Leviathan

Sezel froze, sweat beading down his temples as he confronted the behemoth looming above him. The Leviathan's head was so massive that it could have devoured entire buildings in a single bite; its mouth, lined with glistening fangs, yawned wide enough to invite despair.

Its enormous eyes, locked onto Sezel, pinning him in place. He felt like an ant in front of the ginormous monster.

'This is completely screwed.' Sezel thought. His mind spiraled, almost fragmenting under the raw pressure of terror. He realized, lips twitching as he tried not to sob or scream aloud. 'It could swallow me whole and wouldn't even notice.'

His instincts screamed to run, but his body refused to move, leaving him paralyzed under the deadly gaze of the Leviathan. He gulped, throat as dry as sandpaper, the sunlight fractured into frenzied beams by the canopy above.

The silence shattered. With shocking speed for something so colossal, the Leviathan lunged. Its jaws opened wide, tongue snapping out like a dripping whip as strands of venom spun in the air. Sezel's heart seized, the serpent was too fast, there was no time to think.

The surface beneath his feet was a hazard in itself, slick as oil and alive with the shifting motion of the serpent's body.

'Here goes nothing.'

Sezel didn't much decide on something to act: he just let his foot slip, faking a fall just as the monstrous head swept over him. The fangs tore through where his body had been just moments ago.

Pain lanced through his legs as he landed hard, but panic transformed it into fuel and he sprinted as if there was no tomorrow, and yeah if he stopped there would be no tomorrow.

He plunged into the forest, the world here was grotesque—trees soared hundreds of feet into the sky, their trunks so thick they could hide monsters the size of multistorey buildings. Grass that soared high above his head, each blade bending in the wind, casting shadows big enough to hide a car.

'What kind of place is this?' The question hammered through his skull, panic rising. Was this a world for giants, or monsters that made giants look small?

'Do giants live here?' Sezel felt like he was an ant in a world of giants, but there were no giants except the large snake behind Sezel.

Behind him, the serpent took a moment to coil its massive body for a renewed assault. When it came, it was terrifyingly swift: the enormous mass undulated at impossible speed, the ground trembling under its displacement.

Just the next moment it was ready with its maw wide open to devour Sezel with another attack, 'Shit, just go away.'

Sezel accelerated, swallowing all the soreness and pain in his muscles, he just had to enter the denser parts of the forest ahead and hide somewhere safe. But the distance loomed like forever.

The monster lunged again, cleverly Sezel hurled himself behind the trunk of one of the behemoth trees, rolling just as the Leviathan struck with its gaping maw. Sand and splinters rained around as the snake lifted its head up devouring the tree whole and leaving a pit in the ground.

Sezel didn't dare move, heart hammering, fear making his whole body vibrate, but he jarred himself to senses, there was no time to stop. He forced himself upright and sprinted again, unseen and silent before the serpent could find his trail.

But his luck was poison.

The snake too didn't wait any longer and lunged again, the large shadow blanketed him, sunlight vanishing under the scale-armored ceiling of the monster's head.

The cave-like maw gaped just above him, even if he ran and jumped, there was no chance he would make it out of the range. Best case, he would be spared at the cost of his legs, but that was not something appreciable.

Sezel nodded strongly, pushing out the negative thoughts, 'Think something good, something useful damnit.'

He just had a goddamn katana which would just be enough to be a needle for the giant reptile and a gun which wouldn't even sting the thing. Both useless.

With nothing at his hands, Sezel gambled it all on it, he had no other choice, he rolled down towards one of the trees, still under the shadow and caught the nearest branch, hurling all his weight on it.

The monster lunged and as it came near, the wind from its attack roared across the forest, catching Sezel and flinging him through the air into another tree.

A ragged grin split his face—he'd made it, the gamble worked! Not bad. Not bad at all.

The main part for his plan was that he had to use his hands to provide momentum to his body, and leave the branch as soon as he felt the gust was strong enough to throw his weight off.

And if he tried to do it while touching the ground, he would most likely trip and fall before the air would blow him away.

'Hehe I have a mind, you beast.' he cheered inside as the impact of the snake to the ground sent tremors.

But Sezel's smile vanished into cold dread just the next moment when something pierced the canopy with the force of a natural disaster. An arrow the size of a tree blurred into view, whistling through the air with impossible power. Striking the Snake with deadly precision.

The arrow took the ginormous beast flying with it, out of sight and below the mountain-like plain the forest was on.

The dreadful scene sent ice-cold shivers down Sezel's whole body, despair falling like a tidal wave. 'What… what sort of hell have I walked into?' His mind spun, thoughts racing to darker depths.

He gasped, frozen at the spot he was on, body tensed, 'What was that, something killed that thing, seriously.'

How big of a monster would that be to kill a leviathan, a giant creature rivaling the Statue of Unity and the scariest part was not even that, it had intelligence, a creature capable of using a bow and an arrow to strike down its prey.

Sezel's mind churned into chaos, just thinking about such a thing made his blood turn to ice.

Sezel let his body rest against the bark of a tree, breathing in shallow, terrified gasps as reality crushed around him. He glanced skyward, eyes stinging, and managed a hollow murmur: "This place... truly is hell."

He didn't have the luxury to rest in Spirit Realm and he knew it too well, as the larger predator was out, the smaller ones would be on hunt now, and as he anticipated, muffled footsteps approached from all directions. A hope to get what the fallen king had left.