Chapter 223: Forest encounter
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I thought you said it's safe!?" An anxious Lana cried out as she ran through a frozen forest. By her side were two young men that looked to be in their mid-twenties. Their eyes kept glancing behind them with panic-stricken expressions.
"It was! The knight was supposed to have left already! Who the hell knows why he's back?!" One of them replied, a man with long black hair, tied into a bun. He hastily adjusted his glasses and continued glancing behind him.
"Shut up you two! It's too late to argue! Did you see what the bastard did to the others?! What the hell was that?!" The second man looked more like a knight than a scholar. His medium-length blonde hair fluttered in the air as he nervously held into the sheathed sword on his waist.
"That was no normal magic, I tell you! Curses, that didn't even look like normal mana!" Lana cursed.
Suddenly, the knight grabbed both of his companions and dragged them to the ground, the duo did not resist and quickly fell silent. He ushered for them to be quiet and hide behind a tree, Lana and her companion nodded in confirmation.
Lana turned to the man with the bun and spoke in a hushed tone, "Robin, hurry up damn it! We are going to die!"
Robin quickly grabbed a mana stone from his bag and cursed, "Shut the fuck up! Don't rush me!" His hands moved hastily as he drew a seal and channeled his mana to the stone. A barrier of sorts quickly appeared and encompassed the trio, hiding from plain sight.
Seconds later, the three explorers, huddled together, their breaths visible in the frigid air as they pressed their backs against the rough bark of the tree. They dared not make a sound, not even a whisper, lest they alert their cursed pursuer to their presence. The frozen forest was eerily quiet, save for the crunch of the knight's heavy footsteps as he stalked past them.
The knight was a terrifying sight to behold. His armor was black as night, and it seemed to absorb the little light that filtered through the dense forest canopy. His visor was closed, hiding his face from view, but the scholars could feel his gaze piercing through them all the same. They could sense his malevolence, his determination to hunt them down.
His sword was emitting an eerie obsidian light that seemed to pulse after each second. His steps were slow, but heavy. As the knight drew closer, the trio held their breaths, frozen in terror. But to their immense relief, the knight's footsteps began to recede, growing fainter with each passing moment. The cursed knight had passed them by, without so much as a glance in their direction.
Still, the group remained rooted in place, too afraid to make a move. They knew that the knight could change direction at any given moment, could circle back and discover them cowering behind the tree. So they waited, their hearts pounding in their chests until they were sure that the knight was truly gone.
Lana turned towards the blonde knight and asked in a whisper, "Shane, Is he gone?"
"I think so... I-I can't sense his presence any longer," The knight stuttered in response.
"Damn it! If only we could use flight, then we wouldn't be in this position in the first place!" Robin cursed silently.
"You saw what happened to the others when they tried. I don't know what power that monster holds, but we are too vulnerable in the sky," Shane quickly shook his head, his grip tightening on his sword as he recalled the scene of carnage that has just transpired.
Lana, on the other hand, looked deep in thought. Shane noticed and asked, "What is it?"
She quickly shook her head before replying, "I'm not sure, but his power was very strange. It felt wrong like he was feeding off the mana?"
"I thought you said our method was wrong," Robin squinted his eyes and asked.
"Ours is as well. Fuck, I should have just stayed behind for the ascension ceremony. Damn me and my curiosity."
Shane ignored her ramblings and asked again, "What do you mean feeding off the mana?"
Lana turned to face him and continued, "So, you remember what I said about the elements, the stream, and whatnot?"
"Yes."
What we do is change the elements into different ones. This creates an imbalance. What this monster seems to be doing is feeding off the elements themselves, he is not releasing them back, it's more like he is sucking the very essence of mana. Does that make sense?"
The duo glanced at each other before they turned to face Lana with solemn expressions. "This is bad," Shane spoke.
"Bad? You mean damned? We are damned!" Robin answered as he held his head with both hands.
"Are there any records of such a monster?" Shane ignored Robin's ramblings and asked Lana.
"Not that I know off. There are the mana monsters, but those don't feed off mana, and instead seem to disperse back when they die. This... I'm afraid this is something completely different, something we never heard of before," Lana answered.
"That's impossible, monsters like this don't just pop into existence like this without any warning," Robin shook his head by the side.
"Perhaps there are some recordings, maybe we just never found them," Shane continued.
"Is this really the time to be discussing this? We better move now, if not, then either the bastard will get us, or the cold will," Robin cursed.
"Yes, let's go," Lana agreed. Only then did they dare to emerge from their hiding spot, and resume their flight through the frozen forest.
Just as the group began to run in the opposite direction, Shane's face suddenly turned grim. He was the first to react as the cursed knight suddenly appeared before them, launching a vicious sneak attack out of nowhere. Shane drew his sword in a blur of motion, parrying the monster's blow with a resounding clash of steel. The cursed knight's attack was so powerful that it sent him staggering backward, his arms straining under the force of the impact.
"Shane!" Lana cried out and quickly used a mana stone, she grabbed Robin by the shoulder and blinked toward Shane before the trio blinked and appeared in a different location.
The second they appeared, the group fell on their knees and puked whatever food was left in their stomach.
Robin gasped for air and turned to glance at Lana, "How did we not crash into a tree?"
"Because I'm damn amazing, now if you're done asking stupid questions, stand up and run!"
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