It was a warm and enjoyable day, the temperature was just the right type of comfortable warmth and one could easily imagine oneself relaxing in the shadow of an old apple tree. It was probably the best kind of day spring could produce.
'Must be nice to still feel the sun on your skin', I thought, 'Well, this forms purpose will be fullfilled in the near future, so i doubt I will experience that. Strange that I know the feeling, even though I never personally felt it.'
The trees were flashing by as I was making my way to the settlement.
'My followers should also catch up sooner rather than later. They did well, I'm actually sort of desperate right now. If I don't find someone here, there won't be much options left. Maybe one more try, but after that, they will get me.'
Time went on as I continued my hurry.
Suddenly, I was struck by a sharp pain, followed by the feeling that an important part of myself was gone. It almost felt like it vanished into non-existence.
'Damn, that close huh. And im out of powers to split of. Then it's this or nothing. Would be a shame to loose this power after all the effort it took. But it's still worth it, even though the poor soul won't be able to do anything else.'
'... I wish I could have used it. The price was immense and the result is still not sure. They caught up really fast. But I still wish... it doesn't matter. Can't loose the work of a lifetime and a half to sobbing.'
And I continued to rush towards the place of my last chance at success.
---
'Judging from the sun, it should be a fair bit after noon... yeah... they should be about done, if I get going now, it should work out fine.'
And so I made my way towards the forest shrine, where the monthly offerings should be placed and the people on their way out. Of course, I didn't take the main path, it would be bad for me to be seen as they might suspect something, so I went straight through the forest.
I was pretty happy, this was the best time of the year and the best time of the month as well and the offerings were sure to make it feel that way.
'Mhhhhhhh, I wonder what the butcher brought. I hope it's chicken, I'm really in the mood for that. Or a nice steak. Or a pigs leg. Ahhhhh who am I kidding, as long as there's meat, it will be glorious.'
With those kind of thoughts in mind, I walked around trees and climbed the over rocks whenever necessary.
With my quick way of walking and the jump of joy in my stride, I made it there pretty quickly and settled down at my usual spot atop a rock formation near the holy site where the rocks made it easy to hide myself while having a good sight at the shrine.
The shrine itself was on the modest side of things. It was in the middle of nearly perfectly circle-shaped clearing, which had almost certainly been artificially made a long time ago. There, two rocks emerged from the ground, rising about twenty feet high where they closed in on eachother, forming a sort of gate-like structure.
It also reminded me of the closing mandibles an ant would have, but the villagers didn't seem to have that knowledge of insects, so the shrine was called "Forest Gate Shrine".
But most importantly, in between the two mandibles laid the reason for my coming.
It looked like the people were gone and after waiting a bit to make sure nobody came back, I made my way down the rocks and towards the shrine, where I directly walked towards the centre.
There, carefully laid out and neatly packaged, were the monthly offering sof the villagers to their god, whoever that might be.
'Looks like meat is back on the menu', I thought and almost cried out. I wasn't good at hunting, so this was my only chance to get my hands on some meat.
There was not much, but I was right about the meat: pigs leg. The butcher always brought something, as he was probably the wealthiest man in the village.
The other offerings were also good, some cabbage, a few carrots and so on. Just the amount a village like this could spare.
And I took it all.
I can't say I I felt bad for it, surviving on my own would've been hard enough, but I had more important things to do than to spent all day making ends meet or integrating myself into the community.
Very important things.
---
The three of us were running through the woods at break neck speed, we couldn't allow this opportunity to go by, we had him cornered.
There was only one village nearby and the nearest settlement aside from that was well out of his range. If we caught him here, this way to drawn out hunt would be finally over.
At this pace I couldn't look over to my comrades, but I was sure they were thinking the same.
This speed, as well as the ability to dodge trees while maintaining it would be more than impossible for any normal human being. Even though we could by no means be described as normal, this was really hard even for us... well, for them.
Naturally I had no problems with it. The last time I crashed wasn't even my fault.
Out of the seven we started at, it was clear from the start, that if any survived it would be us. The rest of them were weak. This kind of selection was only good and natural. They had it coming.
But of course, for them to join us, they weren't that weak. We faced harsh resistance on our way and the latest fragment had been the strongest one yet.
'Let's hope the records are correct and he's out of 'em. Without power he wouldn't be able to go on, so whatever he held on to for so long must be extraordinary. It's a shame we have to destroy it.'