“Awwooo!” Its tongue severed, the creature let out a deep, wolf-like howl of pain from its throat.
Everly found that cry very familiar—it was the sa howl that had jolted her awake the night before. It resembled a wolf’s howl, but was hoarser and more muffled, carrying an inexplicable sense of discomfort.
From this, Everly realized that the one who had scread last night was likely not the slender creature, but the Chupacabra.
Though she had only caught a brief glimpse, the slender creature and the Chupacabra were vastly different in form—there was no way they were the sa species. Did this an that there were actually two kinds of monsters around Craven? And that last night, the two had been very close to each other—perhaps even coming into contact?
Then what was their relationship? If they were companions… that would be very bad.
Suppressing the unease in her heart, Everly continued observing the situation.
After that miserable howl, the Chupacabra quickly retracted its now half-severed tongue. Its blood-red eyes rolled as its claws curled, shifting direction—its cold gaze locking onto Quilla nearby.
“It’s because of you that the Sacred Tree’s wounds haven’t healed! Die, you monster!”
Quilla showed no fear under the creature’s gaze. Skillfully handling her rifle, she pulled back the bolt with a click and fired another shot straight at the monster’s head.
“Awoo!”
The creature roared, lowering its body. With a powerful push from its sturdy hind legs, it lunged forward—not only dodging Quilla’s bullet but instantly closing the distance. Its foreclaws spread wide, sharp nails slashing directly toward the girl’s face.
Not good!
Seeing that the Chupacabra was about to strike Quilla, Everly could no longer stand by. She raised her handgun and fired at the monster’s claw.
Bang!
The handgun lacked the power of a rifle, and for so reason, the monster’s skin was as tough as body armor. The shot only managed to scrape off a thin layer of its hide.
Fortunately, the montary stiffness caused by the bullet striking its claw gave Quilla enough ti to rapidly retreat, narrowly escaping the monster’s grasp.
“Bang!”
After steadying herself, Quilla seized the opportunity and fired another shot at the creature.
This ti, the bullet hit its chest. Unfortunately, the monster’s defense was too strong—even a rifle round only barely pierced its tough hide, leaving behind nothing more than a small, shallow bloody dent.
“Awoo!”
Though the wound was minor, the creature was visibly enraged.
It no longer lingered on the ground. With a whoosh, the bat-like flesh wings on its back spread wide, and its tall body lifted off the ground, soaring into the sky like a ghost in the night.
The only light source in the forest ca from the fire basins, and their illumination was quite limited. Once the creature rose a certain distance, everyone could only barely make out a vague shadow in the sky by the moonlight.
At that very mont, a cold wind swept through, and a patch of dark clouds covered the moon. Visibility in the sky dropped instantly.
anwhile, unseen by anyone, the creature reached its highest point in the air. It suddenly flipped upside down—head facing down, legs up—its wings folding in, tail wrapping around its ankles. Like a spinning top, it began rotating rapidly as it dove straight toward Quilla below—
Whoosh! Whoosh!
By the ti Quilla heard the rushing wind above and looked up, the monster was already right on top of her.
The kinetic force of its high-speed descent was imnse. Even though Everly raised her handgun and fired several shots in quick succession, she couldn’t deflect the Chupacabra even slightly. As its sharp claws stretched forward, about to pierce Quilla’s forehead, Everly held her breath, feeling as if ti itself had stretched endlessly in that instant…
Within that slowed mont, in a corner no one noticed, a dark figure suddenly leapt out—just a split second before the monster struck Quilla—slamming into it and knocking it sideways into a nearby tree trunk.
“Boom!”
A loud crash rang out, and ti instantly resud its normal flow. Seeing the two figures locked in combat on the ground, Everly felt a surge of joy—the second monster had appeared! And it wasn’t allied with the Chupacabra, but opposed to it!
“Lord Sacred Tree!”
“That’s great—it’s the Sacred Tree! We’re saved!”
Several of the Native Aricans nearby lit up with excitent upon seeing the slender creature. So even dropped to their knees, bowing down in worship.
At this point, the situation finally beca clear: the creature attacking the farms around Craven had always been the Chupacabra—the long-tongued monster. anwhile, the one secretly fighting against it and protecting the Native farms from its claws was this very slender creature—the “Sacred Tree” spoken of by the tribe.
Last night, it was likely that the Chupacabra had threatened the Dakota farm. The Sacred Tree, in order to protect its people’s land, had revealed itself and fought it off. By the ti Everly reached the window, the Chupacabra had already been driven away, and she had only seen the Sacred Tree—mistakenly identifying it as the blood-sucking monster.
With this understanding, the strange behavior of Karl’s family during the day also made sense. Clearly, the Winton people did not want outsiders to know about their Sacred Tree. Even though Everly and her companions were guests, they were not of the sa tribe—there would always be a barrier between them.
Having figured all this out, Everly finally understood why, compared to the Chupacabra, the slender creature appeared so… beautiful.
Yes—beautiful.
Under the firelight, one could see that the slender creature possessed a nearly human-like, slender silhouette. Its skin was grayish-white, marked with rough, cracked textures like weathered wood. When it clung to the banyan tree, it almost seed to rge seamlessly with the trunk itself.
Like a human, the slender monster had a nose and a mouth, and also a large bundle of “hair” that hung down softly like branches.
The only difference was in its eyes.
There, around its head, grew a ring of fan-shaped structures resembling lingzhi mushroom caps. Layered upon one another, they were golden in color with varying shades of intensity—shaped like petals, yet also like an irregular crown. This made its already slightly elongated head look not ugly at all, but instead imbued it with a kind of inhuman beauty.
Such a design was rare. After all, most monsters in horror films were grotesque, bizarre, disgusting, and ugly—crafted with maximum strangeness to ensure that the audience would feel fear and rejection the mont they saw them.
There were generally only two reasons for designing a monster to be “beautiful.”
First, the director might use its beauty to deceive humans, causing them to lower their guard, only to later reveal betrayal and thereby emphasize the monster’s cold, cunning, and cruel nature. Typical examples included Sil and Eve in Species, or the experintal subject Dren in Splice.
Second, similar to how characters in fantasy dramas beco “smoky-eyed” after turning dark, a monster might be designed as beautiful to suggest to the audience that it is friendly toward humans—belonging to the “benevolent faction,” or at least not hostile. For example, Mothra in the Godzilla series—or, if Kong: Skull Island is also considered horror, then the beautiful moss-covered buffalo and Kong himself could also fall into this category.
The slender monster was the Sacred Tree of the Native Aricans, a protector of the Winton people. Clearly, it belonged to the second type.
However, it was still the guardian deity of the Native Aricans—not of the white people.
Uncertain of how the slender monster would react upon discovering the presence of the white outsiders, Everly remained cautious and did not make any sudden moves.
She lay prone in the bushes, watching the two monsters fighting without blinking.
In terms of raw strength alone, the slender creature clearly had the upper hand.
Its seemingly delicate forelimbs, with just a slight exertion, were enough to pin the Chupacabra firmly against the roots of the banyan tree. With its other forelimb, it ford its fingers like a blade and brutally stabbed into the monster’s chest.
The Chupacabra’s skin—so hard that even bullets could not penetrate it—was as fragile as paper in front of the slender creature’s irregular, branch-like “fingers.” It was pierced effortlessly by those elongated digits.
From her vantage point, Everly could see the situation more clearly than those by the altar.
She saw thin, root-like fibers sprouting from the slender creature’s fingertips, worming deep into the Chupacabra’s chest like insects, boring countless fine holes into its hardened skin. It was through those holes that the slender creature’s forelimb was able to invade its body without resistance, absorbing energy from the Chupacabra as if it were drawing nourishnt.
“Awoo! Awoo!”
Naturally, the Chupacabra was not going to simply accept its fate. Like a large moth stuck to flypaper, it flailed its bat-like wings desperately, its lizard-like tail thrashing wildly on the ground as it tried to break free and counterattack the slender creature.
At first, its resistance was like a child struggling against an adult—loud and violent in appearance, but completely ineffective in reality.
However, when one of its wildly swinging claws accidentally scratched the right side of the slender creature’s ribs, there was a sharp crack.
The surface of the slender creature—covered in bark-like, blocky structures—suddenly split open, and a large amount of tallic golden fragnts spilled out like shavings.
At the sa ti, a greenish fluid, resembling blood, began to seep out.
The slender creature tilted its head back and let out a long, piercing whistle like a bird’s cry.
The slender creature was injured!
Perhaps because of the pain, the creature’s overwhelming suppressive force weakened for a brief mont when its old wound was struck.
The Chupacabra clearly possessed intelligence as well. Sensing the opening, it let out an excited hiss. Its claws curled like blades again, the tips sharp as knives, slashing once more toward the slender creature’s ribs.
The slender creature imdiately bent its long limbs, resembling a massive gray-white spider. It clung to the banyan trunk and nimbly dodged to the side.
—Don’t—don’t fall for it!
Everly opened her mouth to warn it, but the cunning Chupacabra was far faster. In that brief opening, it flapped its fleshy wings, pushed off the ground with its powerful hind legs, and in an instant escaped from the banyan roots, rising into the air.
Everly watched anxiously.
Regardless of how the slender creature felt about white outsiders, the Chupacabra was undeniably a vicious beast. It had attacked a white person the mont it appeared, and now it had even developed a grudge against Quilla. A monster like this, if left to roam freely, would only beco an ever-growing threat.
The monster encyclopedia Rebecca had provided did not explain how to deal with the Chupacabra—supposedly because it was so elusive that no one had ever managed to capture one alive.
As a result, Everly could only rely on her handgun for long-range support, hoping that physical firepower could eliminate the creature.
Bang! Bang bang!
Afraid that the monster might trace the direction of the bullets back to her position, Everly kept shifting her stance as she fired.
Down in the valley, the Native Aricans, though unable to see exactly where the shooter was, quickly reacted once Everly took the lead. They grabbed the firearms dropped from the masked attackers and began firing wildly at the Chupacabra.
“Attack it! Protect the Sacred Tree!”
“It’s the one that injured the Sacred Tree—make it pay!”
As the saying goes, “many ants can kill an elephant.” Even with its extrely thick hide, the Chupacabra still felt pain after taking more than a dozen bullets in succession.
Just as it grew enraged and flapped its wings, turning to attack the “ants” on the ground holding guns, a clear whistle rang out again.
It was the slender creature recovering. Using its camouflage—identical to that of the giant banyan—it had quietly climbed to the top of the canopy. With a leap, it launched another attack on the long-tongued monster.
Caught mid-charge, the Chupacabra was slamd down like a heavy weight, crashing hard into the ground.
The two monsters then began to trade blows, rolling violently across the forest clearing. The slender creature had great strength, but was burdened by old injuries. The Chupacabra was slightly weaker in power, but clearly understood the principle of “striking where it hurts,” focusing every attack on the slender creature’s wounded areas. For a ti, neither side could gain the upper hand.
Crash!
The two massive beings rolled to the edge of the clearing, and in their struggle, the Chupacabra’s tail suddenly lashed out, knocking over the wooden stand supporting one of the fire basins.
The burning logs inside the basin were sent flying, tracing an arc through the air with scattering sparks, landing just one ter away from the base of the giant banyan tree.
And there—coincidentally—soone had just poured gasoline not long ago.
BOOM!
The high concentration of gasoline vapor ignited instantly upon contact with the open fla. A towering blaze erupted upward, wrapping around the banyan’s roots in an instant. In the blink of an eye, the entire root system of the giant tree was engulfed in fire.
At the sa ti, in a corner of the clearing away from the tree, the slender creature—still locked in combat with the long-tongued monster—suddenly flared with light. Flas unexpectedly appeared along its lower body as well.
Because its main body was being burned, the slender creature itself had been set alight.
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