"We run."
Shiva, as he heard those words, felt extremely thankful for the first time.
"Finally, something normal..." he uttered quietly to himself. Leif hurriedly went to the wardrobe in the room and chaotically piled up on the floor the remaining clothes he could find there.
"Quick. Grab the curtains in the other room so we can tie them all up."
Shiva obliged and hurriedly went to the other room. Leif, who was left behind, looked at the pile of clothes stacked on the floor.
"Now then..."
*** Grand Escape ***
Going back to the fight outside, both forces have now engaged each other. The undead were slow with their feet so they kept receiving hits from the guards without a way to retaliate.
Even though how horrible the guards felt from stabbing and smashing away the bodies of their former allies, the guards kept hitting them. Meanwhile, the goblins that were resurrected got thoroughly bashed in their head by the warden as they approached him.
"This is madness! Route all the goblins first, but try your best not to do major damage to our fallen members." His composure was recollected, and the warden ordered his men. In response, the guards bashed the heads of the incoming undead goblins while they dealt with the undead guards by severing one of their feet - making them immobile on the ground. More goblin bodies piled up as they progressed. Several undead guards were down below, hopelessly crawling towards the living. Slowly, the warden and his forces were gaining momentum again.
All of a sudden, the ground beneath the battlefield was engulfed with darkness. Pitched black, it expanded circularly with the stranger at its center.
"You fiend! Stop this at once!" shouted the warden as he pushed his way through the enemies towards the stranger. Suddenly, he found his footing changed and it got harder to traverse. His feet felt like it was walking through mud - his feet sinked deeper as he struggled to take a step forward.
The warden found himself stuck in the middle of the ranks of the undead. His arms flailed around haphazardly, bashing through any undead who approached him. As the stranger's orb kept resurrecting the bodies of the dead around him, the warden and his crew were at a disadvantage again. They were once knocked out before, and having the playing grounds entirely against them was taking a toll on their remaining strength.
Some guards now experienced difficulties with their current situation. Others had tumbled down because of the unusual ground that resulted in them being surrounded by the undead.
Slow as they may be, their bites were something else.
Stucked between the teeth of the undead were now skin and fresh meat as blood dripped down their mouth. Cries of agony soon after followed as the undead had now victimized a few guards and took a bite out of their bodies.
"Curse you!" the warden shouted - his arms now also received a few scratches and lacerations from the undead.
KRAK! KRAK! CRASH!
It was a series of bright crashes from the office near them. It sounded like someone pounded through the glass windows - shattering it into pieces. This particular thing caught the attention of the stranger.
The darkness below quickly retracted inwards to the stranger's shadow as they walked towards the entrance of the warden's office. The warden along with his remaining guards were left to deal with the predicament they were in.
The stranger managed to get inside the building and found themself in a messy environment on the lower floor. They paused for a moment and scanned their whole surroundings - wary of every direction inside. When they felt that there was nothing unusual there, they went deeper up to the next floor.
The hallway greeted them upon their arrival. There, a window at the other end of the hallway was destroyed. Its wooden mullions were broken and its sectioned glass panes were shattered. A thick cloth hung on the windowsill flapping with the outside wind.
The stranger hastily ran towards the window, past a goblin's dead body. Down on the ground were a lump of several pieces of cloth tied to each other.
"A human..." the stranger mumbled as he pieced the shreds of evidence together.
They quickly turned around and went to the room with a table surrounded by cabinets. One by one, they searched the contents of each storage unit there. Having found nothing useful at all, they went to the other room.
The same lifeless guard sitting on the chair greeted them. But they hardly reacted to it and immediately proceeded to search also the cabinets there. Halfway through, they grumbled about something.
"Did that escapee take it?" they said.
A few moments later, the stranger took out a rectangular piece of wooden slab that was two fingers thick. A big strange character was carved on it and was glowing in pale blue.
"Good job. Withdraw when you're ready. The boat will be waiting for you at the same spot," a mysterious voice spoke out from the wooden slab.
"But I haven't found it yet. Is something up?" the stranger answered back.
"What? I can't track it here anymore. Didn't you already consume it?"
"I have consumed nothing!" angrily shouted the stranger. "There was an escapee here and they might have taken it," they further added.
"That is bad... The fact that I couldn't sense it here anymore could only mean two things." answered the voice back.
"Yes... and if that escapee is from that village - they might endanger everyone there."
"Quick then. Find if there is a presence of a morph in that village and you are to eliminate it. I'll send the team waiting for you to help." After that, the glow in the slab faded.
"WHERE ARE YOU!" the warden screamed outside. Hell-bent on revenge against the stranger whom they confronted, their voice was as fierce as death itself.
"What an impatient one," muttered the stranger as they pocketed the slab. They rapidly left the building through the broken window and landed below on the pile of clothes. Immediately, they took off outside towards the broken gate and headed to their next destination. The warden saw a glimpse of them as they retreated.
"There the bastard is! Quick men!" The warden roused up the remaining three of his officers to follow the stranger behind. They left the undead busy eating something on the ground. But because they were heavily wounded, they couldn't keep up with the stranger's speed. The gap between them only grew longer and longer, but the warden's determination wouldn't stop.
Altogether, the two parties outside left the prison's perimeter. The undead went lifeless again, slumped on the ground above the cold bodies of the ones they had eaten before. The silence that they left was so loud - only the winds whispering up above and the rustling grass down below could be heard.
Inside the warden's office, the chair where the dead guard was seated was pushed out by something under the table. Popped out under the table were Leif and Shiva, their eyes opened wide like they couldn't believe what just happened. Shiva was the one who first broke the awkward atmosphere between them.
"Her voice... it sounded like a lady."
"Yes, I noticed that too..." Leif agreed.
"And I couldn't believe it all worked like you've said. Here I thought you were insane," Shiva said to Leif.
"Yes... I can't believe it either. But it worked out, right?" Leif asked him back, his words were trembling as beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks.
"That plan was insane, but what's more insane was the fact that you ate it!"
"Damn, I forgot about that part. I ate it, didn't I?"
"Yes, you ate it!"
"Yes, that was... oh no."
"Why?!"
"Because I've... that hooded lady would've searched under the table eventually and exposed us. So if I couldn't stop her from finding it, then I'll just make it so that she won't find it... Haha... Now that I remember, it pissed her off earlier, didn't it."
THWACK!
Shiva smacked the top of Leif's head.
"Refrain from doing something stupid again. I'm the one who's getting killed here first after all," said Shiva.
"Yes... that I'd do from now on. My bad."
"Alright. By the way, don't you feel anything different - consuming that flower?"
"Now that you mention it... Physis," said Leif as the same panel about his status popped up.
[
Name: Leif Twilight
Host Title: -- (time left: 71:56)
Health: 23 / 30
Mana: 8 / 12
Strength: 7
Defense: 3
Dexterity: 5
Insight: 8
Agility: 10
Ability Arts: 2
Skill Styles: 2
]
"My title was gone..." he mumbled to himself. Suddenly, another panel flashed before him.
[
Fallen Leaf Art: Necro-Sylvan Conjuration (Incomplete)
(conditional mana usage)
"Live." Engulf the dead with the lifeforce of nature and turn them into a treant of the same species. Acquire a Sylvan Revenant under your command.
Sylvan Revenants: 0/1
# Needs "Domain Rights" to complete the ability.
]
Leif's eyes rolled over the screen. Bit by bit, his wits tried to understand what was written on it.
Leif, upon consuming the black flower he had earlier, received a ton of things. His host title was gone, but the benefits he received overshadowed that fact. His insight increased, alongside the amount of his mana. Moreover, he received another ability that he could use, although it said there that it was still incomplete.
"Are you alright?" Shiva asked him as he grew worried about why Leif kept staring in the air. In his eyes, he couldn't discern that Leif was looking at the panels floating in front of him. As a normal human, he doesn't have the capability to do so.
"I'm not sure... I do feel alright physically though." Leif answered him back.
"That's good to hear then."
Shiva went to the window, his eyes witnessed the aftermath of the battle that happened below.
"They all have left now." he conveyed to Leif who was still looking at the panel of his Physis.
"Let's go then, but we're not going back to the village." decided Leif.
"Where are we going then?"
His brows frowedin deep thought, Leif planned of their next move.
"Do you know of the topography of the area around here?" he asked Shiva.
Shiva nodded back at him. "Yes, I do," he responded.
"Great. Let's start getting you stronger now then," said Leif as he wore a gleaming smile on his face. He then went out of the room - Shiva followed him behind.
"What are we going to do?" Shiva asked him as they went down the stairs. Leif didn't answer back until they reached the grounds outside the building.
"We're hitting them back!" he soon declared as they stepped outside.
"The goblins?"
"Mhmm, yes... But this time -"
.
.
.
"We are the ones doing the hunt."