Chapter - 33 The weak-willed (4)
The dense brush forged by the wood's cumulative branches hindered the majority of the sun's natural light from imposing their dominant golden rays onto the forest floor.
The lack of illumination within the forest made for a gloomy environment. Ambient sounds of nature rained an all too familiar ringing tune noise within my ear.
The silence was deafening…
With resounding attention, Alex kept constant piqued vigilance towards the surrounding landscape while simultaneously making note of any unwarranted noises.
"Noticed anything yet?…"
Alex softly whispered so as to not make too much noise.
"Nothin,"
Leo responded complimenting my own whispered tone.
'Somethings amiss… is there really a problem with Gallow control?' I thought casting a scrutinizing gaze of pliable confusion towards a large pile of natural blue stone spires.
It's been two hours since entering the gleaned frost wood's and yet, all attempts to find and slaughter the gallows had been in vain.
Giving my confusion a reiteration I began to quickly piece together slight oddities and varieties within the surrounding scape of the woods.
Haa,
I sighed in stark realization.
'It's stalking us aren't they'
The irony I felt in the mess known as the purge of the Gallows quest was musing and quite frankly annoying.
The intentions of the Gallows came rather shockingly,
Each thing that nagged a red flag is now connected.
From the ambient noise of still silence, to my labored breathing, and the subtle abnormalities within the flow of Aura within the forest.
While Leo and I thought we were hunters, it was actually used for being hunted.
"Prepare to engage,"
Sensing Alex's swiftend tone of uneasiness, Leo immediately unsheathed his two dulled broad swords from the lower portion of his back, brandishing them to his front.
His expression changed from one of indifference to that of a slightly fearful one.
*
Twenty feet away a creature of of dark festered skin gazed a faze of hungerful lust,
The creature's hunger was insatiable, and fortunately, such quality treats had come on their own behalf.
How considerate of the starving.
The creature stood at 8 feet. Blackish brown tar coated its exterior. Protruding from its back were twenty-three separate tendrils, each brandishing claw-like extrusions that moved with the creature's will.
Extended from its neck was a trio of identical heads, all resembling that of a humanoid.
The eyes that each donned held no semblance of life, the skin was moldering and decay was pliable, the cheekbones were sunken, the skin peeled and hung and whitish pus spilled out of their oraphasis.
The stench emanating from the creature was revolting.
The Gallow stood idle as it stalked its forthcoming meal inching closer and closer only when it found it necessary.
It was a game of time,
When they let their guard down the Gallow would attack swiftly.
The blue-pigmented grass was stained blackish crimson as bowel remains and tubed internals hung from the tree branches, like ornaments coating a joyful Christmas tree.
Human flesh was delicately peeled and hung out to dry for future use.
A bountiful harvest of human carnage surrounded the creature.
!!!
The Gallows stalk was hindered as the group of two brandished their weapons and scourged the surrounding scape with hesitant gazes.
The Gallow felt annoyed by such lofty actions, its food was brandishing aggression.
Hesitancy tainted the Gallows instinct, though such pray was up for the talking and its insatiable hunger was beginning to nag further and further… there was still a heightened risk of death.
As a creature of instinct, the Gallow ignored such blaring pleas for escape, rather opting to follow its hunger and attack.
Readying its body the Gallows tendrils latched onto the surrounding trees to increase the tension build up for its propulsion forward.
Fwoom!
*
Glaring towards the monotone landscape of repeated frosted trees and blue-bladed grass, I continued to scrutinize my surroundings for any abnormal movement that could hint towards the Gallow's location.
Crunch!
The feeble crunching noise from a distance away rang out loudly through the desolate forest.
"Bingo,"
Alex mumbled
Calculating the direction that the sound hailed from, Alex was able to pinpoint a general direction of where the Gallow was located.
With a smirk of resonation, Alex slightly nudged Leo with an incentive alerting him of the Gallow's general direction.
"120 degrees to my right the Gallow stalks,"
I voiced as low of a whisper as I could.
Forcing my expression from one of arrogant confidence to an indifferent one etched its felt onto my features.
Arrogance and confidence would only blind a fool from the real challenge. Fighting the bastard!
I only know vague useless tidbits of information regarding Gallows due to my strenuous studies of Combat, Politics, beasts, and other species/races.
From the few details I know only one would hold any positive up-holding in relation to Leo and my circumstances.
That Gallows are creatures driven not by rational but by bursts of instinct,
Currently, the Gallow mentioned has been stalking me and Leo. The only reason it hasn't attacked yet is that we pose a significant threat; both of us are being vigilant, and the Gallow senses that. As a result, the small thread of rationality within the Gallow is challenging itself to wait for the optimal opportunity to strike, ready to pounce whenever either of us shows the slightest opening in our defense.
Of course, this could prove to be a challenge, even If Leo and I were to feign an intentional ignorance of the Gallow it would still prove to be nothing more than a stupid ploy with too large of a chance of death.
'It's becoming agitated huh?'
Alex thought further, increasing the grin plastered on his face.
"I think the poor little things a tab bit hungry, hmmm,"
I said in a mocking tone.
Hearing this Leo's expression shifted from fear to one of surprise.
'Has this guy gone mad?!'
Leo hollered in his head.
Dismissing Leo's surprised expression, Alex elevated his left forearm in front of his chest.
"Let's give it an incentive,"
With a calm series of movements, Alex further increased his grip on his trident and swiftly tore through the limited fibers of flesh located within his wrist.
As the trident's blade swiftly returned to Alex's side, as deep laceration was formed on the bottom of his wrist.
I felt an inexplicable warm searing pain envelope my arm.
Such a pain would place any normal person into a frenzy of yelps and yearning for help.
Yet Alex remained superficially unphased as he glared in the direction of where he believed the Gallow currently resided.
A steady stream of sticky viscous crimson spilled from the newly open wound on his wrist.
Plop–
,Plop–
,Plop–
Droplets of the crimson spilled from their elevation and towards the monotone gray soil below.
—Fwoom!
As expected the creature couldn't resist its own hunger's insatiable urges.
–17 feet
–15 feet
Milliseconds passed and yet times relative feeling elongated.
I was correct,
Within my front view, a grotesque figure of disgusting proportion charged forward with a swift movement across the array of densely packed tree branches from above.
Dropping his large Trident Alex in a practiced set of movements reached towards his lower thigh and grasped the holster of his handgun.
–10ft
The creature was now only three yards of distance from myself.
Woooom!—
My skin prickled as a gale of cold air washed over me.
Yanking the gun from its holster I aimed.
"Say hello to my grandma for me bitch!"
{Aim → Aura}
Click—
–Boom!
–Boom!
–Boom!
–Boom!
4 Aura-infused bullets raced from the gun's nozzle and towards the Gallows essence shard.
Sensing the flurry of bullets aimed towards itself the Gallow attempted to scurry away from their peril.
This had failed,
Thump!
Falling from the trees the grotesque figures' lifeless corpse fell onto the woodland floor.
With my gun still aimed toward the direction of the Gallow I forcibly chuckled.
"Well, that's one…"
"How many did the quest request again?"
I questioned Leo as I retrieved my vial of recovery liquid from my satchel.
With my wrist healed I looked towards Leo.
"Leo?"
":|"
Leo remained unresponsive and merely looked towards me with a frightened expression.
"...Did you need to bring me along…?"
Leo voiced
"Of course,"
"The gallows aren't the problem. I can easily defeat such foes with my handgun, but you know stuff happens, you can never be sure whether you'll die or not, you know." I further explained, as I nonchalantly placed my gun back into my holster and retrieved my Trident from the ground.
"Oh yeah and the Sun-Stone scouts, that's why I'll need your help if we're both ambushed" I shrugged.
"Even if we don't, I'll still keep to the deal, and I'll pay you 50% of the reward."
Looking towards Alex Leo spoke.
–Sigh,
"I don't trust you Rel, but I'll give you a chance"
Leo finally said.
"That's high-minded," I nodded "but you have yet to answer my question. What's the number of Gallows we need to purge?"
"14,"
Sigh,
"Well let's try to finish this before my scheduled sparing with the Blue-haired one,"