Beep!
"Of course. If my theory is right..."
[Saturation: 40% → 50%]
"What? It only used to go up by 5%... So maybe where I sleep matters? Or the effects of the meat can be amplified?"
Standing around theorizing about how this "Saturation" works wouldn't help him find his team or get them out of this cave. Oliver got up and threw the last remaining twigs onto the campfire, which, by some miracle, hadn't died out during the night.
When he looked at the waterfall, rays of sunlight were piercing through it, and he finally noticed all the blood that once dyed it had vanished. Taking advantage of the fact that Nikki was still unconscious, he took a quick bath and scrubbed the dried blood off his body.
Once he was all set, he pushed the embers closer to the egg and stepped through the waterfall. It felt like leaving a "safe zone" and stepping into a whole new map.
The lake was still red, but the blood was already diluting, and nature would likely take care of the rest soon. As for the bodies, they were still there, already decomposing at an accelerated pace.
Oliver walked among the rocks and began surveying the area. There were no human footprints, and everything looked frozen in time.
"No one's come through here. Seems like even the animals refuse to come near."
He grabbed his bloodstained fang and headed into the forest. More herbs would be useful, and tracking his team was top priority.
"Nikki wouldn't kill that poor, innocent egg the moment she sees it, right?"
He shook his head to clear the thought and stepped into the damned forest. Everything was eerily silent and calm, the complete opposite of what a forest like this should be.
He walked for several minutes and nothing appeared on his scanner, nor to his naked eye. It was like everything had vanished. Even the rodents and birds were dead quiet.
"I killed the poor snake, so why are you all like this? Quiet... There are no more predators here. Life should be blooming."
His instincts, sharpened over the past three days, were blaring. Oliver's fingers tightened around the now fragile fang as he raised his guard.
"Oliver..." a whisper rode the breeze from his right, the voice strikingly familiar. Fast, light steps came rushing his way.
"Aline!! Where are you?!" Oliver shouted. Her voice sounded far away, weak, almost like she needed help. His instincts screamed otherwise, but he had to help her. His pace quickened, and before he realized, he was sprinting.
"Oliver, over here! They got me! Help!" The voice grew louder, and in that moment, Oliver ignored every instinct that told him this was a trap. He ran without caring about his surroundings and soon found himself in a clearing with spaced-out trees.
"These gaps... I remember old Antonio teaching this. This isn't a forest anymore, it's a grove."
Sunbeams pierced through the trees, and a kind of dust floated in the air. It was like something out of a storybook, not real life.
"Where are you, Aline?!"
"Here!" a hoarse, drawn-out voice whispered right by his ear. His body reacted before his mind did. He stabbed the fang forward and realized he'd pierced the chest of one of those snake-men.
The body dropped, and suddenly, dozens of them emerged from behind the trees. He was surrounded. Dozens of those creatures were ready to rip him apart.
"Fuck, Oliver! What a lovely breakfast ambush, huh..."
All hell broke loose. Claws and fangs flew at him from every direction. He had to dance between attacks and strike back when the chance came.
"My reflexes are better... I didn't notice before, but their movements are easier to read now. It's not that they're slow, I'm just used to them."
Oliver controlled his breathing and countered with precision. Dodging when needed, stabbing when he had the window, blocking at the exact moment. He was starting to grasp what swordsmanship meant. He didn't know the basics, but his instincts were adjusting to the battlefield.
Time passed, and when he finally looked around, a small sea of bodies littered the ground. The sun was already high, and not a single creature remained moving.
"I did this?"
Beep! Beep! Beep!
Of course he did. Every battle Oliver had fought so far had been against enemies stronger than him or under unfair circumstances. Now, facing a balanced situation, his body proved that [Combat: 24] and [Saturation: 50%] were no joke.
"My bracelet just pinged, what is it?"
[Analyzing collected data...]
[Combat technique identified, origin unknown.]
[Technique ????]
[Combat: 24 → 30]
"I just created a combat technique? Shit, I'm the sword saint himself!" His joy made him nearly leap among the corpses, but it faded fast when he remembered an old RPG friend who was the real saint.
"If I created this supposed technique, I get to name it, right? How about... Primitive Combat Technique!"
Beep!
[Primitive]
"Fuckin' lazy bracelet, it only recorded the last word!"
Sunlight still filtered through the trees, but it must have been past noon already. Spending hours in combat and still not feeling tired and his brain could barely process it.
Quickly, Oliver started looking for the path back to the blood lake. His hopes sank when he realized his tracks were gone, and all he could see was a grove filled with sunlight and corpses.
"What the hell? How did my footprints vanish and the trees shift? I'm sure that tree was to the right."
Minutes passed until he finally found a path, but it was nothing like the one he'd come through. It was as if the forest itself had made a trail for him.
"Shit! Nowhere else to go but forward. Damn haunted grove."