***
Noctis drifted downstream until he couldn't even a speck of the accursed site.
The cold water wrapped around his body, it stung a little at first but as he continued drifting it felt more and more cool.
Noctis gave up resistance and just floated down the stream thinking about what he had just experienced.
The boar wasn't normal even without that blast thing. No way it covered all that much distance so quickly and over such a long period too.
Noctis focused on the energy slowly nourishing his body. He understood how he healed through all his injuries somewhat now.
The energy accelerated his healing abilities too, and if he wasn't mistaken during the bout, the energy could be used outside the body too.
Noctis raised his hand to eye level, water sliding off it, and tried to coalesce the energy at one point like the boar did it with his tusk.
'It's harder than I thought it would.'
The energy tended to flow rather than compact. It would take him a bit of practice to just be able to concentrate the energy, that too while he was still.
As he was busy with this he noticed a sudden shift in the atmosphere around the area he was now drifting in.
It was covered with dark mist, making the area feel isolated and a bit horrific. The odd shapes of the tree added to it.
The trees were all lined perfectly in lines. Their trunk was perfectly straight with a bizarre shape of the growing branches, entirely barren.
Noctis moved out of the steam and onto the clearing to get a better look.
Going a bit closer to the trees, he felt an odd innate sensation from them. It was certainly trees but different from the ones he had encountered thus far in the forest.
While he was inspecting the trunk of a tree, he moved his body sideways with a sudden movement as a spear struck the trunk where his back would've been.
Noctis' eyes went cold as he looked towards the direction the spear would've thrown from. He found armed men running towards him.
Noctis looked at the dozen or so men making their way towards him without a word.
"Has there been a misunderstanding? I was just passing by here."
While he didn't like being attacked in the wild he considered the possibility that he had crossed some sort of boundary.
Without any reply a soldier threw another of his spears hurling towards him.
Noctis moved just a fraction to the side as he caught the flying spear by the shaft.
Noctis' expression dropped into a scowl as he took a deep breath.
"Fine. If that's what you want then…"
Noctis tore off the tip of the spear while discarding the pole. Taking the blade in his hand he assessed the coming troops.
They wore proper helmets that protected their skulls as well as the side of the face. They wore metal plates strapped onto their tunics with leather, protecting their shoulders and torso.
They were proper soldiers.
Having a blade in his hands while confronting men that were out for his life, Noctis felt he was back at earth once again.
And just like that a strange craving for blood took over him. Indeed it had been ages since he spilled some blood.
Looking as the soldiers had almost reached him, Noctis dashed towards the closest man.
Not expecting the sudden movement the soldier reflexively brought his hands up to protect his face.
Noctis' side stepped and spun around, moving his makeshift knife in an arc directly tearing through the exposed neck of the soldier. Half of its neck, gone in a bloody mess.
Without stopping he attacked the man behind, flanking the side of the group.
The soldier swiped his spear towards him from his sideways position. Noctis ducked and before he could reposition his spear slashed his neck with pinpoint accuracy.
'5 to go'
The group got divided in two with two to his left and others to his right.
Noctis took a step back to evade the numerous thrusts coming his way before making a bee-like move towards the man on the far-left.
Noctis kept his hand low, at the torso as the soldier thrusted the spear staring at his face.
As the spear closed into his face, or his face went towards the tip, Noctis brought up his hand holding the blade upwards and struck it at the spear's blade with force.
The power forced the spear, along with the soldier's hands up, although Noctis' own hands bled due to the power and the odd shapes of his weapon.
The soldier noticing his face wide open brought his other hand to protect his neck.
Noctis took a hold of his hand with his own before slashing his blade downwards, cutting a gash through his exposed nose bridge and mouth.
As a scream followed, Noctis concentrated some energy in his other hand and propelled the man slamming his body to the soldier standing next to him.
A loud thud of metal slamming metal followed while Noctis threw his blade towards the groin of one of the three soldiers dashing towards him.
Another loud scream echoed while Noctis retreated somewhat, not before kicking up a spear that had fallen from the soldier's hands.
2 men remained standing while three rolled on the ground screaming, writhing and bleeding, cut and bruised.
The two men took their position but didn't advance, a bit cautious now.
Noctis' hands itched to just impale their flesh right and then, but he needed to try something while he had the opportunity.
He focused on the flow of energy once again directing it towards the hand holding the spear as he took a strance to thrust the spear.
The two men looked into their eyes before attacking Noctis at the same time. Rather than thrusting the spear with quick motions like their fallen counterparts, they jabbed their spear between elbow and chest before making their way towards him with slow motions.
Noctis retreated similarly with slow steps.