After the initial scare, Advay kept running. But no matter how far he went, his fear grew, as if something drastic was going to happen. He had heard the roars of the beast while he escaped. At one moment, when he turned, he saw a huge fire which died down as fast as it was lit.
He kept running, even though he was dead tired. He saw the strangulating tree in his range of vision and ran towards it. Even though his heart was becoming heavier and heavier as if something bad was going to happen, he still felt a little bit of hope when he saw the tree, this tree means that he is near his destination.
He ran towards the tree with renewed speed. He had just reached a distance, where he could make out the tree clearly, when a huge thing overshadowed him, it kept growing with each passing second.
He suddenly felt such an intense danger that he jumped forward with all his strength. As he was still sprinting ahead, he could only jump forward. When he was still in air, he saw cracks covering the ground below his feet. Before he could land, a sudden pressure and huge shockwave hit him head on.
Advay felt as if the pressure of the whole world was put on him, the shockwave was so shocking that he flew quite a few distance before crashing down the ground.
His body felt as if it had reached its braking point, all the bone in his body felt brittle to him. He lifted his head to make sense of what's going on and the sight in front of him nearly took his breath away.
"This isn't good, I wanted to avoid this area but now I am officially inside the area", Advay said and then broke his line of thought as he remembered he had been thrown here.
He turned to look at the one responsible, only for him to raise his head further to take the majestic beast in front of him in all his glory. It was a beast with claws, ape like feet and face. Its whole body was covered in scales, as if it was donning an Armor.
Advay looked at the beast's eye and seeing the rage in its eyes, something clicked in him.
"Uh-oh, it must be the mother of that egg", it was his first time seeing the beast whose egg had saved his hide from those detestable monkeys. Advay was really trying to get lucky here with his decision to piss off the beast, which seeing how it worked out, could be considered a total failure.
"Wait, why isn't the beast coming at me, I could see its rage, which in my opinion is enough to tear me into pieces".
Advay looked closely to see that it was hesitating, he was shocked he never thought such a beast with such strength could even hesitate about something. He then thought about the reason for its hesitation only to come up with nothing.
Seeing that, the beast was not making any move he decided to scuttle out of there, which was a major mistake. As soon as he moved, the eyes of the beast became more intense and all hesitation vanished, the beast decided to move.
Even though the beast was approaching him, he saw that it was conscious of something, as every movement of that beast was filled with caution. But, not for Advay, he just threw caution at the wind and ran as fast as he could towards the tree.
He could see the tree closely now and his guts told him that it was the tree which the beast was afraid of. Even though he didn't find it dangerous except for the fact that it looked very weird.
His gut feeling was on point, as soon as he reached near the tree, the beast became even more cautious, her aura retracted back to her body. But she never stopped advancing. Advay saw that the tree didn't do anything suspicious even though he was near it. He was able to cross the tree without trouble, turned and looked at the beast.
The beast saw the human looking at her from the other side of the tree. She gave him a death glare as if telling him to stop which may grant him a painless death, otherwise his end would be pitiful.
Advay can somewhat guess the meaning of the glare but didn't give a damn about it. He was not an idiot to just wait and walk to his own death.
The beast was anxious as she really didn't like the option of going near the tree. Her senses were sending death alarm to her. Even when she fought that beast monkey, her senses did not ring this high. She suppressed her fear and anxiety, she won't leave until she got hold of that human.
Another reason for her to feel anxious was that she was not sure if the tree was an ancient tree. Among the beasts, it's an unwritten rule that no ancient trees should be damaged or threatened by them. The main reason being that these trees itself are an enigma and also very dangerous.
Even the King of Beasts follows this rule. She would have already left if it was an ancient tree, no amount of hatred is equal to one's life.
The only reason she hasn't left was that she had not felt any ancientness from this tree but the sense of danger from this tree equals to an ancient tree which she had come upon once before.
She was being cautious for these reasons. But when she saw that the human was no longer desperate and some relief could be seen in his eyes, she felt pissed and threw all caution which she was holding till now. She convinced herself that no ancient tree would be near this barren area.
She put pressure in her legs and jumped to reach the other side of the tree in one jump. But when she jumped, the tree which was silent all along, began to move.
Advay felt as if the tree was unwinding itself. All the branches which had twisted around itself began to move. First, it was slow then it became so fast that nobody would be able to follow it through naked eyes.
The beast had just jumped when the tree showed movement. She was above the tree and was descending across it, the tree took action.
It was still unwinding but it moved so fast that even the beast didn't saw it coming. She only felt a huge crisis in her heart. She was hit head on by a tree branch, as if she was a ball and the branch was a bat. She crashed to the ground far more faster than she had jumped. A crater had formed under her.
She had survived but the danger she felt at that time was never felt by her throughout her life. Her scales at the front of her body were shattered brutally. The front of her body was severely mangled, she had the thought of running away.
She was deliberating, when a terror far deeper than before grasped her heart. Listening to her instinct, she moved to her left, but she was late. A cry filled with agony left the beast's mouth, nearby, a huge arm could be found on the ground, dripping blood on the soil. Her right arm had been cut off.
Many roots came out of the ground near the tree, it was them who had cut of the beast's arm. The roots then wrapped themselves around the hand and brought them back to earth, in the direction of the tree.
Advay had seen all this from behind the tree, he was scared shit less. He knew that the strangulating tree had sensed him but left him alone for some reasons. He was unable to think of one.
Advay would have never thought that the tree had not attacked him as he considered Advay to be ant and who cares what an ant does as long as it didn't bite anybody. The tree attacked the beast as it had wandered inside his region, such a powerful aura disturbed his long sleep.
The tree decided to kill her but when the beast sensed the bloodlust and anger the tree was emanating, she ran away. As for the human she did not care as her life was far more precious than her revenge. Though she did not care, it doesn't mean she won't remember.
Advay sighed in relief, he saw that the tree was far more powerful but it had just woken up and was unable to harness its full power. That gave the beast a chance to escape. He had not moved when the fight was going as he had not wanted the attention to fall on him. Now, though it was over, Advay began to slowly move out.