The roar of the forest behind me blended with the deafening noise of the distant battle. Even as I struggled not to be crushed by roots and murderous trees, my eyes still flicked, for brief moments, toward the ravine in the distance.
The sight hit me like a punch to the gut. The monstrous boars had finally reached the defensive line, carving clearings of destruction with each step, while the giant porcupines launched spikes the size of spears in a devastating arc. The ground shook under their weight, and the craters left by their charges scarred the forest like fresh wounds.
The formation of the six competitors, which until now had endured by sheer discipline and desperation, finally broke apart. It was inevitable: with so many beasts attacking in perfect sync, any gap turned into disaster.
The two spearmen tried to hold the flanks, but they were overwhelmed, surrounded on all sides. The hammer-wielder roared, swinging his colossal weapon again and again, but every strike cleared space for only a few seconds before new waves surged forward. And the four-armed apes gave them no respite, leaping onto them like a storm of thunderous fists and horrid screams.
Then the first fatal scream tore across the battlefield.
The wind mage, who had been holding back the pressure with her gales to ease the front line, had no time to react when dozens of black spikes pierced her body all at once.
I saw her lifted into the air like a skewered doll, blood gushing in contrast with the fading green glow of her magic. Then she vanished from the forest as if she had never been there.
A heavy silence seemed to seize the throats of the remaining competitors, but only for a moment—soon fury and despair erupted in screams, for they all knew she was only the first of many to fall.
Colossal hands of earth rose from the ground without warning, each more than five meters tall, moving with an agility that belied their size. Their fingers interlocked, trying to crush me as if I were just an insect. Instinct roared louder than thought—I poured prana into my nexus, conjuring a gravitational explosion that blasted everything away in warped waves of energy. The ground shook, entire trees toppled sideways. But the pressure didn't end.
Before I could catch my breath, the earth itself pulled together again as if it had its own will. Grains fused, stones were drawn in, and soon an even more monstrous hand rose before me. Fifteen meters tall, with deformed compacted fingers closing into a fist.
The sound of compressed air struck first, followed by the massive shadow falling over my body. The fist descended like a meteor, fast and crushing.
I reacted on pure reflex: I opened a portal before me and dove into the rift without hesitation. The world warped, and in the blink of an eye, I reappeared thirty meters ahead. The impact came a heartbeat later. The ground behind me collapsed as if smashed by an invisible titan. The shockwave hit with brutal force, hurling leaves, stones, and splinters of trees all around. When I looked back, there was no longer a forest—only a colossal crater, as if that piece of the world had been ripped away.
The forest had become a corridor of death, each tree crushed as if made of paper, each branch snapping like bones in desperate silence between the roars. Pushing myself up from the impact, I noticed something eerie: the leaves drifting in the air suddenly began to glow a bright blue—and then exploded like grenades.
I raised my arms before my face to shield myself, but no harm came. The only thing that happened was the release of a thick cloud of blue dust, like pollen.
The blue dust clung to my skin, stuck to my clothes, and even burned in my throat like invisible poison.
'Shit, shit, shit, shit… I'm sure this is really bad,' I thought, but before I could finish, the chaos grew into frenzy.
Hundreds of maddened red eyes turned toward me. They weren't just beasts anymore—they were a horde, driven by raw instinct, like hounds catching the scent of fresh meat. And the next instant, everything charged at me, trying to crush me.
There was no more hiding, no more subtlety. I was in the center of it all now, running to avoid being crushed or skewered by spikes.
My electricity burst outward, burning roots that tried to rise again, cracking rocks, propelling me forward with leaps that left craters where my feet touched down.
But with every second more beasts emerged, as if the entire forest had awakened in hunger. The apes shrieked wildly, hurling boulders that tore open entire clearings when they missed. The boars charged in straight lines, shattering what little trees remained, and the porcupines spat spears that whistled through the air like steel rain.
My heart felt like it was about to explode in my chest.
This wasn't just a fight—it was a hunt. I had set out to hunt like a predator, and now I had become prey.
I clenched my teeth, leaping over a fallen trunk just before it was pulverized by a boar. Lightning tore the sky behind me, but even that didn't slow the wave of monsters. It was like running against the end of the world.
I made a conscious decision. I couldn't stay in this cursed place—whoever the damned mage was who had crafted this wretched trap, he had done so with precision and care to corner anyone who dared come close.
"Screw this, I'll come back later!"
But before I could escape, a scream split the air, a presence descended upon the place, freezing all the beasts in their tracks. I was the only one who didn't freeze—only because I had been near monstrous presences my whole life. The beasts began to wail, and an explosion like a nuclear bomb erupted, spreading from the direction of the ravine.
The forest turned upside down even the blue pollen still floating in the air suddenly dropped like iron filings. My eyes snapped to the ravine, and my blood ran cold.
My body still vibrated from the shock of the explosion that shook the forest as if lightning had struck straight into the earth. My back burned under the weight of the presence, and my chest seared as if the air itself were flammable. I coughed, spitting blood from my lungs, and for a few seconds it felt like the world had lost all sound, leaving only a metallic echo rattling inside my skull.
When I finally raised my eyes, instinct forced me to freeze. At the edge of the ravine, emerging from the dust and smoke, I saw a creature that should not exist outside of nightmares.
Ten meters tall, maybe more. Pointed horns rose toward the sky, its head nothing but an exposed skull, white bones contrasting with the living shadow that seemed to pulse between the hollow cracks of its face, with red lights burning in place of eyes.
The body, covered in thick brown fur, carried the raw might of a wild beast, yet its legs, bent like those of a goat, gave it a bizarre and profane grandeur. Its arms, far too long for a proportional body, ended in black claws that shimmered like blades forged for death.
"What the hell is that..." I whispered, my voice almost swallowed by the wind of the collapsing cliffs.
The edge of the precipice simply vanished under the force of its strike, crumbling like torn paper. Five precise slashes of sharpened blades shredded the place where the competitors had simply disappeared. There was no time for screams or resistance. Nothing but silence and dust.
My stomach churned when I saw the prey caught on the creature's claws: two massive boars, skewered and dangling like meat on spits. The monster lifted them to its skeletal mouth and devoured them as though tasting a worthless snack, chewing bone and flesh in grotesque cracks that reverberated all the way into my bones.
Time shattered around me, as if the world itself had been forced to hold its breath. The creature chewed its appetizers, and nothing else moved. The beasts were frozen in grotesque positions, trapped mid-roar and mid-leap.
Even the wind ceased, and even the dust that had swirled in turbulent spirals now hung suspended, motionless, like tiny constellations stagnant in the air. Only I moved, only I perceived, and every heartbeat pounded like a hammer against my ribs. That was because I had already tasted presences far stronger—Elian, Lesley, I had felt the fury of Kargath's presence, not to mention Selene.
My prana and mana surged at an inhuman pace, erupting through my energy channels like a volcano, burning like liquid embers.
I forced everything every ounce of will, every fragment of power—to tear through the barrier of the impossible. At my side, a dimensional rift began to form—not a clean, sudden rip, but something painful, slow, as if space itself resisted my intent. The edges of the portal screeched and quivered, opening against my will like flesh splitting beneath a blade.
When the passage finally widened enough for me to cross, I lifted my gaze and saw the creature watching me. For an instant, its beastly eyes, devoid of emotion, overflowed with something unexpected: doubt. A flicker of surprise, as if its authority had just been questioned.
Without a second thought, I exploded into motion, my body tearing with electricity as I hurled myself into the rift. I reappeared three kilometers away, gasping, my body trembling from the overload.
And then, from the creature's mouth, a viscous black mass was spat out, crashing heavily against the ground where I had been just milliseconds earlier. The impact rang out like a supersonic blast, and everything within a five-hundred-meter radius simply… dissolved. Rock, wood, insects, beasts even the very air seemed to collapse, melting away like sugar at the bottom of a glass of hot water.
When the thinning smoke dispersed, what remained was a warped crater, filled with a foul, poisonous swamp, like the rotting saliva of the gods.