Chapter 6 - A Very Hairy Goliath

The beast turns to face me as I begin to move towards it.

Though it's body looked like that of a mammoth from the back to the side, it's face looked nothing like that of a mammoth. The words that come to mind would be, alien, abomination.

The whiskers on it's face like tentacles, spikes protruding from them on the side of them facing outward. The whiskers which curled up seemed to cover it's face like a mask, but it opened up the mask and took a threatening posture towards me, it's mouth filled with jagged teeth opening wide.

"Garoaaahheeee" a strange roar/trumpeting noise came from the creature, trying to threaten me.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I throw as much power into my body and legs as I can. My body move much faster than imagined and already I was in front of the creature. I stopped myself with a foot on its chest.

Shocked slightly by what happened I froze for a split second, and in that split second the creature was already reacting. It reared its head and the spiked whiskers slammed towards me.

Catching myself again, I touch down again on the ground, shifting my weight and dodging their path.

I stomp down and fly through the air towards it again. It's tentacles, still in disarray, have left it's face wide open. I step with one foot onto the creatures chest again, shifting my charging momentum upwards. My other foot uses all of that momentum and slams into It's jaw.

The creature, on all fours, had no moves to soften the impact. "Graah!" It knocks me away, it diverts it's head to the side, and the flat sides of its whiskers hit me.

I crash into the ground, but the blow lacked significant weight so I was able to quickly recover.

The creature looks disoriented from the blow, and was obviously injured, but it also managed to slide the tentacles into place over it's face again. Forming a Protective mask of tentacles and spikes. With its jaw now protected, that attack won't work again.

I steady my stance to prepare for the next bout, watching it's movements closely.

The beast acted with caution similarly, crouching down and snarling from under it's mask. The hairs all over it's big body began to stand on end, creating a strange shimmering light. The beast casually began walking to the side, and dissapeared.

Fuck.

I backed up against one the trees, looking for hints of where it might have gone. How could a fucking mammoth be so light footed and stealthy?

Boom

What felt like a boulder hit me in the side and I rolled for several meters. I got up. I'm rather certain my left leg was broken on that impact, but that was unimportant as I needed to see what to do to survive this.

I heard a noise from behind me and turned, I heard it charging at me but still saw nothing. I could run but that could be even worse than getting hit in the front, I have no idea how to dodge though since I can't see how it moves.

I could feel the breath of the giant beast on me already, but just before the impact Meditite rushed in from the side.

Haah!

Meditite threw it's entire weight into the invisible creature, the shock rendered its stealthing inert. It lost its balance, and fell into a roll off to the side. The interruption of its momentum let me dodge it's path just in time.

I looked over to Meditite and saw it's body covered in holes. It had thrown itself into the spiked tentacles of the creature in order to save me. Energy began to leak out the holes until it's body finally collapsed, the Energy flew over and into my body, returning to the seal in my mental space.

I could feel meditite was still fine, it would just need time to reform it's body.

I looked back towards the Creature again, but once again, it had disappeared. How, how did Meditite manage to see it?

Obviously, it was through Energy Sensing.

My only hope to win this fight would lie in that ability.

But is it realistic to master something so complicated Energy Sensing so quickly? No, unlikely, a more familiar or simpler method is better.

I took a deep breath and put my hands together, creating a cycle of Energy between them. I pushed them forward and opened them in front of me, the irregular arc of Mental Energy sent out some pulsing waves. At first, I saw nothing.

Is the energy not strong enough? I upped the power. And finally I saw the vague form coming towards me. All I could see were distortions within the Energy vision, but I could get a vague sense of where it was.

To fight it hand to hand like this would be impossible though. Can I bluff it out of hiding? Or a weak psyblade might be possible.

I compress my hands together, the Energy being sent out compresses together with it simultaneously as I keep it focused on the creature. The compression becomes more and more difficult as my hands grow closer. The creature closed in on me.

Finally, I reached a critical point. The Arc curved inward and Energy converged and compressed itself into reality. The energy was only a small and incredibly thin sheet, yet it flew out with incredible force.

A split second after the first blade came a second, a third. A rain of Energy blades came down on the creature.

The weak blades caused wounds all over it's body. From the size of its body they were but scratches, but a swarm of ants can still swallow elephants.

The creature felt intense fear from the sheer volume of the blades and turned in its tracks, fleeing into the thicker woodland.

I looked into the woods for a moment, thinking how could it just leave so easily. I suppose even such creatures have fight or flight instinct, or maybe it just determined I wasn't worth the trouble.

...

The creature moved between the trees in the distance, abandoning it's stealth which it now deemed to be pointless. It's intelligent brown eyes betrayed a hint of hesitation, this was originally just hunting a little critter for food. He never imagined it would devolve into a battle that could actually threaten him.

However, thinking back, how could he possibly face others of his species, having failed at a hunt within their own territory?

Would he even be allowed to survive in the future? Even though he was still young, if he was treated as a weakling how could he keep his place in the pack?

His eyes were quickly covered by a cloud of embarrassment and anger. How could he let something so weak go, this small creature had only survived so far due to little tricks after all.

In the midst of the forest, his body began to emit strange cracking sounds. His muscles moved in his body like snakes and he began to rise up on his back legs.

Mud fell out from in between the crevices of his originally flat looking feet, and the feet became hands that used the tree beside him as a support to help stand up.

The muscles and joints on his legs and arms shifted as his back and neck straightened up. A 4 meter tall 4 legged creature transforming into a 12 meter tall Monstrous Humanoid. His labored breath formed clouds as he strained to make the transformation.

In but a few seconds it had already finished. It took a minute for him to recover and then he returned to the place where he had just fought with the little one, but it was already gone. He sniffed the air to search for his prey.

...

After ascertaining that the creature had truly fled, I started to make my way towards the river.

I would have liked to have finished the job but the thing was already long gone. Tracking such a predator in the forest would be both tedious and dangerous.

What concerned me most was I had no idea if it belonged to a group of social animals. Even if the injured one came back I'm unsure if I could handle it, much less if it came back with friends.

The best choice for now is probably to try and leave the area. Following the river as far away from here as I can. Being stuck in what seems to be endless woods is still not as bad as being stuck in endless woods with no idea where to find water. So following the river is safest, even with the Bloodsucking Anteaters.

As I was approaching the region near the river something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. Something moving FAST. I dodged backwards the second before that thought.

I dodged backwards to see a ridiculously large rock fly by my nose. That was very close.

Looking to the origin of the rock I saw a brown shaggy figure in the distance.

No way...

This bastard was a fucking Minotaur, not a Mammoth? Wait, neither of those work as an apt description. What the fuck is this thing? How do I kill it properly?

The moment I think that I notice something. This thing lacks protection around it's neck like this. The fur that kept all our blows from causing damage is now practically non-existent.

There is even a huge bulging vein on its furless neck, just asking to be slit open. You should have just kept crawling on the ground, where you belong, fucking trunkless elephant.

I begun to move towards the Creature, moving in between the trees. My leg slows me down a bit, but it is not the first time I've had to move about with some broken bones.

The creature throws two more stones, but having missed the first time as an ambush it could only dream about hitting me. But, it's not like this thing changed forms just for fun. A human form is more suited for fighting because it allows the use of tools.

The creature picks up it's stick.

Now when I say stick, I just mean it is like a stick, relative to this thing's body. It just helps me thinking, you know, it's really just a stick. In reality, it's not a stick, it is basically a tree to itself, but this thing wants to whack me with it, so I will prefer to think of it as a stick.

Of course, I won't let that stick hit me regardless, so it doesn't matter.

I dive into the creature's range and it's stick is already swinging towards me. Having predicted it's move, I dodged to the side. I go in for the kill, but it backs off.

It becomes a repeating cycle. I advance, it retreats, and it repeats.

Had it been before, my body would have already died from exhaustion, if this thing hadn't killed me outright earlier. Yet even now I felt that I could continue moving, even if my body could not. After becoming more accustomed I could tell that with my 'Energy body' I could treat my original body like a puppet, helping me move and take actions beyond my limits.

Is this thing playing around? Or is it actually trying to exhaust my stamina?

If the latter is the case, that is really bad. And besides that, ending this sooner is more likely to turn out better for me, regardless. I hesitated for a moment, but decided I needed to try it.

I ran straight towards the giant, it noticed my action and seemed to purposefully hold its actions a bit, it's guard was up so it did not believe I could get through to it. Of course, it was right. There is truly no way I can think of that would let me bypass the guard of a giant wielding a weapon and kill it.

If it were possible to kill it from a distance I would, but those projectile psyblades could only annoy it. So I decided on this method.

I close in, determined to kill it in one quick strike. The power flowing through me, I push it all into my legs, flying through the air. The creature, with a stern expression, swings it's weapon straight in my path, a blow that was simply impossible to dodge.

So, I didn't dodge. I felt the impact of the massive stick, and at that instant, my consciousness shifted to my other body and I continued moving towards it. It took only instant to get within its range, and less than an instant to reach its neck.

My hand formed a blade, and into that blade, I poured every bit my remaining energy. And then, using my other hand as a support, I poured in even more. Until a gleaming energy sword formed, and it plunged into its neck.

"Guahe"

The creature stumbled and fell back, I fell off of it, but the job was already done.

It grabbed at its neck, trying to hold in the blood that was coming out all too quickly. It's eyes betraying it's disbelief, how could this have happened?

It uttered out one last cry.

"Goaaahhaaaaaaaree"

But I shut it up, quickly plunging the blade in again and again. I need it die, I need this to end.

It stops moving and I can see it stop responding to my actions, so I also stop.

"Garoaahheeerr""Garoaaahheeeer""Garoaaahheeeeiir""Garoaaahheeeerr""Garoaaahhiee""Garoahie""Groaaahhe""Garoaaah""Garoaaahhi""Groahhe""Gar"GAROAHERRRRRR"

From almost everywhere in the surrounding forests, there comes disturbingly familiar roars.

....Oh no.