Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sound of running horses was mixing with the cacophony of the forest. With birds chirping everywhere, and sounds of horses neighing frequently, and the mixture of sound coming from the leaves swinging left or right because of the soft winds, the forest was not silent today.
With the sun at it's daypeak, it's lights sipped through the leaves of trees, illuminating the ground in specks of yellow lights. The trees stood everywhere, either close or far to each other.
Fallen twigs can be seen frequently under the tall trees and each corner of the ground lives small creatures and insects. Predators such as wolves ran away as the horses ran in a complicated manner, each evading trees to have the best efficiency of travel.
The horses slowly stopped as the rider of those horses whipped their rope that connects the rider to the horses. In the end, the horses stopped just before a small open field at the center of the forest.
Placed there are several boulders that formed a circle. At the center, stood an altar like structures that stood almost two meters and at the very center of that altar was a brown wooden door.
Several bloods can be seen everywhere, either placed on those boulders or at the ground. At the door was also a blood, it looks painted into a word like symbols.
One of the rider, a middle-aged man with blonde hair, one that adorned with clad of silvery armor. In his left shoulder was fur like cloth that cascaded until his upper hand, his right waist was also cascaded with fur like cloth that reaches his knees.
His breastplate was engraved with four point star that was colored in yellow. On his left waist hanged a black scabbard that was hiding a silver sword. He gave a commanding vibe based on his appearance.
He sat at his brown horse and glance at the bloody field. He frowned at the sight of this place as he ordered. "Check the field, be sure to check carefully and signal me if anything was off."
His men, which is adorned in the same manner as him. The only difference was the fur like cloth that cascade in his shoulder and waist, and the engravings in his chest. The knights wore their silvery helmet that blocks their face.
The knights went to the ground from their horses upon hearing the order of their commander. After falling to the ground with their two legs, they unsheathed their swords with silvery blade and slowly approach the field with caution.
On closer inspection, the bloodstains are actually old, like it has been a while since it was painted there. And each of blood on the ground and boulders have some kind of connection with the symbol written in the door at the altar.
The symbol in the door complicated but one will notice that it was the same as what is written in the ground and boulders and there is a circular blood paint in the door surrounding the symbols.
After a while, the only thing that was not inspected is the thing inside the door of the altar. The commander in his clas armor, he left the horse and went to the knights, he went close to the door as he sized it up.
After a while of inspecting, the commander touched the wooden material and felt the roughness of the wood and the smoothness of the blood. The brass colored doorknob is tainted with blood as the commander slowly tilt his hand and the door slowly opened.
A surprise arouse from the face of the commander and his knights. Inside, stood there are nothing but a dark, empty small room that can occupied one men of his. There are no things aside from the darkness within the small room.
The commander then closed the door and went to his horse, the knights did too. He glance at the gruesome field one last time before ordering. "Destroy this place, leave nothing behind!"
Then, the knights raised their hands infront of them with open palm facing the field. They chanted complicated words and their palm slowly light up and flame spheres slowly took form in there.
One by one, the flaming sphere in the knights palm shoot forward to the gruesome field.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosion after explosion happened after the flaming sphere make contact with what inside the field. Flames arouse from the smoke of explosion and instantly devoured the field. The flames was weak enough not to burn the surroundings of the field but was strong enough to destroy the altar and the boulders to pieces.
The knights slowly went to besides their commander. The commander in clad armor then ordered. "Let's go, the sun is about to set and we don't want to stay up here at dark."
By that, the knights and the commander whipped their horses and slowly moved away from the ruined field.
...
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The horses ran through the vast woods, evading each trees as they followed the same path they came in.
The commander, which is clad in armor sense that something is wrong with the forest this time unlike the time when they entered and went to the field.
What is wrong about the forest is that unlike the previous time when they came in, there are neither birds chirping nor sounds of leaves swinging which is not the same as the previous time. There are only the sounds of horses that either neighing or thumping the ground as they run.
But, the commander in clad armor didn't show any signs of fear but it doesn't mean that he was scared. With a straight face, the commander in clad armor continued to lead the group to leave the forest.
However, his straight face suddenly changed. Sweat flowed down from his hair to his face as it turned pale. It's the same as his knights upon seing a humanoid at the distance.
The humanoid didn't wear anything, exposing 'his' gray skin. The gray skinned man has bulging muscles and what is more terrifying about the gray skinned man is 'his' faceless head, there are only a lipless mouth there that so wide that it reaches its ear.
The gray skinned man was carrying a huge boulder in it's hands and upon 'seing' the group of horse riding knights at the distance, 'he' threw the huge boulder to the horse riding group.
With no time to react, the only thing that the knights and the commander can do is to face the huge boulder as they whipped their horses to go left or right.
Crash!
The boulder crashed and smoke and dust enveloped the area where the boulder make contact with. The horse riding knights are either fell to their horses or was lucky enough to evade the boulder.
Those who fell to the ground are either crashed and squeezed by the boulder or was laying in the ground, catching their breaths. The commander in clad armor was the latter, lucky enough to not got crashed by the boulder.
After catching a breath, he was approached by a knight that one of the lucky ones that evaded the crashing boulder. He stood up and patted his dusty fur like cloth on both of his shoulder and waist.
"Regroup immediately! We will slain the assailant as soon as possible!" He shouted and ordered. The knights around him then slowly regroup and surround their commander in dusty clad of armor.
However, they just about to regroup when the assailant, the gray skinned demon appeared just besides one of the knights and with a swing of it's arms, the head of that knight went flying.
Then it came to the other knights one by one, not giving them enough time to recover as 'he' either punched a hole to the knight's chest piercing it or was swinging its arm to unplug those head of knights in brutal way as possible.
Fear devoured the heart and mind of the knights as they saw their own comrades got killed one after another and before their turn came in. But the commander in clas armor didn't even flinched from the fear, no, what he did is nothing his knights expected.
He ran away from the assailant.
Wait, ran away?
Yes, he ran away as his face showed sign of fear and tears flowed down from his eyes as he shouted. "F*ck, I didn't come just for this!"
But his struggle to run is wasted as the gray skinned man already finished killing the rest of the knights, 'he' dashed towards the commander in clad armor.
Thud!
A sound of metal making contact with a solid thing was heard after the assailant punched the back of the commander in clad armor. It pierced through the chest and after the assailant drew 'his' arms off the chest, crimson blood flowed down from where the arm used to be.
In the chest appeared a hole the size of two palms and crimson guts can be seen inside. The commander in clad armor felt his breath was going away as his knees fell to the ground.
In not time, with his life gone, he fell to the ground. The gray skinned man then glanced at every direction before approaching the dead commander. 'he' sat down just besides the corpse and slowly ate the man like a child eating it's cereal.
At the last, there are only one sound that can be heard in the deep woods, that is the sound of a predator eating it's prey. Slowly crunching it's meat one by one.
...
Swosh!
A reindeer jumped away from the bush and now running in the deep forest then after a while of running it slowly decrease it's speed and stopped just infront of a fallen apple under an apple tree.
It sniffed the apple infront and after a while, the reindeer sized up the surrounding, making sure that there is no danger in it's surroundings before taking a small bite at the apple.
Crunch! Crunch!
The reindeer was cautiously crunching the apple infront of it happily. However, an arrow flew in the air and instantly pierced the reindeer's head making it slumped to the ground with no life to resist.
The assailant slowly walked towards the reindeer that was now a corpse. It was a woman in his 30s, with a raven hair that cascaded until her waist and a case with sharp eyes, she was looking beautiful despite her age.
She was clothed in a simple white shirt and black trousers with brown boots. She wore a black coat that only hides her chest, she has a quiver in her back that holds long arrows.
In her hand was a wide bow almost the same height as her, she was almost two meter tall, a quite rare for a woman's height.
She unplug the arrow in the reindeer's head, crimson blood flowed through the hole in the creature's head. Then, she grabbed the back legs of the reindeer and slowly walked away.
Blood trailed behind the reindeer as it was dragged to the ground along the way. After walking for half an hour through the forest, the woman finnaly came to the borderline of her territory.
It was secluded behind the woods, at the center is a two story house colored in brown bricks, the upper floor's exterior is colored in red. The roof was red also with windows appearing at each side of the house excluding the front which placed the door.
A chimney of red stood at the left section of the house and just besides the side of chimney placed a small cobbled field with three hay dummies standing there. Two silver sword was laying in the ground and the dummies has some noticable damage on it, the small cobbled field looks like a small training ground.
At the right section of the house is another small field, this time it was a small farmland with tomatoes, spinach, potatoes and many more variants of vegetables was planted there, they was still not harvestable and only small portion of it are just showing signs of sprouting one.
The tall woman stopped suddenly as he raise the corpse of the deer, the deer was almost loss it's whole blood by now. She holds the dead reindeer at the air as he calmly walk to the entrance of the house with no sound of footsteps at all, not even breath can be heard.
Calmly and silently, she walked forward to the door.