The stone bridge that Arin and Renota had climbed to was relatively short in length— at least when compared to some of the strings which seemed to stretch for miles— and the producer of the approaching noise was currently around the string's halfway point. However, its approach was incredibly rapid. They couldn't have had more than twenty seconds to prepare before it would be before them.
The clicking noise was being produced by a creature. A rather terrible creature. It stood a little bit taller than Renota, and its muscular structure was rather large. Well, larger than Renota or Arin's, at least. Its skin was brown and thick, made of a material that was not exactly chitin, but was very similar. The chitin-like skin was covered in thick, dark hairs.
The creature's head was grotesquely uneven and disformed, but it somewhat resembled a tarantula spider's head. It had ten ununiformly shaped and colored eyes, each of which were eerily human-like and glowed with the light of bloodlust. The eyes were somewhat contained in sets of five on each side of the face. Below each set of five eyes was a double-jointed mandible, almost like a giant, hairy finger. These two mandibles were constantly clicking against each other, creating the first half of a terrible and unrhythmic 'song'.
Halfway down the head, all skin suddenly disappeared into a giant wide-open maw full of impenetrable darkness. The creature didn't seem to have a jaw of any kind, so the toothless mouth was always open, allowing saliva and whatever other putrid fluids it might've produced to endlessly leak from it. It didn't seem to possess a neck, or at least the neck it had was very small and wasn't visible.
The highly muscular torso and legs were like the eyes in that they were creepily human-like, at least in general structure. However, the beast possessed four beefy legs extending from the chest instead of two, and it also didn't have any feet. Instead, many thick black claws formed a hoof of sorts beneath the ankle. A growth of claws travelled up each leg from the hoof, slowly dispersing and shrinking until it disappeared below the knee. Each step that the creature took caused the claw hooves to click on the ground, creating the second half of the creature's horrid song.
The arms of the beast were similar to that of a mantis, and as such were skinnier than the torso and legs. After the second joint of each arm, all hair ceased to extend from the thick brown skin. Instead, a giant and razor-sharp bone scythe extended from it, painted black by the unholy amount of blood coalesced on the blade.
This creature was approaching the two Campaigners at an alarming speed, forcing them to prepare themselves for battle barely more than five minutes after they had first arrived in the mountain range.
Renota simply formed a loose guard with his hands and started lightly hopping in place, his excited and laid-back expression quickly becoming calm and serious.
Arin was much less composed than Renota. His entire body was shaking with fear, and his eyes were glued onto the approaching creature. It took a few seconds, but he eventually came back to his senses and quickly pulled his sword bag off of his shoulder. He tried to pull the sword out of the bag, but since he was still staring at the creature, he accidentally ended up dropping the bag.
Two things fell out of the long, black bag— a black-and-blue katana with a beautifully engraved sheathe, and a bottle of cleaning oil, which was currently rolling away. Arin slapped himself in the face.
'Focus, you fool!'
Exterminating the tremors from his body, he bent down to grab his sword, then situated it in on his belt at the left side. By the time he looked up to see the creature's approach, it was already before him, both of its bone scythes flying down in an attempt to slice Arin into quarters. Arin gripped the hilt of his blade and jerked the blade out of its sheath swiftly, bringing it up into a horizontal block above his head. However, right before his blade and the creature's collided... something Arin had never once experienced in his countless years of training happened.
Deep within the darkest recesses his mind— and every other creature's mind, for that matter— resided a brilliant marble figure. Its exact appearance slightly differed between organisms, but every human seemed to always see it as the same thing. A twenty-sided figure made of white marble, with a number one through twenty engraved in gold in the middle of each side.
Right before a creature completes a significant action or compact series of actions, this figure would 'roll' in the back of its mind. In the mind, a few moments would pass before the figure finishes rolling, but in reality, it happens in an instant. When the figure stops rolling, naturally, a single side will be facing upward. The value seen in the gilded engraving decided the level of success for that given action. For example, a value of one would result in absolute failure while a value of twenty would result in absolute success.
Depending on the creature's level of proficiency in the significant action's required skillset, the value required for the action to not result in failure decreases. If a master swordsman tried to cut down a brand-new one, it would probably only result in failure with a value of one. If a brand-new swordsman tries to cut down a master, success might only be possible with a value of twenty, if it is even possible at all.
The figure rolled for a few moments in the deepest part of Arin's mind before eventually stopping, with only one side facing upward.
[6]
Arin was able to meet the creature's scythes in time, but he didn't possess nearly enough stability or power to fully block the attack. The moment his blade connected with the scythed beast's, he was sent flying back a few feet. He landed on his back then ungracefully slid on the ground for a second, before coming to a full stop.
Arin was lucky— his lack of preparation for the attack flung him out of range, and he had also managed to keep hold of his sword, if only barely.
'Damned... Damned whatever-that-damn-thing-is!'
Staring at the damned beast, he regained his bearings and began to rise to his feet once more. But before he was able to stand fully upright, Arin noticed something very fast had appeared at its side.
Then, two noises suddenly appeared and grabbed his attention, overpowering the distant ocean and the unpleasant melody of clicks. One was the sound of a flame igniting, and the other was the sound of shattering chitin.