In the forest, five humans were desperately running.
"Why? Why are they so relentless?" Toby shouted loudly, gasping for breath as he sprinted through the woods.
At this mont, remnants and blood splatters still hung on him, and he gripped his weapon tightly, appearing much more courageous than before.
"Maybe we provoked them, who knows, kid. You better shut up and run faster now!" The old man's legs were more nimble than the young man's, weaving through the forest with ease and quickly overtaking Toby.
During their frantic run, they could still hear shrill screams from the sides and behind.
The voices of the Ratn were piercing, like the cries of death ghosts chasing from behind.
"They fled! They're scared! Chase! Chase!" the Ratman Priest, riding on the back of a sewn beast, shrieked, clutching the scepter in his hands.
In the past, aside from large-scale legion battles, whenever small teams encountered each other in the wild, Ratn were always the ones being chased and beaten by the Night Watchers.
To suddenly be the ones pursuing the Night Watchers was like a dream for them. So, they abandoned all reason, vowing to take down at least one Night Watcher.
"Kill one, and the Evil Rat will bestow gifts." Under such incitent, these Ratn chased even more fervently.
Toby felt his head buzzing, being relentlessly pursued and attacked exceeded his ability to cope.
A moss-covered rotten log loudly broke beneath Toby's feet, and the complex forest environnt was finally proving too much for him.
Zahanu was right beside him, swiftly drawing his sword sheath and sharply striking the boy's side. Toby flew off to the side, landing face-first into the grass and soil.
Three poisoned blow darts grazed his rolling pant legs and sank into the muddy ground.
The rustling from above in the trees indicated the Ratman scouts had caught up.
These Ratn descended like ghosts, clutching poisoned short daggers.
Lisa Lisa leapt up onto a fallen trunk, her shortened and tattered red dress billowing out like an umbrella.
Small iron pieces sewn into the dress folds clanged incessantly as she swung a soft whip that accurately struck the Ratman plunging from the tree crown.
Those blue-gray Ratn had barely covered their bleeding eyes before Zahanu's machete decisively cut the vine-bound rope.
The whole mass of strangler figs and tangled roots crashed down, enveloping five Ratman scouts into a swaying "cocoon."
No ti to finish them off, the two hastily grabbed Toby, who had just climbed up, and continued to flee swiftly.
Old man Tavor's smoking pipe sparked against iron thistles, and he flung the burning tobacco sparks behind him, along with a dark-looking bomb.
The bomb filled with special oil exploded instantaneously, flas bursting forth. Swamp gas spewing from the sewn beast's nostrils ignited, blasting into a fireball.
The Ratman shrieking on the beast's back was instantly set alight.
The burning decomposed beast skin rolled down the slope, snapping three dead trees, and incidentally blocked several other sewn beast Rat riders charging from that direction.
The group fought and dodged, barely managing to gather together again.
However, their condition was far from optimistic, with various injuries on them. So wounds were from the battle, others from branches scratching or whipping against them as they sprinted through the woods.
Toby's state was worse, with even a Ratman's arrow stuck in him. With Ratn's habit of coating poison, if not promptly treated, infection could easily occur.
Don't think the Ratn's poison is lethal; it's just filthy stuff, sared on arrows, prone to breeding bacteria.
"Raise your left knee!" Swade grabbed Lisa Lisa in ti to evade several poison arrows shot from the side rear.
The old man tossed his last two oil bombs.
Though the bomb's explosive power wasn't great, flas spread from the sprayed oil, igniting the surroundings instantly.
So Ratn tried to charge from the side, but more were blocked by the spreading fire.
At least, the pressure from the pursuers behind was temporarily eased for them.
Swade ran while pulling out a map, the wind blowing it noisily in his other hand.
He urgently needed to check the map, to see if he could find a glimr of hope, at least a way to shake off these pursuers.
These Ratn were far too mobile, with so even closely tracking them from above on bats. Without a plan, re foot speed wasn't enough to escape.
This dense forest was full of natural traps, and as they ran wildly, they inevitably encountered various troubles.
Decomposed plant residue suddenly collapsed, forming a quicksand pit, and the unlucky Toby scread, grabbing a thorny vine in panic.
Zahanu swiftly swung the chain wrapped around his wrist, precisely hooking Toby's belt: "Damn unlucky boy, should leave you here."
Just as the chain tautened, three Ratman knights riding giant bats descended from the sparse forest canopy, rusty curved sabers hacking straight at Toby's dangling legs.
These cowardly Ratn knew well who in the group was weakest, who was easier prey.
So, they practically sward, vying to attack Toby.
Lisa Lisa decisively loosened her hair bun, her steel-wire locks cracking like a whip against a nearby bat's wing mbrane.
Her soft whip, worn and shortened from the earlier battle and flight, was now frayed significantly.
When the bat collided with a tree, old man Tavor, having inexplicably found a long stick, smashed the rider's ragged mask.
Zahanu took advantage to pull Toby back, the chain slapping around a second bat's neck. The creature, with its rider, plumted into the quicksand, the splashed venomous insects being desperately slapped away by Swade with the map.
"Over there, we go there!" Swade suddenly shouted loudly.
He seed to have found a potential escape hope.
Upon hearing this, the eyes of those battling as they ran flashed with a glimr, as if seeing hope.
Even Toby gritted his teeth, exerting himself to keep pace with them despite his exhaustion.
Soon, they saw the distant rock formations and fractured peaks rising around them.
The terrain here was far more complex than the dense forest, but narrow passages could at least limit the number of pursuers.
"We go in there and fight!"
The group charged toward the moss-covered rock crevice, squeezing in sideways with difficulty.
However, below was a downward slippery slope.
The burning remains of a sewn beast rolled over them.
Zahanu quickly plunged a dagger into the rock wall, slowing the descent with flying sparks as the blade scraped the stone. The temporary herbs collected at Toby's waist scattered, falling into the damp moss.
Old man Tavor seed to notice sothing, kicking over a beehive in the rock crevice.
The buzzing instantly perated around them, but they'd already slid down the slope.
Furious venomous bees treated the approaching Ratn as enemies, swarming at them black as clouds.
"Bees! There are bees!"
"It hurts!"
"We're dood, so many monsters!"
The Ratman's screams mixed with the heavy thud of bats hitting the ground.
Sliding to the bottom of the stony path, they could finally take a breath.
Lisa Lisa hurriedly tore her underskirt, bandaging Swade's bleeding hand. Swade's thumb tightly pressed against a blood-soaked mark on the map's edge—a gallows symbol drawn in faded red ochre.
"Keep moving, these damned rats won't be stopped by these rocks, they're better at squeezing through gaps than us."
The group, pushing through their exhaustion, continued their escape journey.
User Comments
0 comments from readers