Four hours had passed since I had arrived here. I came across those monsters three more times. Every time, I defeated them with a scream.
Two times, I fought against only one of them. The third time, there were two at the same time. I thought they were lone wolves, but they might also hunt in groups.
Once, I also met another type of monster. It resembled a wasp, but was about a meter in size, with a reddish-black color. It had eight eyes on its hideous face with disgusting sarcomas growing on its body. Its jagged mouthparts could separate to tear apart a prey. It had a sharp stinger at the end of its abdomen.
Fortunately, its wings made a lot of noise, so I had already spotted it from afar.
I had taken off my hoodie and tied it around my waist as the temperature was too high. I was just wearing a tank top, but I still sweated profusely.
I had tied the shells of those insect monsters to both my arms. Those shells were very tough, and even when I banged them against the obsidian rocks, they merely had a few scratches. So, I used these shells as makeshift shields, tying them with the torn pieces of my hoodie.
I even wanted to use the pincers as weapons, but I wasn't strong enough to pull them out cleanly. For such strong shells and sharp pincers, they had surprisingly weak joints. I tried hitting them with rocks, and with only a few hits, they came off. Moreover, the insect's underside was also unprotected.
As I walked, I heard some buzzing in the distance. I turned towards it, and as expected, the noise was from the wasp monster. Moreover, there were two at the same time.
This time, I was the one moving towards them. I knew I could defeat them with my power.
The wasp monster made the noise as it flew towards its body, which was happily munching on the remains of an insect monster. It landed and started eating as well.
When I got close to them, they finally noticed me.
"KHEEE," they made a strange sound as they screamed.
I smiled. Did they want to have a screaming competition with me?
"Aaah," I screamed, and the two wasp monsters screeched in pain and then burst open.
Just as I felt happy for another victory, I heard a scittering sound. I felt a presence just behind me. Without hesitation, I jumped to the side.
Had I been even a second slower, the pincers of the insect monster would have cut off my leg.
Shit, I became complacent.
I didn't get time to scream at the monster as another insect monster lunged at me. I hurriedly blocked its attack with the shield on my arm. But I was still knocked to the ground due to the force behind the attack.
The monster that attacked me shook its head as it banged on the shell on my arm. I turned my attention to the first one, who took that opportunity to lunge at me while I was down.
Oh, no. You don't.
"Aaah," I screamed, and it fell from mid-air.
I was already gasping for air, but I still turned to the second insect monster and screamed at it, and it went down.
I slumped down, collecting my breath and thoughts.
My biggest blunder was getting complacent after my latest victories. They went to my head and I forgot where I was.
Next, I realized another of my fatal flaws, aside from my weak physical condition. It was my insufficient lung capacity. I didn't notice it previously, but now, during a high-pressure fight, I understood it.
I was out of breath after screaming a few times. I couldn't scream for long. Of course, it was a pipe dream to improve them in a day to fight against the monsters.
No, the only thing I could do now was to be careful and use my powers at the critical time without wasting any opportunity.
Twelve hours had passed since I came to this place. I had met and defeated many monsters till now. I stopped counting after twenty.
I looked at the Shellcrawler, which I named the insect monster, in front of me.
My clothes were torn in various places. A nasty wound was on my thigh, courtesy of a Buzzfly's stinger, which I named the wasp monster. Another piece of cloth torn from my hoodie was tied to it.
The shellcrawler took a step forward, and I took a step forward too. Both of us were alert, analyzing our opponent's movements. Finally, we charged at each other.
I ran towards it, and it lunged at me. I dodged at the final moment, and it fell on the ground. Without giving it any time to attack me a second time, I pounced on it and started hitting the joint with a rock between the head and the thorax.
It tried to throw me off as it ran haphazardly while screaming in pain, but I held onto it like dear life. Finally, with a cracking sound, the head came off, and it stopped, falling to the ground.
I got up and patted my clothes. My thigh burned due to the intense movement.
With practiced movement, I rolled the carcass to its back. Then I found the longest two legs and broke each off from the last joint by hitting it with the rock.
I had used these as makeshift stick weapons. They weren't much use against the shellcrawlers, but they worked surprisingly well against a buzzfly, which was easy to kill as long as I steered clear of its stingers. Those bitches, hurt like hell.
The stick was too brittle and broke after a few uses. So, I made a habit of taking apart the longest and strongest two legs of every shellcrawler I defeated.
I found a nearby rock and leaned against it. After setting multiple alarms with a one-minute gap, I closed my eyes for thirty minutes.
Fourteen hours, and now I was fighting two buzzflies at the same time. I had a stick in both hands.
One of them fired its stinger, which I barely dodged by rolling to the left. I now had five minutes before it could create another one and fire it.
I didn't give it time to fly higher, and I lunged at it. My stick slammed squarely on its head. One shot and it was dead.
I heard a whooshing sound, and I hurriedly dodged to the left, but the stinger from the other buzzfly still grazed my arm.
My face scrunched in pain as a hiss left my lips, but I didn't have time to care about it. I couldn't let the buzzfly fly higher. I ran towards it, but unfortunately, it was a considerable distance away and had already flown up.
I threw stones at it to harass it. My aim was shit, so none actually hit. But one unexpectedly hit its abdomen. It cried in pain and anger, and it pounced down, its mouth open, ready to tear a piece of meat from me.
I was just waiting for this opportunity. The moment it was within enough distance from me, I hit it with the stick, which hit its abdomen, and it fell to the ground. But it was not dead yet. It tried to fly again, but I couldn't let that happen. I lunged at it and hit it again in the head. Now it was finally dead.
With the last hit, the stick broke, and I discarded it on the ground. I took out another one tied to my waist.
Once again, I tore another part from my hoodie and bandaged my arm. It was confirmed that my hoodie was not making it out of this alive.
I resumed walking. The terrain grew worse—shattered stone ridges forced me to climb more than walk.
As I climbed the final rock and continued walking, I realized I had reached a dead end. There was a canyon in front of me with black and red smoke rising from the abyss to the sky.
I tied my handkerchief around my mouth and covered my nose. Most of the smoke was rising, but it crept near the ground.
I looked left and right to find a way to cross it. Luckily, in the distance towards the right, I saw that the canyons on both sides met, and there was a clear path to reach the other side.
With my destination decided, I started walking towards it.
Although it didn't feel far away, the walk took more than two hours.
But as I neared the area, I quickly ducked behind a jagged rock and peeked out from the corner.
Tens of shellcrawlers and buzzflies were duking it out against each other.
The shellcrawlers ripped apart the buzzflies with their mandibles.
The buzzflies either attacked the shellcrawlers with their stinger, hitting the eyes or the joints, or just dived down to tear apart the joints with their mouths.
I reduced my breathing as I watched the spectacle in front of me. My heart was drumming against my chest.
If they found me, they would rip me apart. My sonic scream was nowhere near enough to take out so many of them.
The fight continued for more than half an hour, and the winner was decided. It was the shellcrawlers. However, it was a pyrrhic victory, as out of the tens of shellcrawlers, only three survived and were injured to varying degrees.
I waited for some time to make sure no reinforcements were coming. But no one went to either share the spoils of war or take revenge for their fallen brethren.
I decided to finish the three of them myself and then continue the journey.
Just as I was about to come out of hiding, I saw something and hid back again with a trembling heart.
A lizard monster, at least six to seven feet long, climbed the canyon.
Without pause, it lunged. The first Shellcrawler disappeared into its mouth in a single gulp. The others tried to flee. It caught one with a swipe of its tail, cracked it against a rock, then devoured it whole.
The last tried to crawl away, dragging a broken leg. The lizard clamped its jaws down and chewed this one. Loudly. Wetly.
It ate the remains of the other monsters until nothing remained but the stains.
Then, without a sound, it slinked back down the canyon.
I hid there for another half hour. I was not taking any chances. That lizard would gulp me whole.
Once again, making sure no one was there, I ran with all my might and then ran to the other side. I kept on running for a few more minutes.
After I stopped, I made sure no one was following me, and only then did I sigh in relief as I gasped for breath.
Finally, after regaining control of my breathing, I took a moment to look around at the new environment—no more barren lands. The ground was the same as before, but was less uneven. I could also see a bunch of trees starting to appear now that they had only increased further in the distance.
The trees were all black with no leaves, only twisting branches. Those black branches gave an illusion of charred fingers.
Twenty-three hours.
One more to go.
My legs felt like they were carved from stone—sore, cracked, and ready to break.
Every step through this forest of charred skeleton-trees made my bones scream louder than my mouth ever could. Still, I trudged on, slaying whatever monster came near.
Then I smelled it.
Sweet. Heavenly. Completely alien to this land of rot and death.
I decided to follow the fragrance, curious to see what could have such a fragrance in such a hellish place.
After walking for a few minutes, I saw a tree in front of me. It was different from the others, as it was dark red and smaller.
Monster carcasses were lying around. It should've bothered me, but my entire focus was on the tree, which was emanating the fragrance.
My stomach growled at the same time. I hadn't eaten or even drunk a drop of water for the day.
"Is the smell coming from a fruit? If the smell is so good, the fruit must taste heavenly," I said, looking at the tree while licking my dried lips.
I walked towards the tree, remaining alert for any potential monster attacks.
And it proved helpful as I was just a few meters away from the tree; two roots attacked me from the right.
The attack was so sudden that I had no time to dodge. I could only scream at them.
The roots flailed in the air and then burst open. A screeching sound came from the tree.
Is it alive?
I looked at it.
Another root attacked, but I hurriedly blocked it with my shield. As the attack pushed me back, I used the momentum and continued backing off.
The root wanted me to attack, but I was outside its attack range, and it couldn't reach me.
I looked at the root in the air and then at the tree. I could back off now and take another route; there was not much time remaining for me to complete the test.
But I felt unwilling; I wanted whatever was emanating that sweet smell. I wanted to eat it. No, I needed to eat it. I deserved it after what I had endured.
I finally decided to kill the tree monster and remove whatever was causing the smell.
I had only used Sonic Scream once. From what I've observed in my fights so far, I've been able to use it four times per fight, with a maximum of five if I push it. But that was the limit. I had three to four tries left.
I entered its range to resume the fight.
The root once again attacked me, but I blocked it again with the shield. I was pushed to the right, but that didn't stop me from running towards the tree.
My target was the trunk; as long as I destroyed the trunk, it would be enough.
Perhaps it realised what I wanted to do, and two more roots came to attack me. Now there were two at my left and one at my right.
As the two on my left attacked me together, I screamed again, and they burst open.
But the root on my right seized the opportunity and coiled around my leg, pulling me off the ground. It hung me upside down.
Another root came and aimed for my head, and I hit it with the stick. The stick broke on impact, but it completed its job, and the root was damaged and pulled back with a cry.
Next, I turned my head up and screamed towards the root coiled around my leg. It burst open, and I fell on my side. The height was not much, but I felt I had broken a few ribs.
But it didn't stop me from running towards the tree. My injuries were not significant compared to the smell.
I reached the trunk and screamed at it. The shockwave hit it at point-blank range.
Massive cracks appeared on it as a shrill scream came out of it. Another root hit me from the back, but I rolled to the right.
I was not stopping. I had only one scream left. I wasn't wasting it by destroying the roots.
I looked at the trunk and prepared to scream. Behind me, the root attack targeted my head. I didn't care. My head was nothing compared to whatever caused the sweet smell.
The root was just a few inches from my head, and I screamed. The root froze mid-air as a mournful cry came from the tree.
The cracks on the trunk increased. I hurriedly created some distance. The cracks increased, and finally, the tree broke.
"Hahaha, it's mine, mine, mine," I cackled madly, but the sweet fragrance actually reduced and suddenly vanished.
Just as the sweet smell finished, I stopped laughing. My eyes widened as I looked at the dead tree monster with horror.
Then, once again, I looked at the various monster carcasses lying near the tree. Now that I looked at them carefully, they looked like dried husks.
Cold sweat covered my face as I thought this could've been my end.
I realized that the tree actually emitted a sweet fragrance to lure in prey, which it would then suck dry. The smell had hypnotizing properties to lure in the prey. Now that it died, it no longer emanated the fragrance.
Should I feel proud that I survived? Or horrified that I walked willingly into the slaughterhouse?
I sighed. Whatever. It was nearly time for me to leave. There was no need to think about what-ifs.
Just as I was about to turn, I noticed a faint red light inside a crack on the tree trunk.
Curious, I walked towards it. The trunk was too brittle, so that with some force the crack widened.
Inside, there was a pulsating, red organ, resembling a heart, the size of a ping-pong ball. Even if the tree monster died, it didn't seem to affect the organ. It looked like a rare drop from a powerful monster.
My intuition told me it was something good. I had a feeling that I should eat it. I looked at the remaining time. Three minutes.
"Fuck it," I said and swallowed the heart.
For a minute, I didn't feel anything, but after that, I felt my insides were burning.
I leaned against the broken stump and sat down. Somehow, I managed to endure it for two minutes.
Then, just as my 24 hours were up, a strange screen appeared in front of me.
Congratulations! You survived for 24 hours!
Would you like to leave?
Yes
No
The pain was starting to become too much to bear.
"Y-yes," I barely made a sound as I agreed to leave.
Then the world darkened in front of me.
*********************
Mission: Motivate the Author
Description: Gather Power Stones to fuel the Author's energy reserves and push him into overdrive. Succeed, and he will deploy one extra chapter during the corresponding week.
Objective 1: 200 Power Stones in Week 1 (Completed)
Reward: One bonus chapter for the week (Delivered)
Objective 2: 220 Power Stones in Week 2 (Completed)
Reward: One bonus chapter for the week (Delivered)
Objective 3: 250 Power Stones in Week 3 (Completed)
Reward: One bonus chapter for the week (Delivered)
Objective 4: 300 Power Stones in Week 4 (Completed)
Reward: One bonus chapter for the week (Delivered)