The Crystal Thorn.
It was the name of a special creature which lived deep within the Dead Forest outside the Tyrant's Marble city.
They use a unique method to sense their surroundings.
In fact, one could even say that they don't even sense their surroundings…except blood.
They are said to be read emotions using the blood and evolve by seeping more blood into their cluster of sharp spiked crystalline thorns.
Usually, they attack in hordes for the very same reason. If the crystal thorn is of a sufficient rank, like an Awakened or worse, a Chaotic, then it may possess a crude sense of perverted intelligence to communicate with each other in complex instructions by varying the flowing blood.
Sometimes, by blood of their prey…
or sometimes, by their own blood.
they are ruthless creature who will blindly follow the scent of blood of any creature, even if they have to do it for the rest of their life. T
hey will only continue to increase as more and more blood will flow and eventually make up for their lack of senses, by overwhelming numbers and coordination.
especially with a potent blood like of their Chaotic kin, the blood suckers will overwhelm their prey in no time.
But Flame didn't have to worry about it.
After all he was facing just a Descendant ranked monster. a pitiful monster of just around 110 cm who just follows its superiors to get some blood for itself in return.
Truly pitiful.
But the creature wasn't intelligence enough to convey the message of its superiors to its rest of his family inside the Dead Forest.
So, what was the need to slay this Headless?
'you can't fool me!'
Flame laughed inwardly as he felt like the most genius person in the world.
'this garbage doesn't need to do anything. it will just carry the scent of blood of its fallen superiors, especially of that Chaotic and take it back to its family, which would immediately alert them'
And Flame and his friends might be as good as dead. Flame was extremely happy right now as he had finally uncovered a great mystery of the Headless creatures.
The Awakened and above ranked act as front attackers while the pitiful Descendant creature just act as a messenger.
Before Flame could have appreciated the intelligence of these Headless, an intriguing thought appeared in his head
'the Dead Forest must be at least twice the size of the Marble City, who knows how many more Crystal Thorns are there… and if we had already encountered 3 Chaotic grade monsters just by the outskirts of city…then how many more are inside! And are there any higher grade monster than Chaotic? Some Turbid!?!?!?"
Flame shuddered by the thought.
He was just a pitiful Descendant. Facing a couple of Awakened ranked monsters might be end of him, much less Turbid. Who are said the apex predators and a whole 3 ranks above Descendant rank.
Descendant, Awakened, Chaotic, Turbid these were the ranks which followed same for both monster and humans. what changes is after the Turbid state, but Flame had neither the liberty nor was he powerful enough to think above those ranks.
'I have to hurry' Flame steeled his mind and tightly held silver sword.
The pitiful spiked monster was just a couple of steps away from him, but unfortunately, he has been repeating the same thing for quite some time.
It wasn't like he didn't know how to wield a sword, instead there was a whole different problem. Though calling it a problem was little bit too much…maybe nuisance?
Flame had read about the anatomies and the strengths and weakness of most of the monsters, just to increase his chance of survival.
He had also read about the Headless ones and that matched exactly the official description. The pitiful Descendant had around 70 cm of clustered spike on its neck while his remaining body of flesh was barely recognizable, dwarfed to just meagre 40 cm. his hands and legs were extremely small and his entire body didn't look much different than a child who had wear a Halloween hat on his head.
It was truly a comical sight, seeing him balancing the weight of the Crystal spikes and his remaining non-existing body.
If Flame was to miss his hit on the 40 cm part of flesh, then he could be in big trouble. Not only would it alert the pitiful creature, but also potentially invite more of his family from the Dead Forest.
And once the creature was alerted, Flame wasn't confident that he and his friends will escape before one of the Turbid monsters came out to have his tummy filled with human blood.
Flame took couple of more steps and took calculated breaths.
He chanted the name of the Blood Queen under his breath and decided to take the strike.
He quickly bent his knees and with a single swift motion, the silver blade pierced through the dark-blue skin and deeper into the alien flesh, before eventually slicing off the 110 cm body in two parts.
The pitiful monster flailed its limbs for a couple of seconds and then gradually slumbered in eternal darkness.
Flame stood there and waited for the robotic voice of the Ancient Call to ring and announce the kill
"…"
But what met him was only the sound of cold blowing wind of winter.
Flame furrowed "huh? Why isn't the Call saying anything?"
Slowly and slowly, a realization crept upon him. something very twisted and harrowing roamed inside mind, eventually making him to gulp a mouthful of saliva.
Flame realized that he was standing on what could be called as outermost region of the Dead Forest. Dark and dead trees could be seen at a distance. If Flame had continued to walk just for few more seconds, he might have been entering the maw—spikes. Sharp spikes of the Crystal Thorns.
Not only that, he had also somehow forgot to consider the ticking Timer and ran ahead without thinking. Which was strange…
"I need to get out quickly. Something is wrong. Very very wrong"
Hiss!
The white snake hissed in affirmation as Flame could feel her body quivering from fear. Which was a foreign feeling for him and her.
Flame didn't waste any more time and leaved the sword with the putrid monster blood there and removed all his clothes, standing only his tight black pants and top.
"let's just hope it will work"
Thud!
Suddenly the world seemed to shake as the loud noise of something big resounded.
Thud!Thud!Thud!
The heavy footsteps increased continuously and before Flame could recover from the shock, a giant silhouette appeared from the forest.
it was around 5 meters in height with a deep sinister dark-blue skin. Its headless neck was pierced by clear ocean-blue spikes which almost looked transparent unlike other creatures of its kin.
The shade of blue deepened moving towards the neck, while the peak of spikes looked almost transparent.
Flame froze.
While Lucy looked at the giant with wary eyes.
'T-Turbid!?!?'
Flame had only read about it before coming to this place, only out of curiosity. The description in the official document and the one of before him matched uncannily.
Never in his wildest dream had he thought he would see such creature. In fact, he had never even imagined to go anywhere near the Dead Forest.
Flame felt his breaths heavy and his heart pounding against its chest like a huge drum.
He was scared.
So much scared, that his body felt numb that he wasn't even able to feel the tickling sensation of Lucy's tongue on his neck and ears.
She seemed scared.
Suddenly, the Giant spikey body moved and moved closer to the dead body of its kin and stopped momentarily.
Sometime later the ocean-blue spikes shone with pale light blinding the whole world with its shine. Flame felt a suffocating pressure bore down on him, forcing him to knees.
The light disappeared in few short seconds.
And fresh blood poured out of Flame's mouth.
His mind momentarily blanked before he felt the sharp fangs piercing his skin, sobering him up.
'shit'
Quickly regaining his wits, he felt an unknown urge to step away from his place and he didn't think twice.
Soon, a ginormous hand plunged on the Flame's fresh blood.
Flame barely managed to dodge the hand and just then another shadow loomed over him like a rolling boulder
But this time the shadow froze. Momentarily confused and then turned its huge body towards the forest.
Flame felt his heart froze for a brief moment as his eyes fixed on the giant.
The giant took his heavy steps back towards the forest without giving a second of its attention to the young boy.
Thud!
Thud!Thud!Thud!
The giant's steps seemed to be increased as Flames saw a swath of Dead trees breaking down.
"w-what is happening?"
He glanced at the huge spiked hand print and found out that there was no blood. he then looked at the dead corpse of the 110 cm creature which was still there.
Flame shook his head and ignored all the things which happened. Even though the Turbid Grade monster was gone, same couldn't be said for Chaotic and Awakened.
He placed his hand over his shoulder and spoke hastily
"Lucy! are you alright? We need to—uh?!"
Flame froze…
"Lucy?"
He tapped all around his naked body "Lucy! this is no joke. We need to get out"
Suddenly, he felt his eyes heavy and wet, but he controlled them. he quickly looked over the dead corpse of the Descendant and his eyes widened.
There he saw a fresh familiar marks of Lucy's body slithering along with the vivid marks of putrid green blood trailing to the direction of the giant, strait into the forest.
He instantly realized.
And ran head into the Dead Forest without a second thought.