"These bastards hiding like cockroaches, the whole lot of them." An agitated voice rang out besides a lake with shallow patches of scorched grass. "It's been a month and we haven't caught all these rat bastards. Rebecca are you ready to go?"
"Jason, no matter how riled up you get, we still have a job to do but that quake was one hell of a surprise, wasn't it?" Rebecca spoke, a crazy grin etched onto her, dusting her amor she stood up, a great sword on her back.
"What about this idiot, bury him or feed him to the monsters?" Rebecca asked as she approached Jason, who had a blade of grass in his mouth. "Leave him of course, bury him? I will not stain the land of Aarus with the likes of him." Slight disgust soon replaced by seriousness as he said, "We have got to go and find the others soon before they meet up or these cockroaches will become that much harder to kill."
"Oookay, lets go." Behind them stood the magnificent figure of Ralph, his visage reminiscent of a war god. His standing headless corpse though mangled, a testament of his orc warrior pride.
"You know Jason you would be a great guy if you weren't so religious. It's kind of a bummer it's no wonder the ladies in the guild don't like you. What a waste of a handsome face." Rebecca said nonchalantly as they began another search. Jason missed a step on that remark but continued walking, nonetheless.
The Maldon thicket …...
"Haaaa, that fucking bastard, I am dead as soon as he catches me. At least I know where I am but the bad news is that it is the Maldon thicket." Maxwell murmured as he scoped his surroundings. After being in the forest for a month, he had enough information to deduce where he was and he gained more survival experience but his non-existent combat power left much to be desired.
After a couple minutes of silence, he advanced towards a cave. His clothes were rags, he kept clean though making use of the river streams spread out in the forest. His adventures had taken him far from the cave he initially discovered. He was sure he was the periphery of the territory of that midnight dream paw chimera.
He had encountered the chimera when he was searching for fruits, he had made it a point to battle less. So, he scoured for fruit instead, at first it did not attack only curiously watched him. But after witnessing a few of his battles the monster started attacking him randomly everywhere he escaped to. It's been ten days since then, he was constantly on guard so his stress levels were beyond the roof.
Inside the cave monster pelts adorned the inside of the cave, on a few occasions monsters had returned to the caves he slept in. His armor was shy of breaking apart, it was already in tethers.
"After I exit the chimera's territory, I will be in another monster's territory but at least the monsters there will be weaker." Contemplating each fight, he deduced the geographic distribution on beasts at least within his reach.
Capital city Raven, within the royal place.
"Have you found all of them Lennard?" A heavy voice questioned lace with exhaustion.
"No, my king but we have accounted for all those that went missing in the world tremor and found out roughly five thousand of them disappeared only to surface on various parts on the continent. We are tracking the position of the seals placed on them and our shadows and hired hands are extinguishing them as we speak."
"Good. I do not want any of those bastards alive and as if it wasn't worse now the awakened monsters within the Slumbering highlands are causing various monster tides to breakout in my domain." Emperor Edward spoke, "Keep the nobles on a tight leash, I do not want anyone of those rabid dogs taking advantage of the mess to stir up more trouble."
"Yes, my liege, I will be sure to monitor them." Lennard bowed his head exiting the confines of the palace. Though the responsibilities placed on him were many he made sure everything ran smoothly.
Edward reclined on the throne spacing out, he felt overwhelmed, the tremor had affected space so their summoning magic was disrupted and the people were restless due to shock and fear.
"Though we ought to have enough summons to survive for a while. Hopefully the enemy doesn't take advantage of this to pull further ahead. It's high time this war ended."
Unbeknownst to Edward things were about to escalate even further increasing his burden. Though he was not the only one ignorant of the dangers to come, hunters scoured the continent searching for those that disappeared from the frontline and war academies.
A week passed by and finally Maxwell was ready, looking past there trees he observed a trench, not too wide as long he crosses over, he would be out of the chimera's territory.
A bang resounded along with puff of red smoke that rose to the sky and dispersed in the forest, this was poison collected from red scorpions. Within the minutes monsters screeched, running towards the trench. What is the best way to run away from a powerful predator? Distraction.
A mini stampede occurred as monsters fled, Maxwell in the fray making sure to keep low. Silvery moon vines replaced the rugged amour. Silver moon vines also know known as thousand scents plant was a common plant used by hunters to cover their scent when hunting.
To the north, on hill observing the chaos was the dream paw chimera, its tail swerved gently letting out hissing sounds. It's nose tickled by the smell of its prey; the poison non-existent to it.
Letting out a roar, it descended upon the prey. In one swift motion a paw stuck razorback deer killing instantly. Its blood painting the forest red. Like a butcher it preyed on the next, a pack of stone monkeys, pain and rage overcome the stone monkeys as one after another they were clawed to death yet they fled as fast as they could. With a maniacal grin in descended onto the next, then another, another again the dream paw chimera killed without regard, its eyes latched onto the next prey leaving corpses in its wake.
The monsters whimpered under terror; fear stilled the air, palpable. Maxwell felt his spine and hairs stand up, he looked ahead the trench was near, biting his lips he sped up.
Running through the forest as fast as he could, he no longer cared if it saw him, his only chance to live was the trench. Its slit eyes latched ahead; its prey was about to escaped so it followed suit. Like how man reared chickens or livestock the monsters were its livestock they could not escape.
Maxwell ducked left; a black paw stomped where he had been stirring up dust. "Cough, Cough what was that." Something flew straight at him if he hadn't heard it, he would have been paste right now, turning to look, a mornpest lay there mangled. 2 pairs of yellow eyes with vertical slits locked onto him from behind him. Saliva fell of its lion maws, its bloody razor teeth with bits of flesh and fur. A creature 2 meter tall, it stood on its hindlimbs, along with its tail with a snake head at the end that flickered its tongue in anticipation. However, its eyes were unmerciful and stench horrendous. Half a minute passed as Maxwell did not turn to look, no thoughts in his mind. He was frozen in fear.
It clawed down at him, Maxwell stumbled forward out of fear, falling face first the gust of wind caused by its tail, like the thrust a veteran swordsman's sword. Blood fell from the wind cuts; pain brought him out of his stupor. He let out screams as he turned tail and crawled as fast as his knees and arm could. He screamed for help, begging and begging for somebody to save him, anybody! Where he was going, he didn't care so long as he got away.
"Thwack", "Crack" A whip of its tail sent him into the distance barreling towards some trees. He let out blood as he steadied himself from the ground, his arm shaking he crawled once more, he wanted to live, leaning against a tree he looked at the approaching chimera as he chuckled "Hahaha, What a life! What a fucking life. Escape?! What nonsense, I never had a chance. Come on kill me! Bring me out my misery. Hahaha." Mania had come. For the brief month he had been in the forest, he though that he might survive since no one had come to hunt him.
The chimera stood before him, its eyes staring down at the pathetic scrawny figure lying down. It raised it paw clawing down at him. The hunt was not over.
Raising his hand, he wordlessly chanted, an ice shard slowly forming. The chimera halted; its interest piqued it watched as its prey struggled. The ice shard barely classified as magic; the small shard shot forward failing to pierce through. Crestfallen Maxwell closed his eyes. The paw came down on him.