Quin did not know what had happened and only saw that the Shrieker froze for a second, then turned its head backward like it was looking for something. Although it was a quite short period of time, he jumped backward with his remaining strength right away and then started to run. He could see the lake was just a hundred or so meters away and that made his hope return. Quin knew from experience that how much his regeneration speeds up when he's directly in the water itself and so would not need a long period of time to heal himself.
The Shrieker’s distraction was only for a moment though, and it quickly turned his attention back to him. The fierce attacks started to continue and Quin only had a second or two of advantage on his enemy, which was not very big.
He was able to evade almost all of the first series of its attacks, but the next ones gave him another set of injuries and he could barely prevent himself from falling down from the strong force the tongues had behind them. However, with each evasion he was closer to his goal and he was completely focused on that single thought.
Damn, just another couple of steps and I’m there! I have to hold on!
Numerous tongues were coming from behind him and also from his sides, trying to close off his routes of escape. Quin leaped forward to his hands just barely above a tongue that was suddenly coming from the front and then pushed himself back to his feet with his arm.
In the next moment, he had to jump to the left as that was the only route he would be merely injured and not caught or even worse, dead. He was barely able to get back on his feet with a movement similar to a somersault and could not even take more than three steps when he was forced to leap away again.
His heart was beating so fast that he felt it would explode any moment and he was drenched in his own blood and sweat, while his body was missing numerous chunks of flesh and bones. Despite all of this, he did manage to reach the lakeshore in the end and then jumped into it with all of his strength.
Quin could see as various tongues were following him during his jump and he suddenly had an idea to grab onto one to bring it down with him. There was only one problem with this, that he had to discover that his right hand with which he wanted to grab on the tongue was missing entirely.
Fortunately, the lake was very steep right from its edge at the part he was at and he quickly headed deeper. Surprisingly the Shrieker did not seem to be afraid of the water at all and its tongues continued to chase after him. That truly made him worried for a moment, but he could already feel his cells, bones, and organs rapidly regenerating and knew that he was through the toughest part.
There was no reaction from the Shrieker at first, but then after just a breath of time its tongues -- that chased him into the water -- erupted in flames. Quin did not really have that much of an idea about the details or how could something burn inside the water, but he suspected that this wild energy inside the lake was opposing to the monster’s body and thus had a reaction like that. He could see from under the surface of the water how a set of its tongues almost completely turned to ash in just a matter of seconds.
“That’s what you deserve!” he could not help, but cry out in laughter after seeing what happened to the creature. Though due to being submerged in water it was not audible at all outside.
It was still not the time to counterattack, however, as his body would need a bit more time and if he went out now he would just risk his life. Calming himself down, he focused his mind to recover as fast as he could.
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Quin did not know whether the creature was dead set on him or not and if he were to take a long time it would not just turn back to kill the other people at the town’s center. That would be an absolute catastrophe, but on the other hand it would also do no good to just simply sacrifice himself without any meaning, so he needed a short amount of time and could only hope that nothing would happen during it.
As he was trying to harmonize himself to the lake and its energy he discovered something very strange. It’s... It’s actually different! He did not have the same feeling as usually and so quickly noticed the difference. The wild energy’s rhythm that had been somewhat slow and leisurely became actually fairly fast and it no longer was calm and tranquil.
The feeling he got from it was... Anger and loathing. Although this was what Quin felt from it, it was not something so simple. These were not emotions in the forms like humans had them, as they were a lot cruder than that, but these two feelings were the first things that came to his mind.
He also noticed that strangely, the rhythm of the wild energy became surprisingly similar to the rhythm of his own heartbeat. Even though he was at a loss regarding the lake’s reaction, he felt like he had never before. It was like he was on the exact same wavelength as the lake and its wild energy.
Furthermore, the pattern he had been so eagerly observing and trying to see through during the past half year became crystal clear to him now. Yet, he knew that it was also different from how it had been previously and he felt that it was a lot closer to his thoughts, personality... To himself.
Feeling like... Like he was in complete harmony with the lake.
It was then when he opened his eyes and realized that he was standing just at the edge of the lake facing his disgusting enemy. His feet were planted in a shoulder-width distance and it was his left side that was facing the Shrieker; while his arms were held horizontally in arcs -- each creating a half-circle -- and with the left one being below the right one. It was a strange position that looked a touch uncomfortable, but actually the opposite was the truth.
Although it could be barely seen, he was not motionless and his arms and legs were slowly, but continuously moving. They looked like they were very close to their goal, but it still was not the right time for that and thus slowed down to a speed that was barely visible.
The Shrieker’s patience seemed to come to an end and seeing that he was no longer protected by the lake’s water it attacked once again. When its myriad of tongues was only a few meters away, suddenly the movement of his left arm started to accelerate. It gradually straightened up and even went past that, ending up in a position where it was diagonal to the line of his body and arched slightly backward.
When it reached that position something happened that had never been before in the history of the humans of Ranfel. Wild energy had appeared along the path his left hand made previously, out of thin air. Although it was similar, it was not the lake’s, but something that Quin had actually created himself.
Then, it lashed out in the direction of the Shrieker like a violent, spinning vortex. It did not suck in the creature’s attack, rather it acted more like a circular blade that was spinning and started to grind the tongues. The outcome was not so obvious as it had been when the Shrieker’s tongues lit on fire inside the lake’s water, but in the end it was clear that Quin’s wild energy was the one that emerged victorious.
It caused numerous injuries on the Shrieker’s weapons, yet none to Quin, who did not even stop moving for a single second. He stepped back with left leg, while simultaneously moving his left arm. He moved it horizontally as back as he could and then down next to his left leg to the point it was completely vertical. Next, it started to move upward while he put down even the heel of his left leg and in the end his upper arm was parallel to the ground while his forearm and hand arched into a half-circle perpendicular to the ground. By turning his body forward again and moving his forearm to be parallel to the ground, Quin completed a cycle and was in a position just like when he started, with the only difference it being mirrored to his other side.
Just with another set of this movement a new wave of the wild energy appeared heading toward his enemy and its attacks right away.