Chapter 10: Slaughter (2)
Unperceived by Beelzebub, there is another race of brown monsters crawling beneath the underground. They are the earth critters, creatures as small as a baby. These creatures resemble spiders, but they have two additional hands protruding from their eye sockets.
These creatures have actually lived here for a long time due to their tough shell and power. This small creature might be insignificant, but they are deadly when they are together. They have become the subterranean rulers of the Noman Forest.
PECK PECK PECK
PECK PECK PECK
PECK PECK PECK
The fearsome subterranean army is currently withering away; each of its soldiers is being pecked and eaten by the Blood Cranes. Blood cranes possessed an ability that allowed them to see the blood veins of a creature within their sight, making it hard for other creatures to hide from the cranes' watchful eyes.
The earth creatures have been settled here for a long time, so this is considered a feast to the Blood Cranes.
Far from the insect slaughter, I watch this scene from a tall tree on the back of Gollum, who is holding on to the tree. After watching it one more time, I then adjusted Gollum's arm, which is holding that red gun, a little to the left.
These Blood Cranes are airborne creatures; thus, Beelzebub didn't have any effective means to deal with all of them at the same time.
So he decided to sneak attack them and created a trap that could effectively dwindle their number. Beelzebub isn't certain if he could fight all of them, but he believes he could fight three or two of them with ease.
"Why are we doing this?"
"Shut up and follow my order."
"... But why am I the one shooting? Aren't you more skilled than I?"
"You are getting more insolent day by day; not only that, you are getting dumber too."
That gun required a large amount of mana to use; not only did I use dark mana, but also my mana capacity is much lower than Gollum's, so he should be the one to use it.
There are artifacts out there that require zero skill to use, and this is one of them, a perfect weapon for a powerful individual to use. But there's no reason for me to explain this to him, so I just ignored his words and kept on changing his aim.
"Now raise it a little bit more, a little, a little, GOOD; stay like that and FIRE."
"FIRE"
BOOM
With a deafening explosion, a powerful red blast burst from the gun, knocking both of us away. The energy blast travels at high speed and then strikes one of the cranes.
It enjoyed its feast with others; it never thought that there would be something that could be a threat to its group. Only when the red blast appeared in its vision did it realize the danger inside the forest, but it was already too late.
The red energy exploded right at its head, killing it instantly under the shock of its member.
"CO CAWW"
The group of cranes mourned for the death of one of the cranes before all of them turned their heads to where the blast came from. Their furious cries echoed through the sky as all of them moved out.
When those cries reached our ears. I excitedly told Gollum our next move.
The flock of cranes only took less than 10 seconds to reach the place where the blast of energy was, only to see two piles of bodies, human and goblin but see none of them are living.
The group then split, with three others reaching the place where the other goblins are running away, while the remaining ones search the surroundings.
They searched around for a moment but still detected no living creature. They cawed out in frustration.
"CO CAW, CO CAW"
Their cry seemed to be louder than before; they flapped their wings and pecked at random spots, including the piles of corpses, and in the frenzy, they pecked at each other.
"Caw?"
At first, it was just some pecking out of annoyance, but over time, it became more and more aggressive until they changed from pecking into using their talons to slash the others.
"CAW CAW"
"CAW CAW"
The flock of birds grew reckless, attacking each other, poking others' eyes with their beaks, and slashing others with their talons. This went on for a while until three of them survived, injured but seemingly calmed down.
"I see, this thing is more effective when used on the same race, which in my case is the human race."
"And the more sophisticated the emotion is, the shorter it lasts."
So this is the power of the amulet. Hmm. I glance up only to see murderous intent coming from those three remaining Blood Cranes. Quite tingling, but that's all there is.
"co CAWWW"
All three fly to me with the intent to skewer me with the beak. I raised my hand and made a signal in front of Gollum's face.
Seeing it, Gollum immediately shouted.
"FIRE"
BOOM
The powerful blast knocked away the pile of corpses Gollum was hiding. All this time, we have been hiding inside it, so talk about being lucky when we almost got hit when they were in the frenzy.
The blast kills the one in the middle, shocking the others.
But I have been waiting for that moment.
Imaginary technique: Grasshopper
A strange, ethereal energy took hold of my leg, shifting it into a grasshopper leg. Like a compressed spring being released, I burst toward the air where the Blood Cranes are and grabbed the crane on the left side.
Caught by surprise, the crane began to fly up to shake me off. Take a grip on its talon; I climbed before reaching the body. Mustering more of my new leg's strength, I leaped.
"CAW?"
A red line formed on its slender neck, and
SPURT
Blood squirted out as the crane's head fell to the ground.
"CAWW'
The other one, furious, charged at me, but before it could strike me. I position myself midair, raising my fist. I switched from grasshopper to demonic wings. Before it could pierce me, I punched at the side of its beak, breaking it.
CRACK
The entire beak was destroyed. Hurt but not giving up. It tried to fight back with its talon, but it could not see me.
For I have already appeared behind it. The crane's head is big, much bigger than a watermelon, but using that is still possible.
I extended both my arms outward, with ethereal wings popping out of my forearms, and swung both of them with full force, crushing the Blood Crane skull like a watermelon. Blood splattered all over my outfit and my face.
BOOM
While the corpse falls, I slowly float down, then land when I reach a desirable distance from the ground did I deactivate mana float and land on the ground safely.
"It is necessary to kill a creature like that.
"You may not understand, but someday you will find a monster whose only weakness is the head.
"Bu—But…"
"Shut up."
"Yes, sir."
Take a look at the carnage; I realized something.
"We haven't eaten much for the past week now, have we?"
Yes, sir, the only thing we have eaten is canned food."
"Yes, yes, but now we can finally have a feast."
"Wh—"
Gollum looks around only to realize something.
"Cough Cough I'm not hungry, sir."
"Too bad then; guess I have to eat all of this all by myself."
I look at all of these corpses and drool. I giggled.
"Kehkehkehkeh"
"..."
"What are you looking at? Take a look at that distance; if there is even the slightest movement, shout."
I glared at the Gollum; the middle-aged man seemed to be tired.
"Sure."
"Where is your honorific, you bas—?"
The next scene appears quite comical. Gollum in his golem form has his face distorted to the side as the corpse of a crane lands on his face with force strong enough to send him flying.
BANG
With Gollum taken down, I looked at the cause of it. A creature slowly emerged from the bushes with blood smeared on its supposed armor and the smell of burned tree following it.
Gollum might be stupid, but for me, he is not weak; if he had at least studied some martial arts, I might have lost at our last fight; he sure is one hell of a tough bastard. To me, at the very least, but to this world, he is a pebble, maybe even less. And the pebble has been tossed aside, crashing and snapping multiple trees.
"….."
A rabbit knight clad in bronze armor with a golden spear bigger than itself strapped on its back. After defeating Gollum, it turned around and looked at me. A mechanical voice was heard.
"For the God of Invention, Y-to"
... Beelzebub wasn't that surprised since he could already hear the scream of the other cranes the moment he crushed that crane's head. Beelzebub licked his lips as he grew more feral; his eyes, which already had a glint of insanity, now harbored something else.
Hunger