His only answer was a talon flashing towards him, carrying the rank stench of gore, black nail crusted with drying blood and shredded flesh!
It was a lone Paoxiao, somehow having circled around silently, using the dense undergrowth for cover.
Its twisted infant-face wore an expression that could almost be described as a repulsive, slavering grin.
Steven scrambled backward purely on instinct, his backside slamming against the rough bark of a tree.
He fumbled desperately at his waist, searching for the custom-modified "anti-mugger" belt buckle he'd paid a small fortune for—the one supposedly capable of discharging a high-voltage stun arc.
His fingers closed on nothing but rough, irritating leaves.
"Shit—!"
He threw himself sideways, tumbling through the mud as those gleaming obsidian claws slashed the air where his stomach had been milliseconds before.
This starting zone is pure hell! So much for impressing the natives with superior knowledge! Basic self-defense? Negative! Gunpowder formulas?
Steam engine diagrams? Calculus? Utterly fucking useless against teeth and claws!
At that critical instant, a furious, guttural roar echoed through the clearing.
Steven didn't understand the primitive syllables, but Cecil's translation flashed instantly across his vision, sharp and imperative: "Fool! Move aside!"
Coinciding with the shout, a rock—nearly the size of Steven's head—whistled past his ear, propelled with incredible force.
It struck the Paoxiao square on the side of its skull with a sickening thud.
The impact's raw power was horrifying. The monster let out a final, piercing shriek, orders of magnitude more ghastly than its previous cries.
Viscous green ichor and greyish brain matter exploded outwards. Its body spun sideways like a violently discarded sack, snapping a sapling as thick as a man's wrist before collapsing to the ground.
It twitched twice, then lay still.
Steven sat stunned in the mud, heart hammering against his ribs, breath coming in ragged gasps.
He looked up. Standing over the fallen monster was a young man, bare-chested, drenched in a grotesque mixture of green monster gore and dark red human blood.
Muscles coiled beneath his sweat-slicked, bronze skin, each plane seemingly carved from hardwood, sweat and grime outlining contours of raw, primitive power.
Around his waist was a loincloth of some tough, worn, gleaming hide, beneath which abdominal muscles were hard enough to grate cheese on.
In his hand, he gripped a stone axe, its edge meticulously honed to a wicked sharpness that glistened with a cold, stone light;
greenish slime still dripped from the haft. He was staring down at Steven with an utterly ferocious gaze, the look one might give a particularly inconvenient piece of refuse blocking the path, while muttering something rapid and harsh under his breath.
Cecil, ever diligent, supplied the translation: "Target language preliminary analysis suggests: 'From what dung heap did this witless, clumsy, life-wasting obstruction crawl? Still adorned with leaves like a hatchling? Did you wish to be devoured by the beast as a garnish?!' … Language model refining… Emotional indicators: extreme negativity, incorporating severe contempt and profound impatience."
"M… Mason?" The name escaped Steven's lips before he could stop himself, staring at the face glaring down at him—dirt-streaked, contorted in fury, framed by matted dark hair—it was undeniably, shockingly, the face of his best friend from back home, albeit rendered in a far more rugged, savage cast.
The only immediate difference was the crude necklace of interlocking fangs and knucklebones—hopefully from some predator, not… something else—that hung around this version's neck, adding a final touch of feral intensity.
Cecil's prim London accent, now laced with a distinct synthesized query tone, echoed in his thoughts: "Query: 'Mason'? Performing semantic association… Analysis of localized linguistic roots suggests a phonetically similar term, 'M'sen,' translates approximately to 'Stone That Withstands Three Lightning Strikes,' often denoting stubbornness or… profound foolishness, Sir."
"Grah! Who do you call stone-headed fool!" The stone-axe youth roared, clearly interpreting Steven's utterance through the lens of Cecil's unfortunate translation.
His face flushed crimson with rage, and he hefted the stone axe menacingly, poised to strike!
Suddenly, another voice—calmer, more measured, carrying an undercurrent of authority—cut through the tension.
Spoken in the same tribal language: "Mason! Left flank! Three more approach! Ignore the… outsider!"
Only then did Steven truly register the second youth standing near the first.
He appeared slightly older than Mason, similarly clad in simple hides, but leaner, more agile in his stance.
Fewer scars marked his exposed skin, giving him a comparatively cleaner appearance.
He wielded a long wooden spear tipped with a wickedly sharp flake of black, glassy stone—obsidian?—his eyes unnervingly calm amidst the chaos, each parry and thrust economical and deadly effective.
He simultaneously issued short, clipped commands to several other warriors nearby – men who looked panicked but still gripped their crude weapons, instinctively obeying.
There was a composure about this second youth, an air of innate dignity that seemed utterly incongruous with the primitive brutality surrounding them, that made Steven stare.
This guy, Steven thought, his whole vibe is off. Definitely not just another tribal kid.
The one called Mason (Steven decided to stick with the name; the damn coincidence was too bizarre), spat a thick glob of bloody saliva onto the ravaged earth with a fierce growl.
With a final glare promising future retribution at Steven, he whirled.
A Paoxiao attempting a flanking attack met Mason's axe swinging down in a brutally efficient arc;
the creature's skull cracked like a melon, spraying hot green ichor over Mason's already gore-streaked torso.
Then, without a backward glance at Steven, Mason seized his still-dazed arm—the strength was startling—and hauled him unceremoniously towards the relative safety near the calm youth.
Mason was still cursing vehemently in his native tongue. Cecil helpfully supplied the gist: "General sentiment: Useless baggage! Waste of air! Stay clear! Your dying splatter better not stain my loincloth!"
The calm youth issued another sharp command: "Maintain formation! Flanks, contract inward!"
Cecil's translation feed, however, seemed to momentarily access a different database entirely, flashing text directly onto Steven's retina: "Tactical Recommendation: Adopt defensive posture analogous to 'Symmetrical Fan-Blade Cinematography Drone Sweep,' currently trending on military enthusiast short-video platforms."
What truly made Steven's jaw hit the mud, however, was what happened next.
The tribal warriors, looking moments before like panicked prey, actually responded to the calm youth's command!
Gritting their teeth, calling out encouragement and warnings to each other in their harsh tongue, they stumbled, shifted, and somehow managed to coalesce into a ragged, uneven, yet undeniably structured defensive semi-circle around the calm youth and the non-combatants!
It was clumsy, chaotic, filled with the raw fear of the Stone Age, yet… there was a flicker of discipline, an underlying pattern attempting to emerge.
"Are you guys primitive survivalist LARPers or goddamn reincarnated TikTok choreographers?!"
Steven gaped at the surreal scene, his innate sarcasm momentarily overpowering even the abject terror.