After walking even further into the forest, Zuria noticed the surrounding trees and vegetation were getting bigger and bigger. Further ahead, there was no light at all, even though it was daytime.
The sun was blocked by the abnormally gigantic trees around him.
Seeing the ominous path in front of him, Zuria frowned and mumbled, "It's kinda scary... And I'm stupid enough to leave that broken sword behind. Broken or not, it's still useful for protection..."
He really regretted it and was considering turning back to get it. However, he decided to continue forward without going back for the sword.
"What's the use of a broken sword in this situation? It's true I'm scared of pain, but dying is always painful. Might as well go and be done with it!"
Zuria braced himself for any possible attack as he kept walking into the dark path ahead. With his feelings in chaos, he finally stepped into the dark.
Then a sense of fear gripped his heart. He stopped in his tracks, turned around, and walked back to the brighter area before stopping again to look at the dark forest.
"I have died before, so dying once again is nothing serious..." he muttered slowly, trying to convince himself that dying was better than struggling to live. He was still undecided whether to continue or retreat from this place.
But the forest wouldn't wait for his decision.
A sudden, low-frequency hum vibrated through the ground, rattling the leaves at his feet. It was followed by a sound like a massive hide dragging over stone, and from the solid wall of black shadow, two points of sickly yellow light slowly descended toward him. The air went frigid. Zuria's self-pity vanished, replaced by a pure, animal panic.
The sword, he thought. I need the sword!
Yet, as the massive, unseen thing took a ponderous, earth-shaking step closer, a deeper, colder realization snapped through his terror. What good is a flimsy, broken piece of steel against this?
All those death-seeking, depressing thoughts vanished as fear and a sense of crisis hit him like a massive truck.
Without a second thought, he bolted, running with all his might to his right, straight through the bushes.
What the hell is that? he thought, trying to remember what kind of Demonic Beast was known to live in this place.
But he came up with nothing. No Demonic Beast he knew of was that big and suffocating.
Zuria tore through the undergrowth, his rag of clothes snagging on thorns he didn't even feel. The ground was now uneven, rooted with massive, slick knots that threatened to trip him. The thing behind him didn't seem to be running, yet its immense footsteps were gaining on him, each one a heavy, thudding echo that vibrated through his very bones.
He glanced back, catching a fleeting, terrifying glimpse. It was not a single beast, but a massive, segmented shadow, like a colossal centipede or a train made of stone and chitin. The sickly yellow lights, distant but huge, were its eyes. They swung low, slowly sweeping the area like twin, predatory lanterns.
He was heading deeper into the abnormal forest, and he needed cover now. The trees were too big and too tall for him to climb, and he was sure climbing would only make him die faster. Not far away, he spotted a gaping fissure in the root base of one of the largest trees, a dark, narrow gap where the trunk seemed to have split years ago. It was a risk, since he could get stuck, but staying in the open was death.
He dove headfirst toward the hole, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the damp soil. He shoved his body into the opening, scraping his shoulder painfully, just as the monstrous sound of dragging hide skidded to a halt directly above him.
The ground shuddered. A thick, metallic odor, like ozone mixed with rotten meat, filled his cramped refuge. A heavy, obsidian-colored limb, segmented and sharp, stabbed down, testing the air right beside his head.
Zuria froze, his breath locked in his throat. He had to be completely silent. He had to be nothing. He pressed his face into the dirt, listening to the deep, resonant hum of the creature as it searched. The yellow light was now gone, blocked by the sheer mass of the monster towering over his tiny sanctuary.
It doesn't see me, he realized, a cold surge of triumph cutting through his panic. It's sensing the vibrations I made running.
But the limb didn't retract. It paused, then tapped the root directly beside his ear, a massive, percussive sound that felt like a bell ringing inside his skull. It knew something was close. All it needed was one more step, one small shift in weight, to crush his hiding spot completely.
He waited. He didn't dare move a muscle. Every instinct screamed at him to scramble deeper, but he knew any sudden movement would confirm his location. His heart hammered a frantic, self-betraying rhythm against the dirt, a drumbeat of life the beast was surely picking up.
The obsidian limb slowly, deliberately began to press down against the root fissure. Wood groaned, thick fibers tearing with a sound like wet leather being ripped. The crushing weight was immediate, tightening the small space around him. The air was squeezed out of his lungs in a painful rush.
This is it, he thought, the dark, familiar pull of resignation returning, but this time it was tempered by a searing anger. He wasn't dying for nothing. He was being squashed like the insect he was.
Then, just as the pressure became unbearable and his vision started to tunnel, the low-frequency hum shifted. It went from a focused search to a low, distant rumble, and the ground beneath Zuria's chest vibrated differently.
The massive limb above him didn't retract, but the crushing pressure eased, replaced by a simple, immense weight.
Something else was moving nearby. Something bigger.
The enormous creature overhead, the segmented shadow, the Chthonic Leviathan, let out a grinding, mechanical shriek that shattered the unnatural silence of the forest. The single, searching limb pulled away, and the immense, dragging sound of its hide began to move, not toward Zuria, but off to the left, toward a new, louder disturbance.
Zuria lay trembling in the dirt, inhaling dust and the metallic scent of fear. The crisis had passed, not by his strength, but by pure, horrifying luck.
He slowly, agonizingly began to pull himself out of the crushed crevice, watching the titanic shadow move away in the distance, drawn by a struggle he hadn't yet heard, a struggle that had saved his life.
For the first time, he was swallowed by the fear of death. Imagining how he would die if that monster had caught him made his legs weak and his body tremble.
The pain he would feel, the slow death as he was being eaten... Alright, stop! He needed to stop imagining it. It was too disturbing!
"No way I'm letting myself be eaten alive!" he muttered, his body trembling.
He needed to train his magic! He decided it, eyes burning with a newfound vigor he had lost long ago.
Zuria clawed his way fully out of the root crevice, not caring that his clothes were now shredded rags and his skin was scraped and bleeding. He stumbled back against the massive, slick bark, gasping for the cold, stale air. His fear was a churning nausea, but beneath it, a tiny, hard kernel of resolution had formed. The thoughts of a gentle death, of painless surrender, were utterly, violently gone! He had seen the truth of dying here: it wasn't a peaceful end. It was being crushed and consumed.
"No," he spat, the word barely a whisper, yet holding a sudden, ferocious edge. "I won't be food!"
He pushed away from the tree, forcing his trembling legs to move. The sheer shadow of the Chthonic Leviathan was still visible, a moving mountain of obsidian chitin, now locked in a silent, colossal confrontation with whatever disturbance had saved him. The air thrummed with a new, deep-frequency vibration, the sound of two enormous, impossible things preparing to collide.
Zuria didn't wait to see the fight. He turned and plunged deeper into the dark, abnormal forest, but this time, his movement wasn't a panicked bolt. It was a driven, focused retreat. He was looking for one thing: safety, and with it, the chance to finally understand the power he knew he possessed.
"Magic..." he muttered. He needed to be hidden, and he needed silence to focus. He pushed past the bizarre, oversized vegetation until he saw a cluster of monolithic, smooth stones, almost like a natural tomb or altar, nestled against a stand of trees that seemed to grow together in a protective, arching dome. It looked solid, defensible, and, perhaps more importantly, shielded from the heavy vibrations of the fight happening miles away.
He squeezed into the small, root-choked space between two of the largest stones, pulling himself into a tight, miserable ball. The stone felt cold and reassuringly still.
Closing his eyes, Zuria focused, ignoring the frantic drumbeat of his own heart. He was trying to calm his nerves, no matter what. Panicking would give him nothing but trouble, and he knew a panic-driven action would end in disaster.
So he kept trying to calm himself, and then made his first attempt at casting magic.