*ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAR*
A brain-rattling roar left the mouth of the woman that had now started moving at a blurring speed.
However, she was not the only thing roaring.
While yes, her roar was different from the mind-shaking screech that she had released earlier, there was something deeper about this roar.
After a few milliseconds, I felt like the area around me had visibly slowed down, as if the world had gone into slow motion and nothing mattered anymore.
The dread that followed immediately snapped me out of whatever I had been thrown in.
Out of my daze, I quickly spun my body and barely dodged a tentacle that flew toward me at lightning speed.
It wasn't that I was faster than it, it was just that I knew it was coming way before it had actually attacked me.
It was as if all my instincts were going overdrive, making sure to do everything and anything to stop me from dying a horrible and gruesome death.
With the fruit still in hand, I placed my foot on the floor and twisted my upper body causing me to spin in mid-air. place my other foot on the ground and give a roundhouse kick right into the face of the oncoming woman.
That kick, while being powerful enough to probably knock out a bodybuilder, was no more of a hindrance than a fly in front of the creature before me.
I watched as her face deformed into a smile that cut through most of her face, making a visible partition between her lower and upper jaw that went all the way back to her hairline.
*SCREEEECH*
'Crap!' I thought, yet the smile on my face showed something different.
Of course, it was riddled with fear, terror, and fatigue, but something had visibly changed.
I was no longer just simply going through the motions. I felt stubborn for once.
After kicking the woman, I immediately began running again yet to my dismay, the woman did not even need to run anymore to catch up to me.
Her entire existence kind of just defied reality, making one of her steps worth many of mine and allowing her to move several meters with one step.
It didn't even look like she was lunging across the land. It was just that when I happened to look back at her, she was always closer to me than before while walking at what seemed to be the same leisure as before... With that same monstrous smile on her face... Ridiculing every fiber of my being.
'You know what?'
I looked back with a mocking smile and stopped running, simultaneously stopping the woman in her place, mainly out of curiosity about what I was doing rather than out of obedience.
Lifting her hand into the air, I felt countless gusts of wind around me as if something had stopped right before hitting me, and I would be correct to think so.
I could only watch as several creatures retracted their attacks all varying from ones that were invisible to ones that just had a speed I could see to even ones that had long-ranged attacks, an example of one of them being the creature that had retracted back its tentacle right before it had shot through my head.
I had felt all of them about to attack me, yet even if I wanted to dodge, with my current physical abilities it was near impossible.
"Who are you?" I asked once again, yet I did not receive a proper answer.
Instead, the woman in front of me simply gurgled some words while letting out some noises that sounded like what a person with an extremely dry throat would say if he wanted to try speaking.
It was as if her vocal cords were made out of sandpaper, constantly creating soul-shivering sounds whenever she tried communicating.
"Seems like you can't communicate huh." I sighed and stood upright with drooped shoulders and a relaxed stance.
I finally looked into the sky, barely capable of seeing through the canopy of the towering forest.
"Looks like this is going to be my grave huh..." I muttered again, yet this time my voice had changed and my smile had turned self-mocking.
"Hahahahahahah." I finally began to laugh, something that confused everyone including the lady who was now only tilting her head slightly.
"If I'm going to die... I'll allow myself to be petty one last time." I finally shouted with a visible sense of craze within my eyes.
Without hesitation and just sudden enough for them to not be able to stop me, I held the golden fruit high and took a massive bite out of it to the horror of the creatures around me.
They had all froze at the same time and I knew this would be my chance.
Slamming my foot into the ground, I leaped a couple of meters before sliding onto the ground making the razor-sharp tail of the komodo dragon that was closest to me, yet I did not stop there.
Quickly taking 2 more bites out of the fruit and quickly gulping the pieces down, I found myself kicking up, throwing the apple into the air and spinning in place while swinging my ax right into the eyes of the komodo dragon.
I felt a vibration run through the wood of the ax I held in my hand the moment the stone had pierced itself into its eyes, but once again I did not stop there.
I felt the dread get more powerful and more concentrated but I simply did not knew which direction it was coming from.
At the same time, a skin peeling screech came out of the woman, not only making me freeze but also everyone else who was attacking me, yet unlike them, I did not stay frozen in place for very long.
Side-stepping to my right, I felt something whiz right past me before the wet sound of it implanting into something rang out and entered my left ear.
Looking in that direction, I saw that a large Cameleon was standing there, now no longer invisible to the naked eyes as it had been before. At the same time, I could see a gaping wound in its head as the tentacle pierced right through it and splatted its brain matter all over the ground.
[You have assisted in killing an Invisibility Cameleon]
[You have gained +5 EXP]
Once again, I felt the dread coming my way yet it was just far enough for me to look up, grab the fruit and take a last large bite out of it.
The woman had seen this clearly making her scream like a banshee in return, yet once again, I was ready for her attack.
Throwing what remained of the fruit away, I had grabbed my ax and swung it with all the strength that I could muster, swinging just at the right time to theoretically decapitate the woman with a single swing.
[Ding!]
*Swoosh*
*Splat*
The sound of my ax ripping through her neck reverberated throughout what seemed like the entire forest because it was just a second later that I realized how quiet everything had become, and at the same time, just how eerily dark the night was.
[You have consumed the Golden Fruit]
[Attributes and benefits shall be ingrained into your soul and the Immortal's system]
As if being put in slow-motion, I watched her head descend towards the ground, her eyes still locked onto me even after being detached from her body, while her smile seemed to be everlasting, not relaxing a single bit even after being sliced off its host.
"Kekekekekekekekekekekek"
The laugh was soul-shaking.
It was something one would hear from horror films back in my era.
Her laugh was croaky and almost disgusting. Her every syllable sounded like the soft yet sharp tapping of a wooden table.
Simultaneously, it felt as if her voice had a constant creak that made my previous theory of her vocal cords being made out of sand paper sound less plausible.
This was more like two rough pieces of wood being slammed, tapped, and ground into each other until they are finally turned into dust.
This was the sound of a true monster
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