Chapter Thirty

Mister Greeny tumbled out of the hole he had dug in the side of the hill, his significant momentum carrying him down the muddy slope until he splashed violently into a large pool of water. Fat droplets of water fell around him like heavy rain, and each one mirrored the emerald light of his surging mana expanding around him, giving the illusion of a vast field of stars.

The hole leading down into the earth collapsed as the mound flattened like an anthill trampled by a small child. Violent tremors ran through the ground, and the air popped as it rushed in to fill the empty space left by the now-compressed dirt. This simple flexing of his will required half of what he had managed to absorb from the world vein, but it was necessary to stop the monster from coming to the surface. If he allowed it to rampage about unchecked, there was no telling the damage it could cause.

A few pulses of his core passed, and silence returned to the rolling plain around him. That monster had closed the distance between them to only a few hundred feet while they swam across the vast underground lake but had slowed dramatically as it clawed its way through the small tunnel. It had been forced to dig upward in pursuit, and Mister Greeny hoped that his magic had crushed it.

The unnaturally flat ground before him boiled and popped before the hulking form of the two-armed monstrosity pulled itself out of the liquified earth and screamed a terrible cry into the still night air. Deep cuts and ragged wounds pockmarked its pallid skin that shone like moonlight, and globs of dark blood were flung from its body as it writhed in agony. Its bulbous eyes showed no intelligence or emotion as they rolled in their sockets, but Mister Greeny could feel the hunger radiating from it.

In his opinion, dumb creatures were always more complicated to deal with. Their tiny minds could barely handle more than one simple goal at a time: eat, sleep, reproduce, run away… anything more complicated was impossible for them to process. Mister Greeny could see that the idea of food had completely overwhelmed this monster's small mind, and even the pain it suffered from his magic hadn’t managed to dissuade it from wanting to catch and eat him. Any sensible creature would have run away when it was faced with something that could cause it pain, but this thing was just too stupid to realize the danger it was in.

Still, Mister Greeny was not what he used to be, and this beast seemed able to use magic to some extent. It had managed to melt the stone and soil when his magic crushed the earth around it, allowing it to survive the sudden attack. He doubted it would be able to use magic intelligently, but he would still need to be careful.

Thick vines exploded from the ground in a dozen different places around the bleeding monster, peppering its mucus-coated body with rock and dirt. Vicious barbed thorns ran along them like suckers on tentacles, flexing menacingly as they whipped toward their target. Wet slaps sounded as the vines latched onto the monster, and the thorns bit into its smooth skin and set into it like rows of finger-width fishhooks.

The monster bellowed a croaking roar as pain assaulted its simple mind. Mister Greeny rushed further away, gaining distance as it opened its overly wide mouth and exposed its rows of little teeth and undulating pink flesh. The muscles inside its mouth clenched and heaved, and in only a single breath, a thick stream of stinking phlegm shot through the air toward him.

Knowing better than to let the snot touch him, Mister Greeny dodged to the side and let the attack land harmlessly on the ground. The broken grass it landed on turned to mush in an instant and the ground beneath hissed and steamed and liquified. He dodged a second time as another glob of mucus sought him out with terrifying precision. He would have to circle around the monster to avoid the dangerous acid it was capable of spitting, but he found that idea more challenging to accomplish as he noticed that it had broken free from the barbed vines.

Only small stumps remained where the vines had sprouted from the ground; the rest of the vines had turned to mush as the same acidic mucus seeped from the beast’s skin. The beast was now free and had fully pulled itself from the slush of dirt and stone beneath it. Mister Greeny felt the mana wafting from the boiling earth next to him. It was faint, but it was there all the same. Now, the only question was if the monster could use its magic in ways other than this.

He was curious but not so much as to tolerate the monster’s attacks.

More vines erupted from the ground, as thick as tree trunks and sharp as spears. They stabbed from the sides; he was unable to pierce up from beneath it due to interference from the monster’s own magic, and sunk deep into the monster’s body. Another roar of pain shook the night air, and the beast violently whipped its finned tail in blind retaliation. Mister Greeny tried to will the vines deeper into its body, wanting to spear a vital organ or two, but the acid coating its skin was strong, severing the vines only a moment after making contact.

Blood gushed from the wounds he made, mixing with the acid and splattering the ground around it like a sprinkler head. Noxious gas filled the air as the grass and ground turned into a toxic bog; it was enough to cause the vegetation making up his body to turn brown and brittle. He drew further away from the thrashing creature and used his magic to repair himself.

He would be able to outlast the monster. There was no reason to risk getting closer to it as it bled out. It was suffering, but that was the way of things. He would stay and watch it die, ensuring that it would no longer be a threat to him or his little one.

It abruptly turned tail and ran.

Toward the camp.

Mister Greeny reacted quickly and sent a swarm of barbed vines to hold it in place, draining even more of his mana reserves. Dozens of them slapped onto the monster’s skin and sizzled instantly as they touched the acid. Still, strips of skin were peeled away before the barbed thorns completely melted, sending the monster into a frenzied scramble to escape. With only two front legs, one would have thought the monster would have been slow on land, but its long limbs and frantic drive let it outpace Mister Greeny.

He had to catch it.

Nia stood next to Marina just outside the older woman’s tent. Guards and attendants were looking into the distance, all trying to see what had made that awful noise. The veil of darkness was too thick for them to see.

“Mount up!” One of the guard captains barked. “Get out here and head off whatever that was. We don’t need that to get any closer. Don’t engage; lead it away!”

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“Sh—should we do something?” Nia asked, her eyes searching the dark for Mister Greeny. She was worried. She knew she shouldn’t be. He was a forest spirit, strong and unassailable, but she couldn’t help herself. They weren’t in the forest anymore; maybe something else just as strong was out there.

“Oh, no,” Marina said, her voice shaking slightly, which did nothing to reassure Nia one bit. “There is nothing to do. My guards will handle whatever it was that cause-”

Another garbling roar cut her words in two, sending the camp into a frenzy of startled yells and barking commands. Two men were sent to the ground as the horses they had just mounted reared back in fright; the four others had managed to stay in their saddles but still struggled to keep their mounts under control as they pawed at the ground and snorted their protests. Other guards rushed to the hitching posts to ready the other horses, and some formed a line on the side of the camp closest to the intimidating roar.

Nia felt slight tremors running through the ground beneath her feet. They were faint but steady, and as they grew in intensity, she couldn’t help but envision a herd of stampeding forest boars.

“What’s going on?” Nia asked as she looked to the older woman for guidance. She had spent her entire life inside the Endless Forest and had no idea what sort of beasts roamed the plains. Maybe whatever was coming was something commonly found and redirected by men on horses, but from how the guards ran about like a kicked hornets’ nest, she highly doubted it.

“I have no idea,” Marina confirmed her fears with a shake of her head. “But you do not need to fear; my guards will handle whatever nasty thing lurks in the dark.” It was the second time she had mentioned her guards’ ability to handle whatever was coming for them, but her tone lacked the conviction of her words.

Nia’s eyes continued to search for Mister Greeny but found nothing but darkness between the canvas tents and dormant wagons. Lambent torchlight cast long shadows onto the trampled grass just outside the camp, making it impossible for her to see anything, but she was hopeful that her companion and teacher would wade through the darkness and come to her side. But he didn’t come.

Terrified shouts and the snapping of bowstrings preceded a yowling hiss of pain that caused all of the little hairs on her body to rise. Nia’s head whipped to the side, her eyes wide and startled as she looked to the north. A few men on horseback were galloping back into camp, kicking their heels deep into their mounts to urge even more speed from the gasping animals. They had just left the camp and crested the nearest hill before immediately turning around and running back to the others, shouting a warning of a monster.

Directly behind them was a monstrosity so large as to scoop a rider and his mount wholly into its gaping mouth. It hissed and spat as it pursued them, pulling its tadpole-like form along the ground on two powerful front legs with a long, finned tail flailing fruitlessly behind it. Its large eyes turned to pinpricks as it approached the well-lit camp, its body turning away slightly as if afraid of the light. That was when the men on the ground released another volley of arrows into the monster’s flesh.

Iron heads bit deep into it with meaty thwacks, and thin ribbons of mist rose into the night air as the wooden shafts dissolved and fell away onto the ground. Some two dozen men didn’t pause in knocking more arrows and firing freely at the beast; although shocked by what they saw, they were well-trained and practiced in fighting. Nia had seen such coordination before between the hunters in the village when they would hunt the forest boars, working together to take down the dangerous prey.

Angered by the stinging pinpricks peppering it, the monster gave a threatening hiss and charged toward the line of men just outside the camp. The guards had hastily constructed a wall of flesh and spear and goaded the monster with harsh taunts and caustic words. Their goal was for it to impale itself on the long metal blades, although Nia doubted the spears were long enough to reach anything important.

“What is that… thing?” Nia said aloud, not expecting Marina to answer.

“It looks… it looks like a Burrow Fish,” Marina said with a look of shock and awe. “But those things are only as big as an arm; that thing is… I have never laid eyes on anything like it.”

It was huge, at least twenty feet tall, and four times the length. Its body was broad and fleshy, with a wide and round head, and as it tore through the line of men and spears, Nia could see that it was already gravely wounded. Many of the guards dove to the side at the last moment, avoiding a full-on blow from the enormous beast. Their leather armor started to smoke as the mucus coating the monster’s body fell on them, quickly eating through it and into their flesh. They shrieked as their skin melted away, all of them ignoring the rampaging monster tearing into the camp as they fought to tear away their dissolving armor.

A wagon was turned to splinters, and its cargo scattered like shattered glass as the monster stumbled and fell. One of its legs was cut deeply by a lucky spear. The haft had broken from the force, and the long steel edge corroded by the acid, but the gash left behind was so deep that bone was visible. Unfortunately, no one was recovered enough to take advantage of the monster’s fall, allowing it to get back up and hobble around aimlessly.

A carriage was trampled next; large, spoked wheels wobbled away as a flailing limb crushed the passenger box. The monster’s tail swiped along the ground as it turned away from a burning campfire, a tent wrapping around it like a net. The sudden strike scattered about the few attendants who had taken refuge inside, their shouts of surprise and pain breaking through the monster’s painful hissing.

“We should move,” Nia said as she turned to Marina. Her fear was palpable, but she knew that inaction would be the death of them. The monster was inside the camp now, and no guards were working to stop it. The only saving grace was that it was floundering about indiscriminately, giving everyone enough time to scamper away.

Marina started to nod but quickly looked back to her tent. “I cannot leave him. If he dies… I will lose everything.”

Another wagon was crushed as the monster rolled on its side in an attempt to untangle itself from the dissolving tent. Its acid was strong and would have melted the canvas away quickly, but it was in a panic caused by bright lights and pain. It rolled to its other side, flinging mucus and blood in a spray of fist-sized globs that stuck to the ground and ate into the nearby wagons and carriages. A third of the camp had already been destroyed.

Nia wrestled with the idea of leaving Marina and her ailing husband behind. She hadn’t known her for but a day and knew she shouldn’t feel so attached to her, but she was. She saw the other woman as a friend and a mother figure, which was strange now that she thought about it. That incongruity almost took root inside her mind but was pulled up by the dire situation unfolding before her.

She had to do something. She couldn’t leave her close friend to face the monster alone.

Nia’s mana flared inside her core and raced through her body. She held no illusions about being able to harm the monster anything more than superficially; it was simply too large, and she still wasn’t confident in her magic. She risked drawing its attention toward her and Marina if she tried. So, she went on the defensive.

A dense hedge of vegetation erupted from the ground and swelled into the sky like a verdant wave. Finger-length thorns jutted from the twisting bramble like quills from a porcupine, each one needle-sharp, and pink and red roses bloomed along the length of the wall, giving the imposing conjuration of magic a beauty that reflected the caster's soul.