The boar truly earned its title of ‘calamity’.

Eight feet tall and almost as broad, its tusks, almost as long as Atlas’ arm, glowed through a thick coat of dried blood. Fresh cuts criss-crossed its chest and snout, and a black pole jutted from its side, accompanying scores of arrows across its body.

Despite its heavy injuries and pink foam bubbling at the sides of its mouth, the boar’s eyes were clear, and glaring directly at Atlas. It tore a furrow in the compacted dirt of the path as it scraped its hoof along the ground, snorting balefully.

Atlas glanced from side to side, looking for an escape route. The side of the path was thick with trees and the heavy brush that the rabbits had fled into. Probably better than trying to race the behemoth down the open path.

The boar charged, releasing another porcine shriek that set his teeth on edge. He could feel its hooves pounding the earth towards him.

Atlas ran sideways, ferns whipping his injured legs as he weaved between trees the tank-sized boar couldn’t possibly squeeze between. An enraged squeal came from behind him, hooves scraped loudly into the dirt as it ground to a halt.

Perfect. He could rejoin the path a little later once he’d-

“Ah!” Atlas ducked down as the branches of a falling tree crashed down around him, smaller branches smashing and scratching over him. The boar’s head thrust through the opening, effortlessly uprooting a second tree as it surged towards him. Atlas barely scrambled away as crooked teeth snapped shut where he’d stood, stumbling over tree branches as he tried to make some distance between the boar and himself.

No good, the brush barely slowed it down. What were you supposed to do in a boar attack? Climb a tree?

A poplar fell from behind, getting briefly tangled in the branches of the sycamore above before breaking through a moment later. Atlas barely made it past.

Probably not.

What was the other thing with boars? Stubby legs? Atlas racked a brain that wasn’t his for trivia he didn’t know. The boar hot on his heels, Atlas broke through the trees back onto the path, stumbling for a moment as his foot caught on a bramble before twisting and throwing himself to the side.

Atlas grunted, picking himself up off the floor and forcing his aching body into a run. A long scratch from shoulder to shoulder trickled blood into the already tattered fabric of his shirt. That glancing hit had stripped most of his remaining HP. Horned rabbits ran across the road beneath his feet, completely ignoring him in their blind panic to escape the enormous boar tearing a path through the undergrowth behind them.

Damnit. It had already turned around. How could something that heavy moving that fast turn around so quick? Atlas reached out with his mattock, hooking a tree to spin him on a sudden ninety degree angle as the boar trampled past him, crushing a horned rabbit with a wet crunch beneath its oversized trotter.

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And why was it following him? He’d been surrounded by dead rabbits if it was hungry. Heck, the boar just made another one. Did it have a grudge against humans specifically? He slipped between two trees into small clearing featuring a number of fallen logs overgrown with honeysuckle. The cloying smell and bright flowers might have been scenic in better circumstances.

The boar exploded through the trees behind him, sending them crashing down either side of Atlas, stopping him from moving sideways. Atlas spun around and swung his axe across its snout, but the sharp blade left only a shallow mark in its leathery flesh. The boar opened its mouth and squealed in Atlas’ face. Stench and saliva splattered his cheeks and he stumbled back, ears ringing and stomach roiling.

The boar’s snout slammed up into his ribs like a battering ram.

There was something eerily familiar about this, Atlas mused dreamily as he watched the world spin by in a blur. Petals flew through the air as the boar rampaged through the clearing. Flowers raced by beneath him.

His dazed reverie was interrupted when he collided face first with a log a moment later. Atlas saw in intimate detail the rotten wood cave in around him before slamming through it, leaving a deep furrow in the grassy floor.

AEGIS BROKEN

The world shimmered as everything warped into various shades of red. Crimson petals floated on a backdrop of dull pink clouds.

Atlas screamed as something not so much pain as violation engulfed every part of his body at once.

AEGIS BROKEN

The words flashed again, right in the centre of his vision. Atlas blinked.

He wasn’t dead.

His hand twitched tight around the handle of his mattock.

He could still move.

Atlas spat out a mouthful of blood and splinters, gritting his aching teeth.

He could still fight.

Atlas rolled back and flipped to his feet, swinging his mattock with one smooth motion at the boar charging across the clearing to finish the job.

TOOL LOST

[Axe Mattock]

LAUNCHED

The axe tumbled end over end through the air.

The boar, seeing him rise, let out a furious bellow and accelerated.

They collided in the middle. The flat digging blade embedded into the boar’s eye with a meaty thwack. The boar let out an agonised shriek, tossing its head from side to side as it ran, trying to dislodge the tool. Its foot caught on the broken log Atlas had struck and it fell forwards. Atlas threw himself towards its blind side, a flailing hoof barely missing his head as the boar writhed, smashing a nearby tree to splinters in its blind fury.

Atlas let out a grim smile as he stumbled out of the clearing, clutching his ribs. If he survived this, nobody would ever know that he had been aiming for its legs.

By the time the raging boar had stopped its maddened frenzy long enough to think to look for him, Atlas had already vanished into the woods, leaving the devastated clearing far behind.