As the rat had begun running at full speed away from me, I suddenly felt a tinge of dread come from the bush beside it.
Before we had even realized what had happened, the rat and I could only watch as a huge maw closed the distance between it and the creature that had been too busy running away from me to recognize what had attacked it in time.
Snapping its maw shut, the creature that had left the bushes had swallowed the entire rat whole leaving nothing but its tiny feet outside as if it was some kind of memorial piece to remember that rat by.
Honestly, while I wouldn't usually laugh at a horrifying scene like the one I just watched occur right before me, I found it quite comical, especially after watching the feet fall backward in such a fashion.
This only caused a stifled laugh to leave my mouth before I had closed it in hopes that the thing that had taken the rat would not notice my existence.
'Why the hell am I laughing!?' I screamed at myself but it was already too late.
The creature had already looked at me with its huge eyes, and at this point, I knew that there was no way I wouldn't face it.
'C'mon... I foughts against a human looking thing and a treant. What is the worst that could happen?' I inwardly chuckled.
*ROOOOOOAAAAAR*
A sky-shaking roar left the maw of the creature before it stood up, allowing me to finally perceive it at its full glory.
Its body was several meters tall and several meters wide.
Its hands were slightly small compared to the rest of its body. Feathers poked out of the back of its head like a beautiful crown of red and yellow.
Its piercing eyes stared down at me with an enormous pressure that would have made an elephant feel as insignificant as an ant before its presence.
Such a domineering power stood before me and I had found myself completely frozen, the previous humorous act now out of my mind while the only thing I could think of were ways that I could somehow survive this encounter.
I did not want to admit it, but I was scared... Scared to my core.
"So you must be the creature that caused all the fuss I kept hearing about... I heard you even killed my child." The creature spoke... but it didn't?
The way it had spoken was weird. Its enormous maw did not move yet I could hear its voice as clear as day without a single sign of it being muffled or suppressed.
At the same time, as it spoke those words I could not help but feel curious... A curiosity that almost fought back my fear of it.
The keyword in that sentence being "almost".
'That was its child?!' A boiling rage began to rise from deep within my conscience. I could not believe that the very thing that had taken my arm was the child of this freak, yet at the same time, I could believe it.
My mind was being riddled with fear, anger, and curiosity which all made it hard for me to think straight.
My curiosity was speaking to me, telling me that its words sounded plausible yet my anger did the opposite.
My fear on the other hand was screaming at me to do nothing but, yet there I stood motionless and unable to move even if I tried.
I was not sure if it was the fear that had caused me to freeze or the anger and curiosity that had told me to stay and even fight the creature.
"That was your child?" I asked, rage evident in my raspy voice.
"Yes. Do not worry though, I have many children all across these forests. That one happened to have been a mutation that I kind of wanted to see grow but seeing that it had fallen to something as weak and pathetic as you, it meant that it was not worthy of my attention."
I didn't really understand why but those words had only made me angrier.
However, I did not act out of emotions and instead had closed my eyes and gritted my teeth in front of this thing.
It watched me with curiosity, even lowering its body and putting its eyes right in front of me.
Its eye alone was as big as 70% of my body.
A thin membrane would come from the side of its eyes and envelop it as if it had its own method of blinking that was unique to only itself.
It was only then that I looked up to the eyes and stared directly into its pupil.
Its eyes were a bright yellow that got deeper as it got to the edges of the iris. Its pupil on the other hand was just as black as any other pupil, the only difference being that they were slits rather than rounded ones.
"The flames are coming..."
"You think I can't run away from them? I can even take them on." The lizard opened its maw for the second time since I had met it to release a loud and raspy roar-like laugh. Yet even then, the eye did not leave its place and only looked more fierce as it looked into my very soul.
To its surprise, I also began to laugh.
"Hahahahahaha" It was a low and even croaky laugh. To anyone else, it might have seemed fake, but the creature knew otherwise.
I could feel the burning hatred within my eyes when I had looked at... It could sense the mockery and craze in my laugh.
"You are interesting. How about you come with me? We can have a little fun?" It chuckled
"I'd rather not be experimented on." My laugh halted and a huge, almost desperate grin stretched across my face.
'I'm sorry crystal...'
I grabbed the hilt of my ax with my remaining arm and swing it at a blurring speed that even the large lizard in front of me struggled to react to.
'But I'm not going to die without a fight'
It was that day that the fire finally ignited in me.
It was a fire that had been trying to emerge for days now, yet it was only now that it had been released from its chains.
The fire of an unbreakable determination.
A fire that symbolized my will to fight! My will to live!
With a crimson light now erupting out of me like ashes from an erupting volcano, I felt my arm move, but this time I was in control.
With all the red energy left in my body, my arm had taken the ax and sliced up, plunging the ax deep into the eye of the lizard and splattering its blood all over me.
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