The giant spiked boar looked back, turning its massive body, it faced the Black Primus Sofia was hiding under. Its snout ca down, it was sniffing the ground, slowly combing the area. Sofia was just about ready to forget the warning about space magic and return to Zangdar with her ring. But she noticed sothing, now that the monsters face was but a few ters away. It was blind. Both his eyes were decrepit black holes full of rot, for a second she wondered if it might be undead, but she was convinced that it was alive. It was too massive to die of sothing like a bit of necrosis.
The scars near the monster's empty eye-sockets had long healed, but the eyes were lost. This wasnt recent. With that, Sofia noticed sothing else through her mana sense. The monsters snout was attracting ambient mana. This giant boar used his mana senses to navigate the forest. The weird part was how randomly he searched around, Sofia would have expected to be found much faster if the monster knew she was around.
Its humid snout ca so close to the hole Sofia hid in that she could have touched the monsters tusks. But despite that, she wasnt detected.
Can he not sll because the rune cuts off my mana emissions? Thats actually crazy.
But then why did it turn around? Did he sll Pareth? The rat?
Sofia feared the worst when the monsters tusks prodded the bush Pareth was in, but the monster kept moving, it was still searching.
The big snout stopped moving near a trees trunk. It was a normal-looking tree as far as Sofia could tell at first glance. A few ters tall, green leaves, brown bark. But then she focused on her mana senses a lot more to try to understand why the boar stopped there. She almost yelped when she saw the thick streams of mana coursing through the tree get sucked into the monsters snout.
This normal-looking tree had a lot of mana. It had much more mana than she had. If Sofia had to guess, that was at least a few hundred thousand points worth.
And then everything changed. The tree uprooted itself in a single move and ran in the opposite direction. It was very fast, much faster than Sofia could run with her current body, scurrying away, swerving around the other trees. Sofia had the perfect angle to see the monster tree flee. The titan boar wasnt about to let its al get away. It stomped a hoof on the ground, the tremor was so strong Sofia hit her head against the root above her from the shock.
Large spikes like the ones on the boars back erupted from the soil in a line. The one closest to his hoof was small, the next was taller, and the one that hit the fleeing tree in the distance was at least thirty ters tall and several ters thick at its base. The tree was impaled atop the large spike, bleeding a thick, vibrant red resin. It wriggled more and more, screeching, losing its bark and leaves, until all that was left was a bloody mass of screaming and flailing root-like wooden tentacles.
The spikes all disappeared and the boar charged. Impaling the wriggling mass mid-air before it fell to the ground. The fake tree stopped moving, its corpse hardening, and it started looking like it was made of solid wood again. Did it die? If it wasnt dead, the sickening crunch coming from the boars mouth as it chewed on it after launching it back up to free it from its tusk and catching it in his maw surely finished the job. The monster then continued its course through the forest, as if nothing happened. Every step took it further from Sofia until it completely disappeared into the fog.
Holy skeleton
First the walls and now the trees?!
This didnt look like a Phageid though. And it had red blood, Phageids have white blood, as far as I know. So I suppose its an actual tree monster? Whats up with trees being monsters? Please stop. I used to like trees
Ill wait a bit before moving out.
Sofia walked for an hour through the forest without any major incident, now she couldnt help but check every tree. There werent so many fake ones, but they were there, hidden among the real. She did her best to stay as far away from them as she could. Beyond that, there were so smaller monsters, but most of them fled at the sight of Pareth.
The more worriso part was the incessant rustling of the canopy far above. When she entered the forest it still felt natural. Now it was more like the leaves were a sea so huge invisible creatures swam in. She could hear them moving.
Whenever the sounds in the canopy got too close, she would hide and stop moving. She had no clue if it actually helped, perhaps the high-level spirit creatures Xeros described in the report wouldnt actually jump out and attack if she kept on moving. But she didnt want to find out the hard way if they did.
At one point, the skeleton crow on Sofias head was the one to warn her of sothing on her right. She only saw it from afar, through the fog, a huge thing that looked like a tower of black sludge. It silently slid out of her vision, fading in the distance.
If that thing stopped moving and you weren't looking up It could be easily mistaken for a Black Primus
Sofia now had the unbearable impulse to check every Black Primus tree to make sure it wasnt a disguised giant black thing posing as one.
She was still moving forward when the crow pecked at her head again. Sofia didnt even try to understand and hid wherever she could. But the crow kept pecking at her head. What? The crow only had ti to jump off of her head and look at her then in another direction before disappearing in a small puff of smoke.
Oh. Tis out. Ill ju- Shit. Summoning the book is space magic, isnt it? Is that right? No more scouts.
But the bad news was short-lived, as she looked in the final direction the crow had pointed out to her, she saw what had made it act up. A Silversneer.
Its bigger than I imagined Its ugly but actually, its reassuring to know whats what for once. At least its not disguised as a damn tree. Now I follow this guy until it takes to the pond.
The big amphibian monsters shiny white hide made it very easy to spot and follow from afar. The thing wandered through the forest in search of food.
Sofia watched as the Silversneer spotted and chased so kind of small brown creature, it was very impressive how fast it could run on its short legs. It made an easy al out of whatever it was he had just found.
She never had a chance to see clearly what the small animals the Silversneer was hunting were, but it was the sa species of round brown thing. They hid in holes under the tree roots. It was likely that the hole Sofia had used to hide from the boar had been dug by those creatures. Seeing how the Silversneer devoured them made Sofia almost want to try them too. But now wasnt the ti for hunting and cooking. She did her best to follow the beast without being seen. Considering she also still wanted to avoid attracting the spirits in the canopy, it was an arduous task to keep up with the Silversneer.
Sofia persevered until the light fell. The dark forests only sources of light were now the sparse glowing plants growing here and there, attracting many insects. Sofia kept walking in the dark, it was already decent training for her passive skill, its progress percentage slowly climbing up. She focused all her attention on her mana senses, trying hard to keep track of the Silversneer while Pareth made sure they were out of danger. The monster now moved in a single direction unlike earlier.
A second Silversneer appeared out of a bush and joined the first one on its path, then a third, then a fourth. It beca a lot easier to keep track of them, but a lot harder to stay hidden from them. Yet, Sofia pulled through, and she finally caught sight of the Silverwater pond. It shone a silvery blue hue on its surroundings, and the borders were covered in Silversneers of all sizes, most of them half imrsed in the pond with only their head and front legs peeking out. Thats a lot Like at least two hundred. How in the lords nas do I get in there to the bottom of this without getting torn to shreds? Its not one Pareth that I need right now, more like ten.
Though I guess Pareth could maybe take care of them all, given enough ti. Thats if he doesnt catch the attention of the spirits above
Above Hey, this isnt space magic, right?
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