Chapter 37 - Siaks

The blood was so dry that if it weren't for Pan feeling the fungus on the floor, even he wouldn't have noticed.

 "Why did we stop sir?" whispered, an aspirant behind Pan.

 A moment after the whisper, Pan turned and lunged toward the aspirant, pumping essence into his legs and arm to swing his bastard sword diagonally. 

 The midshipman, who thought Pan intended to cut him for making a noise, threw himself backwards and landed on his butt. However, to his surprise, a gush of blood soon stained his armor made of common steel.

 Looking to the side he could see a Siak coming out of invisibility and writhing in pain. 

 The fallen one had a serpentine body, ten feet wide and three feet thick. There were several mouths with hideous teeth on the side of its body and one more at one end. Evil also had a large eye at the end of the mouth. There were seven muscular, human-looking arms sticking out at the spacing between their mouths. 

 Arms that support its gelatinous-looking body. As for the reason for the pain, it was an eighth arm that now lay severed on the floor.

 "Get moving! There's more to come!" Pan raged. 

 But before the sentence was finished, the young woman who had earlier apologized for making noise began to squirm, as if an unseen force was trying to crush her.

  "H-help, p-please," she tried to plead, but she was the last in line and with Pan in the front, there was nothing he could do. As well as watching with regret as the young woman who dreamed of awakening and protecting the world was drained and kneaded.

 Everything happened in an instant. Small holes began to appear on his body and his appearance became more "dryer" by the moment. Her bones began to break with spine-chilling cracks. A muffled, pleading cry of pain was trapped in her throat. And only her face, now wrinkled and jaw open to the sky, conveyed her agony.

 "Our job is just to find the nest. We found it. Fight back!" Pan exclaimed as he dodged the fall in front of him, who used half of his arms to push himself to his side, while the rest of the arms flexed sideways in the intention of hitting the target with multiple impacts.

 And again before he finished his sentence, another aspirant was caught.

 'No!' Thought Pan.

 Rapid events paralyze the aspirants, who don't know what to do.

 'They need to act! It's already four and a fifth coming.' Thought Pan desperately. His heart pounded against his chest in sync with his rapid, heavy breathing, his legs were tense and his hands were trembling slightly. But it was an improvement that he no longer sweats to the point where they think he had a bath.

 "Your muscles are strong, but the veins and skin under them aren't. Make them bleed!" Pan raged with everything in his lungs to encourage them, as he threw himself to the side to avoid a second Siak who tried to grab him from behind with its hideous arms.

 Taking courage from Pan's words. One of the closest aspirants used his spear to try to pierce the Siak who was now draining his friend. He ended up missing the first lunge but landed the second one squarely. Making the fallen writhe in pain and reveal himself.

 Another wannabe to the side, seeing their actions and drawing bravery from them, swung his ax and cut a foot deep on the fallen who then screamed in agony and dropped the victim he was holding to focus on his attackers.

 The other aspirants soon followed suit with battle cries and prayers to the three miracles.

 "Die vile creature, die," said a young woman not much older than Pan himself, full of adrenaline. Her sword left one cut after another on the Siak's gelatinous body. But soon a fist from the fallen's many arms hit her stomach making her cringe.

 "By the veil that guards us!" The man who had complained about Pan shrieked with a high pitch, before tossing the crouching young woman to the side with one shoulder and taking the string of side punches for her.

  "Left!" Pan yelled and pointed at a wannabe. He swung his hammer in the indicated direction without hesitation. The heavy weapon came down hard to hit the apparent void, but then immediately stopped its momentum and came back a little with a sound eerily similar to clay being kneaded. Below him appeared a Siak on the ground with a round dent on the surface of its body and the ground had spider web-shaped cracks made by the force of the impact.

 He awaken!! Thought Pan with glee. As for the man, he looked at the damage he'd done to the Siak with such disbelief that if it hadn't been for another well-timed scream, the fourth Siak would have curled around him.