Chapter 20 The Creak Of The Forest
*SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH*
A terrifying screech left the open maw of something terrifying.
It could not have been the woman's scream, right? Her body had been impaled so many times that I'm pretty sure that no human in existence would be capable of moving from that.
How wrong could I have been?
To think that even 6 days in I would continue to judge the creatures of this era with normal human standards.
These things weren't humans. Hell, I wouldn't be wrong to question if they were even mortals like you and me.
These things simply weren't human or any kind of normal mortal. And even though it might sound repetitive, it is true. They were something beyond human comprehension, something I could on,y understand later on.
For now, however, I could not help but shiver at the screech, as if my entire being was screaming for me to run away.
Since I could hear her footsteps now, it meant that she has her old body back and therefore also indicated that my fate was sealed.
Fighting the body and head individually was hard enough, imagine trying to fight this creature when it's back to its original shape and form, and on top of that, the creature happens to be really angry at me for eating its fruit?
However, I did not let this dissuade me from running fast, faster than I had ever run before.
Even faster than the time, I found myself running from the lizard beast that got decapitated by the flying creature from before.
My eyes had already begun to shine with a dim gold while my every cell was filled with a golden radiance.
It was invigorating and even felt slightly warm and cozy, but I simply did not have enough time to think about such things.
I used all the power in all my cells to run even faster.
Faster and faster.
This was going to be it!
I was going to survive!
I didn't know why I was so happy at that moment, just a few days ago I wouldn't have minded dying on the spot.
But now I was happy?
Like everything in life though, I did not get time to contemplate my existence and only ran for my life, and for the first time, I actually began to outpace the woman.
IT was then that I began to recognize the landscape around me, remembering it as the route I had taken when following the red monkeys and also really close to the place where I had fought the wolf.
'Maybe I should try losing them? But they would find me really quickly though... I don't even have anything that could properly damage them either. The closest thing I got to damaging them was through friendly fire, yet even then I can't really go the friendly-fire route when there are only 2 of us left.'
Cursing under my breath, I quickly shuffled through my brain trying to find a solution to my current problem.
Right now the only thing I could do was to try my best to run, and even though that seemed a little unrealistic seeing how I most certainly will run out of stamina before the two that were coming after me, it was my only solution.
Finally, I felt an idea hit me like a truck while my eyes lit up like two little lightbulbs.
With the same grin on my face as before, I began running, dashing, and even climbing in random directions that did not correlate with what I had done before.
*Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid*
I heard the things hit the trees around me but I did not care.
All I cared about was dodging and moving with a grace that I could swear no one else on earth could have moved with.
Even ballerina's at this point might have had a hard time competing against the grace of my every movement, my landings seeming like the ones of a butterfly, and my dashes looking as smooth as a perfectly sanded ball.
However, despite being smooth and graceful with my every move, they were all still random.
*Thid*
*Thid*
*Thid*
The sounds still echoed in the forest, continuing to go on and on until they finally just... Stopped?
*ROOOOAAAAAR*
It let another roar. No. This wasn't the woman anymore.
The roar had come from above.
I craned my head back and looked up, allowing my eyes to meet the piercing hazel-green eyes of a creature that kept most of its body within the shadows.
The only thing that I could see of it which would have even told me it was there were its eyes, but I could already guess that this must have been the creature that was attacking me with the root-like tentacles.
I was not stupid though. It knew where I was and therefore meant that it was about to attack me and so I began to sprint in a random direction once again, yet this time much faster than my random jumps and bursts of running that I was doing before.
*Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid* *Thid*
I once again heard the thing hitting the trees but this time the hits sounded much more powerful. It was as if it was using all its power to create something that would destroy anything and everything within its path.
'I think I knew what you are...' I looked up at the creature in the shadows before looking back down at the woman who now had her head back intact, looking around with a confused expression.
'Seems like all of you are pretty stupid though.' I smirk crept up the corner of my mouth before finally bursting towards the woman.
As if she could hear my foot slam into the floor, she looked back at me allowing her to see my widening grin as well as an aura of confidence that I exuded like a solar flare.
I knew that the thing didn't see me as a threat, but at that moment I could see its eyes visibly widening while its face paled.
Its face has always been pale, but the difference this time could have been used as nightmare fuel.
Its face had become as white as milk and as smooth as a blank landscape that happened to have eyes and a mouth.
Watched as its hair sharpened and elongated, finally becoming long enough to shoot through the air and bend in every way possible.
Seeing this, I did not even need my dread to tell me where to dodge as I had immediately rolled to the left, allowing the hair to smash into the tree and this time, right through it.
'Goodbye.' I mused with an unreadable expression, the only real emotion within my eyes being the crazed hue of a victorious man. A man who had climbed out of the bottom of the food chain and was now running up it, kicking down anything that might stand in his way.
*Dishhh*
Without an ounce of hesitation, my remaining hand had grabbed onto the ax on my back and had swung it with all the power I could muster, something that in a situation like this was was a lot more than I would have expected. Similarly, however, this could have just been due to eating the fruit from earlier which might have given me more power.
My ax ripped through the air and smashed right into the trunk of the tree and exactly where the hair had pierced through.
I could feel that something was coming my way, but since the dread was extremely low, I ignored the feeling and committed to the ax swinging.
With one more ax swing, I felt a difference in how the ax entered the wood, and as if it was some kind of signal, I ran away the moment it had left the trunk of the tree.
*Kruk*
...
Everything was silent.
*Kruk*
*Kruk*
Nothing seemed to want to make a sound in that instant.
*Kruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurk*
The creak of the wood being bent shot throughout the entire forest.
I could feel hundreds of eyes lock onto our location, yet nothing could move, not even the person who was in the most danger at that moment.
Nothing could move except for me.
...
*SNAP*
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