The Time-Stop Breeding Uncle Wants to Retire – Chapter 77

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The cooldown still had about 40 minutes left.

This meant Hans had to avoid the polluted World Tree’s attacks for 40 minutes without using time stop.

A corrupted root that missed him by a hair’s breadth struck the innocent ground.

The ground shook as if there was an earthquake, and there was a sound like something melting.

When he turned his head, he saw the ground melting from the intense poison.

Well, he needed to correct himself.

For the next 40 minutes, Hans had to avoid instant-death attacks that would kill him in one hit, without using time stop.

Precisely, it was an hour, but time stop would come back after that.

It was maddening.

He felt like he was going crazy.

Muttering nonsense that even he didn’t understand, Hans barely managed to dodge the approaching World Tree’s attack.

The attacks themselves were simple, so dodging wasn’t difficult.

The problem was that he felt like he was going to go mad with fear every time he dodged an attack.

Understandably so.

Just one hit from that would mean instant death, but he couldn’t run away in this situation either.

Cluna had already started behind him.

Once she began, she couldn’t stop, and she would be defenseless during that time.

If Hans ran away here, the attacks would naturally continue to the next threat, Cluna.

Even for Cluna, if she took such an attack in a defenseless state…

In the worst case, she could die instantly.

If that happened, everything would be over.

He had no confidence in properly leading the Royal Knights in that state.

In other words, he had to endure somehow.

BOOM!!!

Another instant-death attack landed right next to him.

What would happen if he got hit by that?

Would his bones remain?

No, even his bones would probably melt completely.

The pain of flesh and muscles melting would be tremendous…

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“Damn it!!!!”

He was so frantic that he couldn’t even cry out for help.

Suddenly, the attacks became more intense.

As a result, dodging became very difficult.

Hans barely avoided the attacks, and that was by rolling on the ground.

There was no room to dodge elegantly.

He glanced towards Cluna.

She was still concentrating on the magic with her eyes closed.

In other words, this meant she couldn’t pay attention to whatever Hans did here.

If that was the case, there was nothing to hold back anymore.

It was time to show the power of the ultimate martial arts technique, Naryeotagon.

“Hup! Haah! Hut!!”

As he rolled on the ground in time with his abdominal breathing, the feel of the cold earth wasn’t bad.

It would have been even better if the World Tree’s roots weren’t striking right next to him.

He decided to ignore the sizzling sound of the ground burning.

He thought about continuing to roll like this, but soon stopped.

Because he ended up hitting his back on a rock.

Pain beyond imagination struck his back.

Hans barely got up while retching, and soon, a root shot up where he would have been if he had kept rolling.

“…Phew.”

If he had kept rolling, he would probably have become a World Tree special kebab by now.

Imagining that, he felt nauseous for a moment, but he couldn’t stay still.

It was because of the World Tree’s roots approaching to target him right now.

Hans frowned.

Could it only attack with roots?

No, there must be other ways.

As he was thinking that, he could barely see it.

The sight of the World Tree’s branches stretching towards him.

Only then did he realize.

Until now, the World Tree hadn’t been at full power.

Having consumed a lot of energy in the battle with Cluna, it only had roots left for attacks, and it had just barely recovered its branch parts.

In other words, the attacks would increase from now on.

“I’m screwed.”

While the roots whipped like lashes, the branches came sharply like spear blades.

He wasn’t sure, but there was probably poison in those branches too.

However, the poison didn’t seem that strong.

It was probably because it was a newly regenerated part.

This meant that the poison in those roots was the poison the World Tree had accumulated until now.

Was that level of poison here?

Could this be the demons’ doing too?

He had that thought briefly, but soon realized it was nonsense.

If demons had done this, they would have intervened long ago.

However, the demons were still not intervening and were ignoring the Elven Forest.

This meant the demons weren’t directly involved.

Then there must be some other reason.

“Ugh?!”

A branch of the World Tree flew at him like a dagger.

Its speed was so fast that he couldn’t react in time.

Hans only realized it when the World Tree’s branch had pierced his shoulder.

Blood splattered around.

He hurriedly tried to stop the bleeding with the hemostasis technique he learned from Yuren, but blood kept flowing continuously, staining the bandage he had tied around the wound red.

The bleeding wouldn’t stop.

He wasn’t sure if it was the effect of the World Tree’s branch or the potency of the poison in the branch.

But anyway, it was dangerous if he kept bleeding like this, he would die from excessive blood loss.

“Damn it.”

To minimize blood loss as much as possible, he tied the affected area as tightly as he could.

It felt like blood wasn’t flowing, but this was much better than dying from excessive blood loss.

There were only about 10 minutes left.

However, perhaps because he had lost too much blood, his mind was dizzy.

Still, he had endured a lot.

In 10 minutes, the cooldown would finally be over.

It was then that he had that thought.

Something felt ominous.

Why was the World Tree only attacking him?

Wasn’t Cluna the biggest threat here, not him?

What if all of this was a smokescreen?

As soon as that thought occurred to him, Hans instinctively turned his head.

Cluna was there, at a very far distance from him, and it had been quiet around them for a while.

That’s right.

The World Tree had pretended to attack him while deliberately keeping him at a distance.

So that even if it attacked Cluna, he couldn’t protect her, and now, the World Tree was moving.

Watching the root falling towards her head, Hans gritted his teeth.

He had no choice but to use it now.

Time acceleration.

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It was hundreds of years ago that she learned the true nature of the World Tree.

From the former Great Elder of the elves, she inherited the guardian’s mission to protect the World Tree and offer sacrifices.

The Great Elders sacrificed their own bodies.

The World Tree only accepted elves as sacrifices.

Was this perhaps a remnant of its memory from when it was once nature itself?

Or was it mocking its followers?

She still didn’t know the answer, but now she understood.

That no more sacrifices could be tolerated.

So she had argued this before, but regrettably, it wasn’t accepted.

The reason was that it would be difficult to maintain this forest without the World Tree.

They used elves with little lifespan left as sacrifices to make the forest prosperous.

[It’s not dying. It’s becoming one with the World Tree to protect the forest.]

If she had known that was the meaning of being a guardian… She would never have become one.

She despaired at the cold reality, but Cluna didn’t give up.

She would thoroughly destroy the World Tree.

Only that purpose remained.

If she hadn’t adventured with the first hero, perhaps she wouldn’t have thought differently from other elves, but Cluna had been on many adventures until now.

Although no companions remained by her side now, the realizations, knowledge, and experiences she gained then still remained, and the realization she gained as an adventurer told her.

If there was something that could only be obtained through sacrifice, it was no different from not existing in the first place.

That thought became one of the decisive reasons for her to try to destroy the World Tree.

Do elves need the World Tree to survive?

No.

Just by elves managing it, the forest can sufficiently continue its lifeline.

It was just that what had been done until now remained in the name of tradition, strangling their necks.

Of course, problems might arise when the World Tree disappears.

But should they continue offering sacrifices as they had done until now?

Recently, even the cycle of sacrifices had greatly accelerated.

In the end, there were few Great Elders left, and the Elders reached a situation where they sacrificed guardians to survive.

So, let’s destroy the World Tree here instead.

Honestly, she didn’t think it would be possible.

Especially after losing her family and becoming exhausted from the war with the demons, she ended up thinking she just wanted her daughter to survive at least.

In a way, she had unknowingly resigned herself.

Finally, Cluna opened her eyes.

She saw the figure of a man easily cutting down the World Tree’s root that had approached right in front of her.

The person who gave her hope, who showed her the way forward.

Was it just her imagination that she saw the first hero in his back view?

No, it probably wasn’t just her imagination.

Even after that, the Commander easily protected her from the World Tree’s attacks.

So now it was her turn.

The spell she had honed for hundreds of years, solely for this day.

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[Damn guess he boutta lose another thingy but for elf mommy its ok i support]