Before Harrow could confirm his guess, the creature shot at him.

“Solas, It’s fast!”

Oddly, the size of the ant didn’t frighten him as much—not after what he had witnessed. Compared to the massive serpent, the ant was only a foot long and covered in a deep brown carapace. And the fact that it was an ant. Perhaps it would be frightening if it came in numbers, however, as a lone ant, it held little of his terror.

It was agile, but not enough to evade his notice. Harrow kicked it as soon as it came within range, shoving it aside.

Tor’s balls, that hurts!

Thankfully, the sight of the giant ant hurtling a dozen paces to crash into another tree was a damn satisfying one. The impact left it dead still on the ground.

Harrow looked around and approached the ant. With an assessing foot, he nudged it. The ant lurched into motion, regaining a little of its mobility.

“Bloody hell!” Instinctively, he pinned his hurting foot on the head of the ant, forcing all his might over it. A delightful crunch sound followed as his foot dug into its shattered exoskeleton, dark purple blood smearing his barefoot. I’m really missing my boot right now.

[You have slain an Unformed Creature: Pincher Ant.]

A smoky wave of something threaded out of the crushed creature and entered him. A trace of heat rose in his chest, and Harrow knew immediately what it was. Essence.

Unfortunately, the quantity was too low to provide much.

“I guess it only amounted to this,” he said. Quickly, he wiped away all the filth from his foot in case the blood was contaminated. You could never know about these cursed creatures.

After contemplating for a couple of minutes, Harrow decided he wouldn’t question the incredulity of the situation. It was counterproductive. The time would be better invested in ensuring his survival—which implied he would need to kill more of these creatures.

The situation is completely absurd, perhaps absurd thinking will bear fruit.

Bringing the obsidian knife out, Harrow struck at the already dead ant. “Come on, do something. Sacrifice!”

He was hoping to see at least one of the two enchantments—Sacrifice or Plunder—activate. Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Maybe I need a live sacrifice.

His eyes darted around his surroundings, easily finding more of those giant ants in the trees. They seemed to be sucking nutrients from the trunks, minding their own business, not bothering to attack him as the other one did.

Hesitating a little, he kicked the tree trunk, trying to shake the ants into falling. That proved to be an impossible task, as the tree was at least four times thicker than his waist. And that was the smallest of the trees in the surroundings.

He was not stupid enough to climb the trees and fight them on their turf, no matter how good of a climber he was. His eyes darted to the knife, and his mind wavered a bit. He would at least want to know what those enchantments could do.

Clenching his jaw, Harrow targeted one at the lowest branch of a tree with a lone ant. He bit the hilt of the knife between his teeth and climbed up the tree. The ant didn’t seem to notice his climb and continued to suck on the tree. It was only when he came near that it stopped and lurched at him.

Harrow swatted it with a fist, causing it to fall onto the ground. Prepared to not let it flee, he jumped down, trusting his augmented physique to save him from any undue injury. The fall was nearly twenty feet, and he timed the landing well enough to remain unscathed.

His worry about the ant fleeing seemed to have been unfounded. The giant ant had made him its target, and it bolted towards him, emitting a low screech. These were not like normal ants at all.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Clutching the relic in a reverse grip, he waited for it to strike. The ant lunged at his chest, becoming a brown blur. His dagger arm flashed just as menacingly, grazing over the carapace and biting into it. Purple blood bubbled out from the wound, but the ant was far from being dead.

Finally, it seemed to remember the threat to its life and dashed in the other direction.

“No,” he barked, shooting after it, “you are not going anywhere.”

The bleeding ant jumped into a hedge, and Harrow followed. Thankfully, the wound slowed it down, or else he would have had no chance of catching up to it.

He lunged on top of it, striking the blade into its back with a squelching crush.

[Claim Sacrifice: Y | N]

“Yes,” he accepted without thinking.

The monster churned under his knife, as smoke and heat radiated from it. To the naked eye, the creature melted into a burst of light and smoke, leaving him utterly transfixed.

[You have slain an unformed creature: Pincher Ant.]

[Essence plundered.]

Heat rose in his chest, and now more of the essence was channelled into his body, releasing most of his exhaustion. He felt like he could go through all of Master Onearm's gruesome training regime without missing a beat.

The smoke vanished as soon as it came, leaving only a little of the purple blood.

The relic surely lives up to its name, he thought, sitting upright.

Harrow was about to look for his next target when something lurched out, causing him to recoil onto his butt. A tall green stem, as thick as his waist, rose ahead of him, its huge flower towering over him.

He squinted at the one huge red flower on its head. It didn’t look carnivorous, as it didn’t attack him as he assumed. It remained a metre away from his head, hundreds of its red petals flapping at him in a greeting.

His vigilance waned as a mesmerising scent permeated the air. Harrow found himself drawing his arms towards the irresistibly mesmerising flower.

There was so much more for his two eyes to take in. All his insecurities, troubles, fatigue, and pain washed away as he stared at it, getting drunk on its hypnotic scent. Whatever it was, he wanted more. He wanted all of it.

If Harrow had a canvas, brush, and colours, he would have made one of his masterpieces out of this view, though he was aware his meagre skill couldn’t do justice to its beauty. One had to experience it first-hand to know, the fluorescent flower and its spores—

A tingling sensation spread to the back of his mind, chilling his spine. Even if the flower was beguiling to a fault, Harrow was not out of his mind to practise his poor painting skills on it.

Something was very wrong with this plant. Thankfully, he was not too late to recog—

His eyes grew wide as the head of the stem lurched at him. The red petals turned jagged akin to daggers, while a dark hole loomed in the middle of the flower.

Harrow lurched to his left to evade the flower head, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough. The flower crashed onto his back, its sharp petals biting into his skin. Thankfully, the impact hurtled him away from it, and he rolled before the monstrous head could capture him. Unlike the pincer ant, agility was not one of its strengths.

Harrow escaped safely, only to discover there was no dagger in his hand. He didn’t even know when he had dropped it. The plant was so terrifyingly mesmerising and soothing that he failed to notice anything beyond it.

The obsidian dagger lay a couple of paces away from the stem, while the misty spores in the surrounding air completely. He guessed the entranced state was probably due to the spores.

“Entrancing tree,” he groaned. Great, that’s the thing I was waiting for.

Harrow exhaled sharply and muffled his mouth and nostrils, hurrying far beyond the grasp of the plant monster. It appeared there was a limit to its reach, as the other part of the stem was rooted to the earth. Still, to escape the hypnotic spores, he had to move further away.

Finally, he breathed fresh air as his mind reeled back to clarity. Harrow was mesmerised no more, nor did the flower seem beautiful to him. Contrary to being beautiful, it terrified the living daylights out of him. It lurched its unrelenting flower head in his direction, resembling a serpentine creature trying to gulp him down in one bite.

Despite failing to trance him for the second time, the flower head didn’t stop releasing the spores. It was effective—not just on him, but a large bug flew straight to its demise, intoxicated by the spores. The flower head didn’t wait ceremoniously; it sucked the bug into the looming cavity at the centre of its petals.

A chilling sensation ran down his spine as he witnessed it all. Its cavity was narrow, ill-equipped to devour a complete human, but he didn’t like his chances.

Unfortunately, Harrow dropped the only tool he could use to hurt it, kill it even. He could walk away, but he didn’t want to leave the weapon, no matter how menacing the flower monster seemed. He would likely discover more monsters like this if he were to survive this trial.

He could escape safely now, but what would he do against a monster that didn’t have a movement restriction?

Yeah, I need my tool back, he thought. However, it didn’t seem like the monster would let him have it without taking a bite or two.

Harrow watched as the monster devoured one bug after another, yet still more flew towards it. He impeded the advance of one of the ants with a crushing kick, as an idea formed in his mind—an idea that would not only get him back his weapon but might as well kill the plant monster too.