Eun Byol and Ha Joon hit the ground and came back up fast.
Blades drawn.
The shadow moved in a dark blur.
Pushing everything in its path aside like it had decided the forest didn't exist.
It hit Eun Byol's blade first.
The power of the contact bounced off the steel, its appendages sharp and alien, the force of it sending her sliding back across the earth.
Ha Joon's feet moved immediately.
First step.
Second.
Rushing forward in the direction of Eun Byol as the creature pressed her back, the clash of mana and creature pushing the air outward in visible waves.
The mana in Eun Byol's blade found her in an instant.
Glowing blue.
Low.
Angry.
Hot.
Ha Joon's blade stretched back.
Then cut the wind.
Found the creature.
Hit whatever it used to move across the ground.
The shockwave of his blade found the beast.
Stopped it.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough.
The force pushed Ha Joon and Eun Byol back again.
Both of them hitting the earth a second time.
Hard.
They looked up.
The creature stretched.
Every abomination-like part of it extending outward, its shape resolving through the smoke and shadow into something that could finally be seen fully.
Ant-like.
But wrong.
Everything about it wrong.
The proportions.
The angles.
The way it moved like it had learned movement from something that had only ever watched from a distance and never quite understood it.
It stretched its parts and looked at them.
And waited.