CHPT 335: Squirrel's In the Forest, Heroes In the Darkness...

Hours had passed since they fled The Grand-Knights Guidlhall and the City of FeliAlu altogether. Hours that flew by and turned into minutes on the inside of their Undead Tangent where time was very different compared to the outside world.

Either way it didn't really matter to them. Time flew by regardless of which way and how it spun depending on their perceived reality. They'd been busy. Time tends to change anyway when one is in such a state.

A state of combative flow. A state that was visibly shown in the way Undead Monster corpses were left to rot further as they were left in the wake of the pack.

Some lay unseen beneath the heavy fog that blanketed the wet grassed floor, covered in slash marks or missing entire limbs. Some were pinned to tree's by wayward wooden spikes that had grown from the dead earth, while others were partially frozen into the black ponds they attempted to emerge from.

The rest of the remains were piles of faintly blue glowing ash being eaten away by verdant green flames. They looked like small glowing campfires from beneath the fog, marking the packs stopping points placed sporadically through the Tangent that eventually lead to the shadowy figures moving in the distance surrounded by a massive mob of pale skinned venomous humanoid monsters who were headlong in a violent game of chase.

***

"You just had.....to pick the FUCKING Ghouls, huh?!" Ursula yelled in a voice scarcely reminiscent of her own before swinging her frosted axe through the throat of a lunging Ghoul. Before it could even fall, it's presence was swallowed up by a handful more clawing and swiping at her mid-chase.

Before the closest could reach her, a spear punctured through it's face, squirting blackish foul ichor and blood onto it's lifeless comrades as they were overcome by an incomprehensible number of shadowy Wolves.

[+250 EXP]

Claude dashed past her and retrieved his spear from the corpses face before rejoining the massive mob of violence.

"It seemed like a good idea....plus this Tangent is scheduled to open soon and were not far from a village. As long as you don't let them bite you, we should be fine....and I have an idea."

Ursula turned and looked at him as he ran beside her. The scarce amount of her skin he could see from her masked face had darkened to a rustic angry shade of bronze with the tiniest of hair follicles bordering her face and icy blue eyes. The sight horrified him but he kept it down.

"What's your idea?"

Claude's eyes flashed green and the chain-like tattoo on his arm went up in flames, "You remember the HellBred Squirrels?"

Ursula checked out of their conversation and dashed off to the right, allowing him to see her attacking a pair of Ghouls in stop-motion like style as the repeated blockage of tree's hid her frame by frame while she hacked and slashed apart the Ghouls leaving the partially frozen corpses to be overtaken by more pursuers before she quickly rejoined him.

"The squirrels.....yea?"

The time for conversation was no more. They'd burned enough energy and all that did was benefit the horde-like number of Ghoulish fiends surrounding them in the wet and foggy undead forest.

Claude sheathed the short-spear in his left hand, "Just follow my lead." He said before he began bounding and swinging through the forest with his Malevolence Tether, only stopping to touch the trees and pour tiny portions of his Nature Magic into the cold and nearly lifeless constructs.

Speed came to him with a newfound level of intensity. Since he'd upgraded his speed stat, it felt like he'd hit a sort of milestone. A small one, but even so. As he swung through the forest, only landing to rip and tear apart the Undead with Frosty before regaining his heightened movement, he couldn't help but notice the progress.

The Ghoul's were too slow for him. Way too slow. Known as some of the faster and more ferocious of basic Tangent-Born Monsters, he now ranked above them in terms of their greatest attribute at the high bronze rank.

Not breaking news considering that he fought creatures within the Silver Rank, but good news nonetheless. The last time he faced the Ghouls, he barely made it with a team. He'd made progress. And they needed to keep progressing. The boss was lying in wait somewhere in the Tangent with them and it would be unwise to waste their energy against the mob.

Good thing he had an idea.

"We're almost out!" Ursula yelled from behind Claude in reference to the dense woodland exit visible in the distance.

"Yep! Remember what I told you."

"Squirrels."

"Good. See you on the outside." Claude said before letting his speed carry him through another group of pale-skinned Ghouls until he was merely feet from the exit. Before he could pass through it though, he sent his Malevolence Tether up to wrap around the branch of one of the taller sycamore trees that was slowly regaining color and even sprouting leaves.

In a flash he was off the ground, yanking himself through the forest until he burst from the lackluster canopy and felt the untouched cold night winds ruffling his cloak as he sailed through the air weightlessly.

A couple seconds of silence passed before Ursula and the rest of the pack burst from the exit covered in twigs and blackish Ghoul blood.

The point was, they were out. And that was his que to act.

His opened hands glowed like two green stars as he stared down at the dark forest that was slowly regaining the vibrant glow of life in shades of browns and greens, he could hear the Ghouls within stomping through the wet grass, crunching the bones of their fallen horde-members, ripping the bark from rotted out trees with their claws. They were everywhere, like an infestation.

With a snarl he smashed his hands together, imagining the infestation within the forest being skewered and consumed by the growing nature that now mimicked his movements.

FWSSHHSHSHSWSH!!

The expanding canopy beneath him shook, shaking off leaves and loose branches as the forest below twisted and expanded into a land of thorns that ripped apart the Ghouls inside. They screamed and roared as wayward branches and vines exploded from the ground to blend them mercilessly into undead black-blooded paste.

He hit the ground hard soon after, just in time to see Ursula charging past him towards the entrance.

FWOO!

She stopped just shy of entering and stomped her foot hard into the dirt.

CRKCRKCR!!!

Ice exploded from the impact zone in a torrent of lethal glacial spikes that ran through the torturous forest like a tidal wave of glass.

The ice ripped through and cloaked the wooden spikes killing off and freezing the remaining stragglers that attempted to escape with missing arms and legs.

[+ 1000 EXP]

DING!

[You have Leveled Up! You are now Level 24!]

[+2 Stat Points]

[+1 Stat Point]

[You have 7 available Stat Points!]

Claude got up off the ground just in time to be helped up the rest of the way by Ursula. His left shoulder protested against his movements so soon after falling some thirty feet from the air but he ignored it.

"The HellBred Squirrels..." Ursula said shakily, the harsh beginnings of a transformation were slowly fading from her face while she fixed her damaged wooden armor.

"Glad you remembered." Claude replied, indirectly picking up on how her mind was reacting to the revisited traumatic thought.

He could see the glow returning to her eyes followed by the faint bronze tint to her skin. Without speaking he took a step closer to her and began taking calm breaths.

All noise faded as silence fell and their shared breaths remained. After a few minutes passed, he opened his eyes and found her doing the same as her hand fell from where a hole was once blown through her chest.

Naturally, it was still a sore topic for them both. But they would get better. They had too. With that thought in mind he shook off the looming feeling of guilt and began searching beyond for where to go next in an attempt to keep his mind on track.

All that met them ahead was a foggy stretch of grassland for more than a mile in all directions. Simple yet still just as dangerous since any number of ponds or massive lakes housing Ghouls could be anywhere.....even the boss could be anywhere currently. Only one way to find out.

Soon enough they were all walking through the foggy grassland in search of more combat and experience within the Tangent.

The silence only lasted a few seconds.

"So...why'd you do it?" Ursula said as she came to a stop beside him.

"Do what?"

"Register as a NightRunner. What made you do it?"

Claude took a deep breath-- for really no reason other than as a response to the heavy subject, "I was too weak. When I became a Lupine I was given a deadline. I had a month to get strong enough to handle the first Full Moon. It wouldn't have happened any other way.....I needed action or I would've died most likely."

Ursula nodded along, "So....that's why we're out here now? Partially?"

Claude shook his head, causing his hair to shake out from beneath his hood, "No. You're very.....tough. And you're stronger than I was when you were....ehm....when you were.."

"Changed.." Ursula provided.

"Yea. That's not why we're here at all. I'm sure you'll be fine on that front...the problem is everything that comes with it. Monsters beyond the Bronze Rank and Demons. Simple as that." Claude replied.

Ursula grunted in understanding before they were left to walk with the pack in relative silence again for a span of a few minutes due to Ursula's mind subconsciously pulling up every memory of an encounter she had with Allblack.

Unfortunately, barely any of the memories were....good. Like her first meeting. When he was drenched in blood and carrying a handful of Hero Tags.

She brought a hand over her mouth like she was on the verge of vommiting, "Oh shit...."

"Hm?" Claude mumbled before looking at her.

"You had a team...what happened..."

With all this talk of his history of a NightRunner she was bound to remember, no uncanny gift of perception was necessary for that.

Claude shrugged and tried to hold back the floodgates of murderous memories that loomed around him like ghosts from a different time, "I didn't....really know them. Not like they knew eachother-- for the most part. But...when I was trying to get strong enough to live through the month, they were the only group to take me in. I was a fill in-- only a week ago they'd lost their Assassin...she died....Brenda loved her..."

Ursula stayed silent and listened, seeming to urge him to continue.

"I didn't know much about NightRunners...I didn't know the dangers...I wasn't ready. As a result I failed. There was a mole in our group. Rikah..." When he said the name, Ursula jumped as Frosty and the Phantom Wolves let out bass heavy snarls in disgust.

"A....A mole?" Ursula questioned.

"Raiders. For some reason she went the stealthy route....made friends and connections with them before blitzing us and killing them. She was sick in the head.....She was wrong. And I didn't let her get away with it. I failed in saving them, but I was able to avenge them."

She nodded, still silent. For the first time, he didn't feel like he needed to rip the words out of himself and instead spoke freely. Purposefully.

"Ursula, listen. As a Lupine....I've had to do things.....I'm not proud of. But I'll do them again. I'll have to...because more are coming. More enemies....more threats. And with what we are...there's enemies from both sides....maybe there was always enemies from both sides. Do you get what I'm saying? We can't just be Tangent venturing Heroes like your father."

Ursula stopped and looked at him, "Good. I never wanted that anyway. If I remember correctly, it was a certain someone that said there was more to that in being a Hero. I'm still with that, and so are you-- I don't care how not hero-like you feel...."

She was silent a moment in her own head before adding, "Plus. Those Raiders don't sound too different from the Monsters in here."

He'd wanted to hear those words from someone else for a long time.....

She'd said something else to him-- he could see it in the way her mask moved with her lips. But he couldn't hear it. Not over the sound of the beautifully dark and melancholic tune that emanated from somewhere to the left of him.

It'd felt like forever since he'd heard the Banshee's song. Part of him just wanted to lay beneath the fog and listen to it for hours under the starlight. The other part of him remembered what it meant.

Death's Ambience. Danger was near.

Blackbeak screeched from above them in the same direction as the song, knocking Claude into focus as Ursula finished speaking.

"....Are you ok?" She asked.

Claude nodded before responding, "I know where the Boss is...."