Chapter 33 Bloody Night
Ikaris almost fainted, but remembering that the thousands of Crawlings surrounding him were still there he bit his lip until blood came out and activated his Stealth Spell again with the little strength he had left.
He climbed the nearest tree, but had to kick the three Crawlers off the branches in order to get up. The fall of the three monsters revealed his position again, but he didn't care.
Still invisible, he sprinted to the end of the branch and plunged as far as he could to grab another tree trunk with his fingertips. The Crawlers thought he was still on the same tree and swarmed back to his old location, where he finally managed to catch a glimpse of an opening in the crowd of monsters.
As he counted the seconds before passing out, Ikaris dropped to the ground and zigzagged unseen between the Crawlings charging in the wrong direction. When he finally made his way out of the encirclement, he was corpse-like, his muscles so weak he could barely jog.
Before he collapsed, he turned off the Stealth Spell and used his passive mastery to minimize his presence. The boy prayed that no other Glenring would be around and he carefully and as quietly as possible slipped away, camouflaging himself in the bushes at the cost of many scratches.
After a while, sensing the presence of many Crawlings regardless of the direction, Ikaris resolved to find a hiding place where he was. His vision hazy, he looked for a bramble bush as impenetrable as can be and bracing himself for the impending pain, he crawled inside for several meters, then dug a burrow in the ground with his claws to bury himself in.
By the time Ikaris finished his task, his fingers were covered in blood and he was covered with half-clotted lacerations. On the verge of oblivion, he threw himself into the hole and let the earth pour over him.
Soon after, he closed his eyes and fell asleep. While he slept, he kept having nightmares, hearing screams of pain, roars and guttural growls.
That night in the Barren Bush, many Demonic Beasts were hunted to extinction. Those that refused to fight and had overdeveloped instincts fled north long before the Crawlers arrived, but these were rare cases.
The majority of the Demonic Beasts still living in the Barren Bush despite the repeated breaches of the Great Wall were as vicious as territorial and would not yield an inch of land without a fight. But against millions of Crawlers, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.
At some point in the night, the jungle grew quiet again and his nightmares subsided. The monsters he had been sensing in his sleep receded and Ikaris finally felt safe. His restless sleep settled down and he finally entered a deep and restful sleep.
The sun rose and the boy woke up in his burrow with brambles all around him, his throat dry and his lips parched as if he hadn't drunk in days.
'I'm still alive.'
Ikaris felt strangely listless as he took in this realization. He had done everything in his power to survive, but from the moment he had fallen asleep his life was no longer his own. Any stray Crawling could have slit his throat.
"Ouch!"
As he straightened up, the teen scratched his forehead against a bramble and it reminded him that it was not without reason that no enemy monster had bothered to venture there.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, his body was racked with pain and every movement hurt like hell. When his skin rubbed against the bramble thorns, he suddenly felt oversensitive to the pain.
After ten minutes of twisting and squirming, Ikaris finally managed to extricate himself from the tangle of brambles. Throughout the night, he had broken his knife, lost his bow and his two proboscis. His only remaining possession was his loincloth.
"Sigh... I've been lucky." He realized when he saw how desolate the landscape was around him.
There was dried blood everywhere and a few fragments of bone. He could imagine the bloodbath perpetrated by the Crawlings. He could only hope that Karragin had fared better, but he was not optimistic.
Having no idea where he was, Ikaris wandered around the jungle for an hour or two, using the sun to guide him until he stumbled upon a familiar clearing. Only, the place had changed a bit overnight.
The strawberry tree and its Heart Strawberries were still there, but the herd of Demonic Bison were nowhere in sight. Instead, the boy only made out gnawed bones scattered across the dried blood-covered lawn.
In the center of the clearing, Ikaris caught movement from what he thought was just a blood-covered rock. Hearing a human approaching, the Alpha Bison stood up and snorted weakly.
The boy may have been hungry, but when he saw the Demonic Beast's eyes filled with sadness and despair he lost his appetite. The man and the bison stared at each other for a while, but in the end neither of them was in the mood for a fight.
"You want your revenge, don't you?" Ikaris said, not sure if the beast understood him.
"MOOOOO!"
Clearly, the creature had understood what he meant.
"I will be leaving the Barren Bush today. If you want to come with me, meet us at Karragin village. You know where that is right?" The boy informed it without really knowing why he was bothering to talk to a bison.
The creature did not moo this time and Ikaris was unable to determine if it had understood him or if the first moo was just a coincidence. Shrugging, he picked as many Heart Strawberries as he could carry and left the clearing, leaving the Alpha Bison to mourn in peace.
A few minutes later, the boy sensed that he was being followed and immediately activated his new Stealth Spell. With the experience of the previous night, he expertly climbed the nearest tree and kept his eyes open for any enemy.
After a few seconds, his vigilance slackened when he spotted the Alpha Bison clambering in his direction. The fearsome beast had apparently been bitten on the left hind leg last night and one of its tendons had been severed.
Ikaris deactivated his Stealth and climbed down from the tree.
"We'll take care of that wound when we get to the village." He promised, though he kept his distance. He didn't know how resentful a Demonic Beast could be but until he was sure of the creature's intentions he had no intention of taking any chances.
"Moooo!"
"Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it if you don't charge me once your leg is all healed." The teen rolled his eyes as he sensed the reproving mood in the buffalo's mooing.
In reply, the beast snorted disparagingly and the duo returned to the village. Stepping out of the jungle, Ikaris expected to find a ruined village, or no village at all, but he was wrong.
The altar was intact, as was Malia and Grallu's thatched cottage. As for the other tents, there was not a single one standing.
However, there were survivors.
Though... not many.
He saw Malia slumped against the altar, her legs folded against her chest and her arms clasped around her knees. Her eyes were haggard and her camel yellow dress was covered in blue and red blood.
Grallu was nowhere in sight and he assumed the worst had happened. The boy saw Krold tending to the wounds of several villagers, as well as Ellie standing blankly over a dead body. The crybaby had somehow miraculously survived again.
In addition to Ellie, Ikaris recognized the former colonel Toby, the couple Jacob and Bree, and some familiar aborigines like Tuari, Doli and Koko. Tuari was in tears, mourning the death of his son, of whom only one finger remained.
In total, there were only about twenty survivors.
This was far more than the boy had expected to find.
In the village square, the fallen, or at least what was left of them, lay on the ground waiting to be buried. With great consternation, Ikaris recognized Oliver among them. It was the corpse that Ellie was staring at with a soulless gaze.
The moron hairdresser he had dreamed of beating up had died before he could take his revenge.
As much as he hated the young man, at the sight of him Ikaris was overwhelmed by a mixture of complicated emotions. He was both glad he was not in his place, and at the same time he felt a sense of urgency as he realized that one wrong move and he could have ended up like him.
As Ikaris emerged from the jungle, the villagers who first saw him blinked in disbelief, thinking they were seeing a ghost. However, when they saw the huge Demonic Bison that accompanied him, their faces broke down in terror.
"De-Demonic Beast!"
As soon as the alarm was sounded, Malia snapped out of her slumber and drew her sword only to quickly display an expression as shocked as the other villagers.
"Ikaris?"