dragon slaying master.
No matter how many people there are, they are just adding snacks to the dragon.
Therefore, Poincaré only took these two people with him.
They took advantage of the early weather and planned to rush to the first camping spot.
…
When they saw an open area in the woods, they arrived at the camping site.
Poincaré saw that the sky was about to get dark, so he ordered: "Let's set up camp." Then he turned over and dismounted.
The two attendants immediately got off their horses, dragged the baggage, opened it, and got busy.
Collect scraps to build a bonfire, cook a simple hot soup with dry bread for Poincaré, tie up the horses and feed them hay.
Before they started slaying the dragon, these two attendants were much busier than Poincaré.
Poincaré sat on a tree stump with his eyes closed and meditative, holding the dragon-slaying holy sword in his arms.
The last light of day passed away little by little, and darkness finally enveloped the woods.
Only the fire not far in front of Poincaré was still wrestling with the darkness.
Suddenly, Poincaré heard some strange noises in the darkness.
That sound is different from the beeping sound of a burning campfire, the snorting sound of a fast horse, and the sound of bubbles rolling in a pot on a campfire.
The sound was like pulling out all the straw from a pillow at once.
Poincaré's eyes suddenly opened, he almost jumped up, and then he drew his sword towards the shadow behind him.
The two attendants who were still cooking became nervous when they saw him like this and drew their swords one after another.
They gathered around Poincaré, standing back to back with him in the shape of a triangle, watching their surroundings.
"Squeak!"
There was the sound of branches on the ground being broken.
With a high degree of concentration, Poincaré noticed immediately, and he immediately saw the source of the sound in the darkness.
That's a tree.
To be precise, it is a walking tree.
It was swaying, moving its thick roots, and rolling its entire body towards the Poincare trio.
Although it didn't howl at the three of them, everyone could feel that it was coming with bad intentions.
"It's... it's a tree spirit!" A servant said with a trembling voice, "This actually exists!"
Dryads are a kind of spirit in Gnostic legends. It is said that they will hide in the dense forests and mountains and attack travelers passing by.
They do not eat travelers directly, but wrap them up in their own roots, then use their roots to slowly drain the travelers of their nutrients, and finally eat them into dried meat.
Every Gnostic fell asleep listening to such stories as a child.
It can be said that the dryad is one of the childhood shadows of most Gnostians, so it is not surprising that the attendant is so panicked.
"Calm down!" Poincaré said solemnly.
"It must be afraid of fire. You two hurry up and make a few more torches. I'll hold it back first!"
The two attendants didn't have to face the tree spirit. They couldn't wish for it, so they hurried to the side to make torches.
At this moment, the tree spirit's tall body finally emerged from the woods.
Its body and even the mural-like lines on its trunk were clearly visible against the backdrop of the bonfire.
Its crown shook, and countless branches and leaves shot out from above, piercing towards Poincaré.
Poincaré waved the holy sword in his hand and danced it into a stream of light, blocking all the branches and leaves that were vibrating.
For a while, crisp knocking sounds kept coming.
And there was a faint sound of metal hitting each other.
Poincare's heart sank. It seemed that this legendary tree spirit was not easy to deal with. At least judging from the branches and leaves it shot out, its body was almost as hard as steel.
But even though it was a bit tricky, Poincaré was not too nervous.
While blocking the branches and leaves, he rushed towards the tree spirit with rapid footsteps.
His pace was extremely fast, and there was a vague sense of timing between the precessions. He had obviously been specially trained.
Therefore, even if the tree spirit, facing the approaching Poincaré, instigates thick tree roots to fly towards him, it can only temporarily curb Poincaré's progress, but cannot completely stop him.
His figure flickered, jumping between the tree roots that sprouted from the ground, and finally got close to the tree spirit.
He suddenly made a gash on the holy sword with his left hand. Blood immediately gushed out and seeped on the surface of the sword. A blazing light ignited from the sword!
Poincaré exerted all his strength and leaped into the air!
When the tree spirit saw Poincaré taking the initiative to stay in mid-air without support, he thought it was a good opportunity, so he pulled out his own tree roots and stabbed Poincaré like a steel spear.
If this stabbed him, even if Poincaré was wearing armor, he would definitely be severely injured!
And Poincaré suddenly waved the holy sword in his hand, and a sharp sword light slashed out from the sword body.
All the tree roots that came towards him were shattered into pieces in front of this sword light.
Then the sword light flashed across the tree spirit's body.
"Click! Swish——"
The tree spirit's body was penetrated by sword light, starting from the upper left corner near the crown of the tree to the lower right corner near the roots.
It was also completely cut in half!
The wildly dancing roots and vibrating branches and leaves suddenly stopped moving, falling to both sides like an old man who passed away.
The two attendants on the side held torches in their hands and stared blankly.
This tree spirit...is dead now? !
The two of them suddenly became excited. They were worthy of being masters of dragon slaying. Dealing with a monster was like chopping melons and vegetables.
An attendant crowded around Poincaré excitedly, pouring out compliments to Poincaré.
Another attendant looked at the torch in his hand, "These torches cannot be made in vain. I put them in my backpack. They may be useful when I get up at night."
But Poincaré was still holding his sword, and the vigilance in his expression had not disappeared.
"Don't put it away in a hurry, it's not over yet! I can feel the movement of the dryads around me!"
The two attendants panicked instantly, what else? !
As if to confirm Poincaré's words, several shadows swayed in the woods.
The outline of that body was nothing but a tree spirit, and there were quite a few of them.
The attendants immediately started to fight, and what was supposed to come finally came.
Now they had no excuse to make torches and had to face these Gnostic childhood nightmares.
They lighted the torches and used the firelight to give themselves a little courage.
An attendant also handed Poincaré a torch, but Poincaré did not take it.
If he wanted to use his sword's power, he had to rely on the blood on his palm, so it was inconvenient to hold a torch in his left hand.
"One, two, three..." An attendant looked at the shadow of the tree spirit swaying in the woods by the flame of the torch.
