Stepping down the root and into the gap with no fog.
Am walked confidently down.
Immediately, the beast showed interest in the Oksi that showed no fear towards it.
It riled its fur up, showing malice within its twisting face.
Am had doubts, but also had a clear line of hope tugging him.
The platys stretched its spine back, ready to rip the prey in front to shreds.
It pounced.
Tearing the earth below with its leap, it reached Am in a matter of seconds.
Its claw chained with the entirety of its cat-like body, twisting and bending.
The claw, flinging through the breeze like a baton kissed the air.
Am had dropped as close to the ground as he could be allowed to.
Spotting him right below its chin, it growled as it slammed the ground with such voracity that it should've been broken. But it didn't cause a crater like it should have.
An invisible round, tilted platform had absorbed the impact and sunk slowly, until it stopped.
For a split second, the platform shone a bright red, and in the next millisecond.
Crash!
The platys was launched into the tree so hard, even the well-known durable Ohrn Tree had its wood, splinter at the impact.
Cough!
Am coughed up blood, his body started getting crushed from the inside out.
'Just a little more!'
His vision remained clear, only focused on one single entity.
Falling limply to the ground, the platys staggered back up.
Seeing it weaken enough.
Am walked painfully up to the bloodied beast.
The platys, seeing him raged and thrashed around. A stray claw, about to strike Am down came rushing like a hammer.
"..."
But it stopped, abruptly so.
It dropped to the earth, a puddle of blood dyed the fur.
A squelching silence filled the air.
A giant, pointy branch had pierced right through the heart of the platys.
It would die in just a few more minutes.
"Huuu"
Am sighed a wave of relief away.
They couldn't stay any longer, the baby in the womb of the platys was going to rip its way out any second now.
Turning around, he glanced at the two that made it this easy to kill this beast.
"Let's—"
Am stopped his words, their pale faces suggested something had happened.
He wanted to ask why they looked that way, but the words just couldn't hope to leave him.
They clung to his throat like hot glue.
His head could only slowly twitch behind, to see for himself what really made them so frightened with horror.
"...."
The moment he did.
He could see very well why those three had made those kinds of faces.
Like a mirage, the Platys faded slowly, as if it had never even existed in this world.
And.
Grrrrrr
A hungry, salivating and tuskless platys took its place slightly further away from where the previous one had been.
Before they could even realize what had happened.
It had blitzed through the distance between them, before any thought could be wrung out.
Insisting its claw to crush. Am's torso jerked to the right, opposite to the direction the claw truly wanted to send him at.
Instinctively, Am blocked the strike with his arm, but the immense strength was too much for his heavily wounded body to even hope to handle.
Crash!
His body crashed onto the tree, falling limply to the floor, right next to the wide entrance of the Old Tierre Path. The other two shuddered.
"Damn it! Brother!"
Famu left his spot immediately, it didn't matter to him whether or not he died....just, Am could not afford to fall here, and he would not allow him to fall, even if Am himself wanted to.
Being right above it, he stabbed it right through it.
But—
The body of the platys began to shift and twist, fading and fading into a deep gray.
Until, the one Famu had actually stabbed through.
Was in actuality.
Am.
"N-No...."
Bang!
The mirage faded, and a claw had sent him straight to the side before Famu could even realize that he had struck at nothing.
Am watched, as Famu's body spasmed and blood kept rushing out of him.
Tiju felt his legs get weak, his vision blurred and in turn.
A giant shadow loomed overhead.
He looked back, the movement annoyingly slow.
As if trying to drag the suspense on longer and longer, to inject more fear into the victim.
Hmph
Sharp exhales of a beast kept giving him a cold chill down his spine.
Blood had long gone cold.
As he turned, he strangely felt like he could not run away.
He wanted to run away so badly, but he just for some reason could not think of it.
And, thoughts almost always come before action.
The platys with its side curved tusks kept prying its eyes on him.
"A-Ah"
Tiju's throat tightened.
His body began trembling uncontrollably, until something, something deep inside had snapped.
"AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
And he ripped a scream so loud it bled the ear.
Am, watching the scene, realized now what was going on.
'A mirage!'
The previous platys had likely died and gave birth to this one, or this one was simply a stray cat that found mice to play with.
Either way, its lack of tusks indicated the entirety of its nature.
The tusks of a platys symbolized their 'nature' or 'personality', and one lacking tusks meant caution was highly exercised in its movements.
They prowl and dissect everything from their prey, their weaknesses, strengths, and even their behavior towards their own pack.
That is why their insight take on the form of illusions, being capable of altering the mental stability of their prey with a few mirages.
Insight, while unique. Existed in every single being that had life woven into them. Each one sprinkled with a certain uniqueness, the colorless being the sole exception.
Even a worm on the ground could have the earthshattering insight to kill anything, a human, an elephant, or anything that could move and breathe could be killed by it, with right price being payed of course.
But there was one commonality that all insight held respectively.
Nature. Personality.
That was all, insight was and still is the base of these two things.
If you had an insight to create soap wherever your eyes fall upon, there would be no other insight better than that one. If you had an insight allowing you to see into the future, then that one was the most suited.
'Damn it!'
Am clenched his jaw tightly.
He had no way to combat against the colorless platys that could employ mirages.
And it would certainly not allow them to leave just like that.
Right now, at this very moment. They were going to be eaten, without even putting a scratch on the aggressor.
At the corner of his eyes, Am could see red stained fur.
'It got...injured?'
Seeing its bloodied neck, his mind churned to realize how it got that injury.
Just to grasp at what he could do to salvage this situation.
The wind blew, this time however, he heard something slice through it.
At an unbelievable speed!
It ripped through the air at high speeds. Am, although could not see what it was.
He knew that it was a dangerous thing to hear.
The platys, shrank.
Sensing an absolute danger to its life, it leaped away. Attempting to escape, it also trialed to remove all its mirages that burdened its movements, but...it couldn't.
Because it was far too late for it to even think of running.
As if a missile had been launched from an altitude of 11.000.
Boooooom!!!!!!!!
Something powerful had crashed into the platys, the explosion ripping eardrums apart.
A giant, sizzling crater formed at where the platys had been.
Am, Famu and Tiju were all blown away from the explosion. Becoming slightly more injured than before.
The mirages had long ended.
Flesh incinerated, even the baby of the platys had been obliterated due to the impact.
Only fragments of what could be called a carcass remained, along with bellowing dust.
And they could see a silhouette of the figure that caused this, that stood triumphantly on top the carcass of the platys.
Finally, the dust cleared and revealed their savior.
A bloodied mess of cloth peered her gaze at the three, and on her back.
A black mass of strings kept raging.