Chapter 10: Hunt Part 2

"Father, over here!" I called out with a hushed shout, pressing my hand against a roof outline in the mud shaped out to be a footprint. Aldir looked towards me and back down at the promiscuous shape.

"Hmmm, looks to be belonging to a... Grassroot giant?" His voice sprang at the realisation of this discovery. His reaction also confirmed my hypothesis, however I'm still stumped as to how a beast specifically found only inhabiting the Elven Kingdom reach the our flying Kingdom?

Our confused stares met each over for an extended period, racking our combined knowledge for this unnatural contingency. The weather however did not pause for us and so we continued moving, dusk approaching as the fading amber set over the shadows covering almost all light. We launched back amongst the tree-tops, dashing from one branch to another, mana infused within our muscles and bones, strengthening them as well as increasing our delicate control necessary to travers along the slippery, moss covered branches. From our advantage points, we scouted for more prints, tracking the remains left yet uncovered by the horrendous conditions that increased further with the moon raising before the mist clouds forming. The smaller sword at my waist rattled around in the hilt. I had opted to use a smaller weapon until my body would be ready for the blade gifted to me by my father, but this smaller blade, had no real weight and would effortlessly swing around my waist in an annoying fashion, messing with my rhythm.

"I'm going to stop for a bit to fix this issue!" I cried out to my father who swung slightly ahead, his head tilting in various directions, observing the most minute changes visible to him.

"Do you need my help?" He asked considerately, but I assured him his assistance wouldn't be required with a simple shaking of my head. He did so with a sigh and an exasperated smile. I shortly began tugging at my waists belt, which bolstered my steel scabbard and the sword inside it. I began tightening the belt and tried moving around yet the same would occur.

"God I hate doing this, but it looks like I have to." With a deep exhale I muttered with complaints. Unclipping my scabbard from my waists belt and instead attaching it to my backs harness, sliding it through the clips and tightly locking it into position. Soon the rattling stopped. "There, that should do it."

Crash!

A blaring clatter spoke from the east side of the forest, opposite to the direction me and my father headed in, trees falling in the waking of the cause of that monstrous collapse. I directed the mana into my eyes carefully, exerting more flow through them in natural, expanding my scope three times fold, but also my sensitivity meaning I would have to be considerate of how I use it to gain focus on my point of target.

"How?" I whispered to myself. "The footprints for certain led that way...so how the hell did that thing manage to get over there? Did it circle around after a while? No it couldn't have, it's not fast enough to travel at such a pace and didn't have that much of a head start on us when it's prints where still imprinted well enough for us to see in this poor condition. So how?" My trail of thoughts continued pouring like the drops of water trickling down my argent hair which stuck to my face and instead carried on the flow of the water to my face.

"I need to warn Aldir about this." I immediately switched the focus of my mana, centring it away from my eyes and directly towards the limbs that held me standing up right, the scarlet aura pouring of me like smoke but much denser, as the branches I stood on shattered in moments upon my lift of.

"Father!" I called out as soon as a glimpse of his body landed in my vision.

"Perfect timing. Come help me tame this big bastard!" His voice held a rough blade against his usual tone as he gazed compassionately to me.

"What th-?"

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"There's another Grassroot giant in the other direction."

"What!? There's two of these bastards!? Fuck!" Spit hurled from his mouth as he swayed past the giants hurling fist. His blade now grasped in his hand, he surged forward with high speed winds enveloping his blade that flew, with careful guidance, at the monsters torso. A deep cut landed on it's thick trunk of a body.

"I've got this one, so take out the other one! If it's heading east, there's a possibility it might stumble across our house if it decides to go slightly south at some point!" He instructed me.

"I was planning on it." I replied without looking back and began charging in the other direction, roughly 1000 meters needed to cover.

"The weather is so...nice for this." I whispered to myself, memories moving me along a timeline of my old battles. "These settings always brought out the most poetic battlefields of all. Where the most bloodshed spilled."

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The wind pushed against my haste progress with a harsh backlash in a comfortable temperature, more trees falling the closer I got and corpses of other animals in the area came to light. "God, this is a slaughter."

Whilst my thoughts droned on, a massive boulder came crashing in my direction. I retracted my sword barely pushing myself of the hurling object causing me too fall down, and right below me the Grassroot giant stood, facing upwards with its ivy glowing eyes and it's brown root covered body.

A powerful screech echoed outwards projected from its chords, the sharpened stones grinning at me in their fixed position glued to it's grey gums which looked far out of place.

I push of with wind magic mid air, marginally avoiding its swiping trunk at me and landing comfortably on the ground. "God, where these always this big?" I muttered, taken by surprise by the creatures overwhelming magnitude. "Fortunately it should be even slower than usu-"

My words paused by the giant which feverishly spawned in front of me, leaving behind in its original place only a blur.

"Huh-" I couldn't even vocalise my surprise before being launched by its ferociously powerful backhand, crashing me through a range of the landscape. The pain rang throughout my body, mostly my back which had been heavily taking on the agony of being smacked through massive boulders and incredibly dense objects such as trees. My body only came to a halt when I splashed into a river.

My vision hastily fell out of consciousness, oxygen no longer able to be retrieved under water going alongside the wind that already got knocked out of me.

Fuck! I'm...bleeding, I thought as the remnant light visible to me dyed in a fluid red swimming around me.

What the fuck is that? That's definitely not a normal Grassroot giant! Normally there slow and whilst they do pack quite a punch they mostly can't hit you because of how slow they are! So how?

Lightning struck the ground outside, or what it felt like from the rumble sent through the ground and the muffled noise I still heard. I tried swimming to the top, using my mana to simultaneously heal me and as I unsubmerged from the depths of the black sewage in the river, the depth of my blood stained the nearby colour even further and before me was no lightning mark, but the actual beast itself.

My eyes shot open and I pushed back immediately, coercing the water mana particles around me into a swirling wave aimed at the beast that would simultaneously push me to land. The beast merely shrugged it off.

SCREECH!!

It's nefarious shriek pierced my eardrums heavily, forcing me to place my hands towards them, initiating restorative mana to my bleeding ears. It's echo searched around but not as powerfully reverberating and so I attempted retreat, cowering into the tree tops. However, it's hot pursuit wouldn't allow it, launching towards me, a crater spawning in its wake with exuberant tremors pulsing through the sloppy ground, swinging it's boulder of a fist, overgrown in deep moss at the defenceless me who scrambled up.

I attempted blocking with my forearms, gathering and manipulating the mana into encrusted stone casts that would shield my arms leaning into the blow to try to control and utilise the momentum I would be sent back with.

"Why?" The whisper left my mouth. The fist didn't follow through and instead baited out my defence, it's otherer arm coming from the side crashing into me with otherworldly force sending me flying once more. My consciousness regained itself once the frigid feeling of mud solidifying and coiling around me slithered to my neck. I broke out with a cold rush. The beast no longer pursued me, yet it's heavy pressure in the air still felt apparent and crashed against another's.

"Aldir!" I thought aloud at once. My body burst into a sprint but stopped midway. "There's no point in going to save him. I can't beat the thing in my current state, so it's best if I stay alive at least. Second chances are rare so I should treasure them...right?" Doubt spread throughout my mind and hushed laughter burned deep in my psyche.

"Sorry, Aldir."

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