Chapter 40: The Implock – Chapter 35 – “What Lies Beneath”

∼ What Lies Beneath ∼

Chapter - 035

Carried on by Boram's buck once again, the two tired teens rode in each other's comforting silence, Aria nearly nodding off as she leaned against Eric's broad back. It was straight and firm once more, anew with the distant and guarded walls of the traumatized lad. Yet something else too laid within now, a certain... protectiveness.

Blinking slowly through tired eyes, Aria watched the colorful fallen leaves pass by. Moments before she would've completely passed out, her heightened senses and perception from her high intelligence attribute made her mind flare up with alarm. "Watch out-!"

But she was too late. The leaves rustled and rumbled as the ground shifted - and groaned? Something very large was underfoot. The buck neighed as the footing underneath kicked up its front legs, making it flip back over and sending a panicked Aria, shocked Eric, and one squealing impling flying back.

It was only by a miracle they weren't squashed under not only Eric's large frame but the buck's too. But escape completely unscathed, Eric did not. His left arm was caught under the horse's considerable weight, his wrist most likely broken.

With a groan that sounded like the creak of timber, the pained haze from Eric's stunned mind was washed away. The buck had just gotten back up, and before he could even attempt to stop it by grabbing the loose reins or a strapping of its saddled - it was already running off into the woodlands.

At least, that reality allowed Eric to focus on the present situation. Which was the huge turtle staring hungrily at them - through glowing green eyes of a monster. Well... Eric guessed it was a turtle. Kind of hard to be truly sure when it looked to be more wood than flesh.

With a huge shell made out of mossy wood, veiny oak through and through, the turtle within, itself appeared to be of animated wood. All the way from its long and thick stumps for legs to its stringy neck and the narrowed head that ended in a pointed jaw. As it moved, the groan of wood followed.

A bolt of purple fire was suddenly shot at the huge creature, only to strike it in the side of his broad shell, singeing the mossy wood but doing little else. A foul smoke rose from the small fire but the turtle merely turned its head to sniff at it, shaking its head in what looked like confusion and disgust. Though the confusion was brief as it was replaced by anger.

Pushing off the ground, kicking away at the loose foliage, Eric barely managed to tackle Aria out of the path of the snapping jaw. The force behind that attack was so powerful that the snap had both Eric and Aria's ears ringing deaf for a handful of seconds.

On their feet and scrambling way, it was all they could do to avoid the pursuant turtle. Thinking quick, Eric pushed Aria to the side, behind a large tree as he drew the monster's attention to him. "Come here you ol'bugger!"

Aria didn't need him to explain himself for handling her so roughly, as she was quick on her feet again.

"What the abyss is this thing!" He called out.

Watching Eric run, the turtle right behind him, she recalled an inkling of memory in the back of her mind. She knew this monster, or at least she remembered something akin to it. She probably had once read about it back in her early archivist days - but really couldn't remember everything.

Her eyes darted around, in search of something. "Ahh∼ where is it?" She panicked. Before she had even found what she was looking for, Nyx came grunting around the corner, straining to haul her rucksack with him.

"Nyx! Great!" She exclaimed, taking the rucksack from the demon, not pausing to rummage through it.

He was barely dodging the large turtle that turned out to be all too fast in Eric's opinion, making him sidestep trees, and vault fallen logs just to hinder the turtle long enough for him not to be eaten alive. "A little help here!" He called out again, grunting as he slipped and scarcely evaded the turtle's crushing jaw that grasped at empty air.

Aria had gotten out her grimoire and was holding onto it tight, her eyes closed as she accessed her mana. Nyx could only stand by the side, confused and worried as Eric looked to be only just barely keeping the turtle at bay. The monster had really given the impling a scare, and he didn't like how it had just shrugged off its first attack like it was little more than an annoyance.

With a faint glow, the grimoire changed, though Nyx couldn't exactly see what from his short stature. Aria opened her eyes, a smile dawning on her face as she found what she was looking for.

"It is-ah a Borean Barkjaw, a tier-one monster," She read, stumbling over her words as she hurried to skim through the pages. "It-uh has incredible strength, durability, and endurance. It also has very poor turning but is in turn very fast - fast enough to charge and outrun a steed and even a-"

"Yeah-arh, I can see that!" Eric interrupted, yelling at the top of his lungs. "Tell me what we can do about it instead!"

Stuttering, she looked through the grimoire frantically. "Ah- uh... let me see... it... is... um..."

"Aria! Hurry up please!"

Her eyes darted through the pages before finally landing on what she had been searching for. "Smoke! Smoke disorientates it greatly, enough to stun!"

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Running in circles, playing cat and mouse, Eric remembered how the smoke from Nyx's flames had angered it. He wasn't sure some words on a page were right, but he had to bet it all on this gambit. In a pitiful display of dexterity, Eric nearly stumbled as he grabbed a large piece of wood from the dense undergrowth.

With a loud thud and a rumble that sent reverberations through the ground and up into his bones, Eric created some distance from the turtle that had just rammed full force into where he had picked up the wood.

"Nyx, shoot this!" He shouted before even taking the time to think, coming to regret it the second the words left his mouth.

Surely, the impling wouldn't shoot him, or just plain miss... right?

Without as much of a shred of hesitance that Eric could come to harm, a bolt of purple fire was launched in his direction. To Eric's fortune, Nyx's aim held true as usual and the impling hadn't decided this was an opportune moment to accidentally dispose of him.

The piece of wood caught on fire with a purple flame, though he knew it wouldn't last long. Aria had mentioned these flames fed off mostly lifeforce to sustain themselves. Then given that this piece of wood was just a dead log, he had to hurry up.

The huge turtle had already extracted itself from the tree it had rammed, a large dent of warped wood and flaky bark pressed into the thick trunk. Eric gulped audibly, his grip on the burning wood tightened with white knuckles.

It stalked towards him, shaking its long head and discarding pieces of broken bark.

Using the burning wood, he wafted it in the face of the monster, relieved to see the effect was almost immediate. It snapped at him weakly and groaned away from the foul smoke. The huge monster was becoming disoriented after just a faint whiff!

Growing bold, Eric tried to almost stick the wood in the face of the monster. Making a poor imitation of a fencer fighting a behemoth. But that proved to be what broke the turtle's hesitation. In a blind rage, still very disoriented by the looks of it. It charged. Unfortunately for Eric who stood directly in its path, it did not need its senses to run straight.

"Eric!" Aria screamed from the side.

With the wind knocked out of him, Eric could feel several bones break the moment he and the turtle collided with a tree. Him in between the two, now in a deadlock of two immovable objects.

It felt like his insides had been squashed and crushed, displaced to a place where organs had no business being. At least, Eric had been quick enough to stuff the burning piece of wood in the mouth of the barkjaw, rather than let it take a piece of him.

As wood continued to burn, grasping at the lifeforce of the turtle itself, black smoke billowed from the sides of its mouth, until it completely knocked out the massive turtle. It slumped, gliding further down and releasing most of its hold on Eric, though his legs were still stuck. Not that it mattered when his chest was almost caved in and his organs probably little more than mush.

Pain lanced through Eric's failing body, but the haze clouding his mind and the adrenaline coursing through his veins was gracefully enough to dampen the reality of his body's state.

The barkjaw was stunned, yet even that seemed not to be lasting. The turtle was already regaining its awareness, its limbs kicking and twitching as it came to life once again.

With just enough presence of mind to stay conscious, Eric saw the small impling scale the side of the large turtle, its gleeful cackles reaching through the haze as the demon climbed atop the barkjaw's slumped head, looking into one of its large eyes with a positively malicious gloat.

"Bye-bye, dumb turtle!" He laughed, a [Demonbolt] poised to fire point-blank right into the monster's unprotected eye.

The kill was nearly instant as the demonic flames ate away the monster's eye socket and all the way into its brain, passing right through the wooden exterior of its body.

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