Chapter 124: From Prey to Hunter
Evan was running for his life.
The horde of those strange creatures behind him showed no signs of slowing down, and he was still desperately scanning his surroundings for anything he could use to shake them off.
Beside him, Seraphine floated effortlessly through the air as if this were a leisurely stroll. She watched the scene with what could only be described as mild entertainment.
"You know, if you keep running we’ll never get out of here," she said, as if that weren’t already painfully obvious to him.
"What else do you want me to do? Have you seen those things? I have no idea how strong they are, but I can already tell they’re not nearly as easy to deal with as they look," he shot back, not slowing down for even a second.
Seraphine shook her head.
"I already told you, if it were anyone else, they’d be completely powerless here. But that doesn’t apply to you." It was nothing more than a repetition of what she had already told him before.
"You’ll inevitably have to face these creatures. They’re everywhere. You can’t avoid them forever. Better to start now, while you still have the chance."
Evan thought about it for a second.
Then he glanced over his shoulder at the horde chasing him...
And immediately threw the idea away.
"Yeah, no. Those things will eat me alive if they catch me."
Seraphine said nothing. She simply shook her head again.
When she gave him that little demonstration of just how dangerous this place was, Evan had been standing on the hillside of one of the mountains in the Catskills.
With the appearance of those creatures, his escape route had been cut off, so he decided to head in the opposite direction, jumping off the hillside and hoping to shake them off.
Unfortunately...
The creatures apparently didn’t care.
Without the slightest hesitation, every single one of them jumped after him, as though the dozens of meters beneath them were nothing more than a small step.
He absorbed the landing with a burst of mana and kept running, the horde still on his heels. They had been at this for a while now, and then, finally, something changed on the horizon.
’Let’s see if I can lose them in there,’ he thought, eyes locking onto the vast expanse of forest ahead.
Towering trees.
Massive trunks several meters wide rose high into the sky, their canopies so dense they blocked out most of the dim light filtering through the blizzard.
It was the Catskill Mountains forest, or atleast what that forest had become.
Evan didn’t slow down.
The moment he hit the tree line, he bent his knees and launched himself upward.
Bang!
The branch shuddered violently beneath him, but he was already gone, onto the next one before it could fully flex.
In seconds, the ground had ceased to exist.
"Perfect..." he murmured, already half-convinced he’d finally shaken at least some of them.
The illusion lasted less than a second.
The creatures that reached the forest didn’t even break stride. Some pivoted immediately and began scaling the trunks with unsettling speed, their claws sinking into the bark like it was wet clay. Others did something worse, their bodies simply merged with the wood, sinking into the surface and re-emerging dozens of meters higher as if the trees themselves were part of their anatomy.
"Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me..."
It was clear he had celebrated too soon.
Even so...
Something had changed.
The forest had inevitably scattered the horde.
Between trunks, branches, and uneven terrain, the horde was no longer a wall at his back. They were spread out now. Separated. Dozens of meters between each one.
Seraphine’s words came back to him.
’Sooner or later, you’ll have to face them.’
Evan set his jaw.
"...Damn it."
His gaze landed on the nearest creature one of the ones that didn’t radiate that suffocating pressure of death. Probably around his level, or at least that was what he was betting on.
’Might as well give it a try.’
Instead of continuing to flee, he reversed direction entirely.
Bang!
The branch beneath his feet exploded as he launched himself forward. The creature had just leapt between two trees when it suddenly found its prey hurtling straight toward it. For a fraction of a second, something that might have been surprise registered in its movements, but it didn’t last.
Seeing him close the distance, it spread its claws and lunged.
Evan was ready.
In the precise instant the claws were about to connect, his sword carved a tight arc through the air.
Clang!
Flat of the blade against the creature’s forearm, trajectory completely redirected. The thing was still airborne, suspended between two points with nothing to push off of, no way to correct course.
Evan didn’t give it time to figure something out.
The sword snapped forward in a sharp thrust, driving the blade clean through its chest.
’Got you,’
He thought that would be enough.
It wasn’t.
The creature was still alive, its arms were still moving. The claws still coming.
"What the—?!"
He planted a kick squarely against the creature’s torso, using the recoil to rip the blade free and throw himself backward onto a nearby branch. Below him, the creature plummeted, the wound in its chest already beginning to close at the edges.
He watched it for a moment.
Then shook his head.
"Oh well... if that didn’t kill you..."
"...let’s see if this does."
The words had barely left his mouth when the creature’s body pulsed with a faint red glow.
Just for a fraction of a second.
And then...
Boom!
A deafening explosion erupted from inside its body.
Crimson flames burst through its chest, blowing the creature apart into a rain of charred fragments that scattered throughout the forest.
Evan watched without looking away.
The Ember Seed.
He had implanted it the instant his blade pierced the creature’s chest, just in case the stab itself wasn’t enough.
As it turned out, it had been a good call.
[Ding! You have slain a C-Rank (Early-Stage) Forsaken!]
[You have earned +50,000 ESS]