As the light of the nine moons filtered through the dense, purple canopy, it didn’t just illuminate the forest floor, it actively changed it.
The overlapping beams of crimson, glacial blue, and toxic green light mixed in the humid air, casting long, twisting shadows that seed to physically crawl across the colossal tree trunks.
The bioluminescence that had been a dull glow during the day now erupted in a blinding, neon display. The massive roots below him were covered in winding veins of cyan fungi that throbbed rhythmically, perfectly mimicking the heartbeat of so buried, subterranean titan.
Ghostly white spores drifted up from the underbrush, floating through the air like magical fireflies, though Sol’s instincts scread that inhaling them would likely paralyze his body or directly take him to the valley of Gods..
And of course, it wasn’t the end, massive, night-blooming flowers unfurled along the branches of neighboring trees. Their petals were a deep, luminescent indigo, and they released a thick, visible mist of sweet, cloying nectar. Almost imdiately, swarms of what looked like flying centipedes... each the size of a man’s arm... descended from the nearby trees to feed on them, their chitinous bodies clicking loudly in the dark.
But was it beautiful? Of course, it was terrifyingly, unspeakably beautiful.
Of course, the serene majesty of the visual landscape was sharply contrasted by the brutal reality of the audio.
Compared to dayti, the auditory landscape of the jungle had also completely shifted. From the dark depths of the jungle below, the night truly ca alive. The dayti hum of insects had been replaced by a heavy, bass-driven thrumming that vibrated in Sol’s chest.
Distant, earth-shaking footsteps echoed from miles away, followed by the sound of massive trees physically splintering and crashing to the ground as titanic Behemoths began their nocturnal migrations.
The wind whistling through the skyscraper-sized trees sounded eerily like a chorus of weeping won, carrying the sharp, tallic tang of fresh blood and the biting scent of raw, unsettled ozone.
SKREEEEE-ONK!
A sudden, deafening shriek tore through the night sky, startling a flock of four-winged reptilian birds from a nearby branch, sending them squawking into the darkness.
In fact, he had already noticed these birds, but they were just common essence less beasts and seed pretty ta, as even after sensing him, they didn’t do much.
The shriek didn’t go unanswered. A chorus of guttural, bone-rattling roars echoed up from the pitch-black depths of the forest floor.
Then almost instantly, another deafening, guttural roar echoed from the darkness several miles away, shaking the leaves outside his hollow, followed imdiately by the frantic, chanical screeching of sothing large and armored being violently torn apart.
A chorus of high-pitched, chittering shrieks followed, likely a pack of scavengers fighting over the scraps.
It was a chaotic, horrifying symphony of violence, survival, and brutal death.
He just took another bite of his Star-Fruit, chewing slowly as he listened to a particularly nasty shriek get suddenly cut short by a wet crunch.
Sitting safely in his carved-out hollow, high above the madness was one thing, but assuming altitude equaled absolute safety in a primordial death-world was how arrogant side-characters died in Chapter three.
His point was violently proven a second later.
Through the dense foliage, illuminated by the overlapping light of the nine moons, Sol spotted a sudden, fluid movent. Just a few hundred ters away, on a branch at the exact sa altitude as his hollow, a massive, glowing blue serpent was silently, rapidly constricting a six-legged bird. The bird didn’t even have ti to cry out before its ribs were crushed into powder.
Sol swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. Right. Snakes climb. Giant, toxic insects fly. Altitude is a buffer, not a shield.
The nonchalance he had been forcing to keep his own panic at bay evaporated. He tossed the remainder of his Star-Fruit aside and sprang into action. He couldn’t just sleep with a gaping, open doorway inviting every arboreal predator inside.
He grabbed his chipped flint knife, channeling a heavy surge of Golden Liquid into the primitive blade to harden it, and leaned carefully out of the hollow. Moving with frantic but calculated precision, he reached out and began hacking at the surrounding canopy. He specifically targeted the thick, iron-hard branches covered in those nasty, jagged, hand-length thorns he had seen earlier in the day.
With his enhanced strength, he snapped three massive, thorny boughs loose and hauled them back inside. Grunting with exertion, Sol wedged the thick branches horizontally across the opening of his hollow, driving their jagged ends deep into the soft, purple wood of the fra. He crisscrossed them, interlocking the nasty thorns to create a dense, brutal wooden grate.
It wouldn’t hold back a Layer 3 beast on a rampage, but it would absolutely shred the face of a wandering serpent or a pack of giant blood-ticks trying to squeeze their way in while he slept.
With the physical barricade secured, he still didn’t feel safe enough, so he moved on to chemical warfare.
He secured his weapons... the Void-Oak spear and his bone knives... right next to his makeshift bed of silver leaves, keeping them within imdiate arm’s reach. Then, he unhooked the small leather pouch Zephyra had given him.
He popped the seal. The sll hit him instantly... a foul, incredibly acrid stench that slled like a mixture of burning sulfur, crushed bone, and rotten citrus. It made his eyes water instantly. He didn’t notice during dayti, but here in this closed cramped place, that acrid sll was infinitely stronger.
"Gods, that is vile," Sol gagged quietly. But vile was exactly what he needed.
He took a handful of the beast-repelling powder and sprinkled it generously along the wooden sill of the hollow, dusting the thorny barricade he had just built. Not taking any chances, he took another handful and actively rubbed the gritty powder directly onto his dark leather armor, his boots, and even sared a bit on his neck and forearms. It burned his nose fiercely, but it was infinitely better to endure a burning nose than to wake up being digested alive.
Finally feeling like he had done everything physically possible to secure his "save room," Sol retreated to the back of the hollow.
He stretched out on his makeshift bed of velvet leaves, his muscles groaning in protest after a full day of slaughter. He leaned his head back against the wood and listened to the continuing, violent orchestra outside. Another nasty shriek in the distance was suddenly cut short by a sickening, wet crunch.
Sol let out a long, shaky breath. A wry, slightly strained smile touched his lips as he gazed up at the slivers of the nine moons visible through his thorny grate.
Honestly, Sol thought, a dark humor acting as his final coping chanism, if you force yourself to be aggressively positive, and completely ignore the fact that literally everything down there is actively trying to lt you, eat you, or lay eggs inside your chest cavity... it actually provides a pretty decent ambient track. It definitely beats the sound of blaring city traffic and sirens, anyway.
The heavy, comforting warmth of his Golden Liquid core acted like a natural heated blanket against the chill of the Orrath night.
The overlapping, multicolored light of the moons spilled through the gaps in his barricade, painting the wooden floor in surreal hues of crimson, silver, and glacial blue, keeping the pitch-black darkness at bay.
With a final, lingering look at the sprawling, infinite cosmos and the glowing, lethal terrors of the primordial jungle, Sol tightened his hand around the cool, reassuring shaft of his Void-Oak spear.
Lulled by the distant, rhythmic sounds of apex predators slaughtering each other in the dark, he closed his eyes and let his exhausted mind drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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