Milorad lay root to the ground, all four of his limbs were stuck to the ground. The beast raised its claw, the sign it was going to pierce Milorad with its’ harden claw. Milorad wince his face, waiting for his impending doom.

Whoosh.

Milorad shut his eyes waiting for the guillotine to end his life.

Then there was nothing.

Milorad slowly opened his eyes.

Rufus was on the creature’s face, violently bashing the creatures harden forehead. Borislav rushed to Milorad and picked him up, carrying him away from the creature.

“We can take care of that bastard here; you can stay out of this now.” Borislav explained.

Milorad was still in awe by what has happened, he could only assume that Rufus left his post and jumped down onto the beast to save his life.

He stood up and brushed off the dirt and dried blood off his shirt. He still felt light headed. He spat up the mixture of his spit, blood and dirt. It tasted foul. The experience of meeting a creature that had killed most of the top most experienced men was too much for Milorad to handle.

In the distance, Rufus was furiously trying to attract the attention of the beast. He shouted, waved his arms and taunted it. The creature, still in daze from the sudden attack by Rufus, looked at Rufus precariously. Once Rufus has attracted the attention of the creature, he ran Northwards; towards where the rest of the team positioned themselves. Though the members were few, a total of eight men strong, the team have created a well elaborated plan to lure the beast northwards.

Back to Milorad, he had to move on, in order to carry out the plan.

“Urg” an unusual pain radiated from his stomach. He looked down. Warm, thick red ooze began dye his sand coloured clothing. Milorad removed his shirt. What he saw shocked him. A deep, gaping wound is slashed across his stomach. A mixture of yellow and red bodily fluid, of blood and fat, began to spill out as if someone had emptied a packed bag. A sudden rush of light headedness overwhelms Milorad. Within his extreme exhaustion, due to the massive loss of blood, he used his shirt and tied it against his wound.  He was desperately trying to catch his breath, grunting with the sensation of great pain. He tightened his abdominal muscles to restrict blood flow.

Borislav had finished surveying the area and return to a pale man caked in a thick, darkened red blood. He rushed over to Milorad.

“Oh dear, you need stop this bleeding immediately!” exclaimed Borislav. “Don’t move, I will go find some moss to stop the bleeding.” Off she went to find the life-saving plant.

Milorad looked around. In the corner of his eyes, he spotted a familiar plant, the goldenseal plant. He reached using his left arm, whilst his other arm pressed hard against his stomach. The mixture of desperation and pain is depleting Milorad valuable energy. Yet, the plant seems so far away, even though it is just out of reach for him.

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Milorad looked in the sky, thinking to himself “This is it. I could not go on anymore. This creature would destroy the world and it is my fault that it happened”

He barely had the strength to even keep his eyes open. He was slowly drifting away. His breathe gentled each breath. To a point that it felt as though there were nothing.

Rufus was rushing towards Boza, where Boza would carry the baton towards the Subordinate F and so on and so forth.

The manoeuvrability through the densely packed forest is extreme difficult of Rufus, this is even more so for the beast. It could not swim through the thick layers of tree roots and the complex tunnelling systems created by the roots. This gave Rufus and Boza enough time to prepare their exchange and carry on the marathon. Rufus stopped running just before Boza, thinking that the creature would surface again to see where he went. This would give Boza a window of opportunity to carry on the run.

However, unexpectedly, there was no movement under the ground. Rufus was puzzled. He tapped the ground multiple times. The response was a low rumbling underground. Rufus gestured Boza to start running. And Boza set off and continued to run north.

No one dared to mess this operation up. This was a detrimental task that the Empire has set on the squad, the lives of innocent men and women were at stake. To fail is to doom the Empire.

Keeping this in mind, this hardened soldiers proceeded on with this plan. The idea of the plan was to lead the creature to the cold climate of Surbidia. This would lead the creature to extreme coldness and die to hypothermia. Then afterwards resupply at a nearby town or village, than return back to Uronia.

Boza was ecstatic at such experience being chased by an almost invincible beast. Being a young chap and extremely adrenaline fuelled youth, he could not hold in his excitement. He ran in a zig-zag pattern and the same time screaming as if a young boy playing tag, just that getting caught spells death.

Rufus looked from a far and shook his head. “Youth” he muttered under his breath. Then, he turned to the sky and looked at the sun, roughly gauging the time. It was almost sun down. The plan should take about the next sun rise to reach the Northern hemisphere, which is about fifty thousand more steps to reach.

Rufus decided to back track to the where Milorad was and to assemble with him to go to the next point and set up the next part of the plan. He climbed upwards into the branches of the canopy and navigated through trees.

Finally, he reach Milorad. Shocked to see Milorad laying unconsciously, he asked “What happened?” Borislav replied “Must have been that damned creature stabbed him, but he will be fine, I have already applied medication and stopped the bleeding. However, seeing how the wound is, it might take some time before he could actively work in this operation.”

Having a dead weight in any situation is a huge problem for the team. However, Milorad is the most experienced amongst the eight. His advices would be very valuable for the succession of the mission.

Suddenly, Milorad took a long deep breath. As he opens his eyes, he stood up instantly. “Where is the beast now?” he asked in great concern. “It only has been a while since you fainted”, replied Borislav “you are greatly injured, and need to rest”.

Milorad tried to seat up, but felt aching sensation at his abdomen. He turned to Rufus.

“Just before sun down, I passed over it to Boza, looking at how it is, we might be able to reach Surbidia by day break.” Rufus said, Milorad nodded.

“Borislav you go north to where the team should assemble, Rufus and I would follow behind later, we would set out very soon” Milorad ordered, “pass me a map” Rufus took from his waist pack a crumpled piece of paper, it was in terrible condition. However, the content was still readable. “By day break, team should reach here” Milorad circled the paper, “We should reach there about the end of next day”, followed by him pulling out a Shamshir and passing it to Borislav. “In case there were any trouble use this.” Borislav reached out and accepts the offering.

And just like that, they parted ways. Rufus supported Milorad and walked upwards. As the sun sets, the temperature turned nail biting chilly. The plan was set back by this unexpected turn of event.