Chapter 414: Eat or Be Beaten

Their progress through the jungle was slower than they had hoped as, despite their best efforts to hide themselves, plenty of predators still stumbled across them in their travels.

It almost seemed as if the whole jungle was out to get them, but in reality that was just the law of the jungle at work. It was eat or be eaten, and as the latest delicacy on the menu, everything from the smallest tick to the largest carnivore was eager for a taste.

Unfortunately for them, it was not an easy meal, and Belladonna was more than eager to use every new comer as a chance to test out her new Glyph’s.

A pack of Platinum Wolves, the beasts that had fur of pure metal, barked at each other as they surrounded their prey. They tried their best to keep order amongst the pack, relaying orders amongst each other, but their structure was rapidly failing.

The strange pulling force tugged at one of the wolves, trying to drag it’s body across the ground towards the six armed demon.

The wolf dug in its claws, holding strong against the force and fighting it with everything it had. It was a valiant effort, and it actually worked. It was just a shame that Belladonna did not do the same.

She came lunging out of the brush like a maniacal spider, the magnetic force surrounding her body drawing her right towards the wolf.

Two golden hands immediately clamped over the wolves mouth before it could attempt an attack. Cancelling the magnetic field generated around her body, Belladonna flipped over the wolf with the momentum and grabbed its hind legs with her other pair of golden hands.

She heaved the Wolf over her head, and with one mighty pull tore it in two, showering herself in the iron delight hidden within the Platinum Wolf.

More Wolves lunged at her as she discarded the halves of their pack mate, but their snarling maws soon had golden fists shoved into them.

One of them allowed to gnaw uselessly at the arm, whilst another had its jaws held open by a pair of golden hands. Even with their powerful, bone snapping jaws and flesh rending teeth, the Wolves could do very little against her new arms.

After all, they were more than just manifestations. They were a strong barrier spell given a useful, moldable form. They were as robust as they were strong. It was like she had Lucy’s arms attached to her back.

She twisted the neck of one of the Wolves until she heard a satisfying crunch, before lifting the second wolf into the air and slamming it down over and over, until it stopped making a sound.

Something soft and wet splattered against the back of Belladonna’s head, before a sweet and watery juice trickled down her back and mixed with her hair.

She slowly turned her head, a hateful glower aimed at the tree tops, where a four armed, pig nosed primate was bouncing happily and laughing at her, as were dozens of other similar monkeys that were filling the upper branches of the jungle.

These things had been harassing them for a while. They were no threat, but they were incredibly annoying and seemed to revel in expressing that annoyance onto others. If she had to guess which God had created such an awful and hate inducing creature, Belladonna had no doubt in her mind that such a thing belonged to Sylvi.

Still, that relationship wouldn’t save it.

It plucked another fruit from the tree top next to it, and lobbed it at her head whilst cackling to itself. This fruit she caught, crushing it in her hand and letting the sweet and sticky juices trickle to the ground.

The next fruit that came her way, simply passed through her body as she dissolved into shadows.

The primate squealed in delight and spun around, leaping off of the branch to make its escape after its mischievous fun, only to leap right into the waiting hands of Belladonna.

One golden hand around its throat, the another two holding its much smaller arms together. Belladonna held it like that with utter disdain as she stood on platforms of solidified air.

With an extra push of mana into the Glyph’s on her feet, she glided forwards and stepped onto the branch that the monkey had leapt from as she cracked her knuckles.

The Glyphs on her knuckles flared to life, as her arms became covered in flecks of dirt. The earth infusion that she was channelling into her arms was drawn out by her knuckles, forming four spikes of pure stone like brass knuckles.

The primate let out a pathetic whine, and Belladonna smiled wickedly, as she started to use her new punching bag. Her fists slammed into its pathetic little body, cracking its bones and tearing open its fuzzy flesh.

Perhaps she went a bit too hard on the poor little thing, but in her defence it was incredibly annoying, and part way through she had started to imagine this ugly, pig nosed monkey was LusciousLox.

Hard to be blamed for that, they looked nearly identical.

When she was done beating, Belladonna placed her hand on the monkey’s head and channelled mana into the Glyphs on her fingertips. It’s body writhed in her grasp, lightning crackling through its nerve endings and cooking it within, before she tossed the charred, broken and mangled monkey to the side.

She glared at the rest of them, which were staring at her in abject horror, before they dropped the fruits that they were holding and scrambled across the branches for their dear lives.

Dropping down next to Figg, Belladonna straightened up and dismissed the golden arms as she let out a sigh of relief. A satisfied smile spread across her lips, even despite the heat that was still assaulting her and draining every last ounce of sweat out of her body.

The blood shower, which still coated her body, definitely helped though.

"Feel better now?" Figg asked with a laugh, as he searched the wolf corpses for any source remnants, eventually pulling out a pair of fist sized, pure silver crystals, which he promptly tossed to Belladonna.

"Much better. I really needed that, you know?" Belladonna laughed back, stashing the crystals in her Shadow along with a few of the more intact bodies.

In her eagerness for her ’tests’, it was possible that she had gone a touch overboard in killing these things and had not considered the quality of the pelts that eagerness would leave.