Chapter 64: Grey Fog [3]
I kept running and only stopped once I confirmed that I was no longer in their territory and no monster was beneath me.
The land where I now stood was different — I could see trees, but they barely looked like trees anymore, they were pale, skinny and had no leaves. As if something had sucked the life out of them.
The ground was no longer hard, but sticky and wet, and the further I went, my boots sank.
It was a swamp.
It gave off the smell of rotten eggs and decay, accompanied by heavy, musty, earthy notes and decayed vegetation.
It smelled so disgusting that I wanted to throw up, so I wrapped a bandana around my mouth and nose.
Noticing that my boots were sinking deeper into the water, I raised a platform under my feet to lift me up and repeated the same movement after each step I took.
Everything was okay and quiet, until something moved in the water.
I didn’t even wait to see what it was, because I already knew, and just ran away, creating platforms under my feet as fast as I could.
But even as I ran, the creation of the platforms was not faster than the swimming speed of the creatures in the swamp.
A huge head with a V-shaped snout and olive green skin emerged from the water, its open mouth full of sharp teeth, and tried to bite my legs.
I jumped up and evaded the bite, the crocodile’s jaws closing around nothing with a heavy snap.
When I landed, my katana was already in my hand and ready to cut the crocodile apart, but it managed to escape just in time back into the swamp.
"Tsk."
Not in a single lifetime would I have thought of facing a crocodile, especially in their own territory — no human could, that was just courting death.
However, here, I had powers and didn’t need to be afraid of wildlife predators anymore like on Earth.
Another crocodile came from the right and hit its long body against the platform, shaking it and making me almost fall off, but I quickly regained my balance and stabbed the creature’s back.
My katana was blocked by the hard, rugged scales on its back.
Another came with a roar and decided it was wise to climb onto the platform, only to be impaled through the stomach by a spike that came out of its back, red blood splashing on the water.
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
I created more platforms and started running, more crocodiles chasing relentlessly, as if they hadn’t eaten in a long while. They wouldn’t be eating me, though, I guarantee that.
A smaller crocodile jumped at me from the left, so I leaned back and avoided the attack, but just before it hit the water, I grabbed its scaly tail, pulled it and threw it against another crocodile in the water.
I looked at the trees and ran toward them, and once I got close enough I jumped onto one and climbed up.
The crocodiles growled as they looked up at me with their vertical slit eyes, surrounding the tree I was on.
"Come on, shoo, go away." I waved my hand.
’You know they’re not going to leave just like that, right?’
"I know." I murmured.
The crocodiles just floated on the water, waiting for me to come down — that wouldn’t be happening.
After some minutes, they sank back into the swamp.
"Oh, they actually left?" I said, surprised.
’They didn’t.’
Suddenly, something heavy and strong hit the tree I was on, shaking the water. My hands almost let go of the tree from the unexpected impact.
When I stretched my senses underwater, I discovered it was the crocodiles trying to bring the tree down by ramming their bodies against it.
Very smart for cold-blooded lizards.
Another crocodile hit the tree, and this time it wasn’t strong enough to hold against another attack, so it broke and started falling towards the swamp, with me on it.
"Damned lizards!" Just before the tree splashed into the water, I gathered mana in my legs and jumped to another tree.
The tree splashed against the water, raising it up a few meters in the air.
The crocodiles realized I wasn’t there anymore but on another tree, swam towards me again and repeated the same move.
I moved to another tree as the crocodiles brought the other one down.
A spear formed in my hand and I waited for the first one to surface.
Once one of them raised its head out, I threw the spear, which tore through the air with speed and hit the crocodile right in the skull, blasting the water up on contact.
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
I jumped from tree to tree as each one I’d just left was brought down by the crocodiles.
"Ezio, am I still moving in the right direction?" I asked, just to confirm.
’Yes, you are.’
I jumped towards another tree but suddenly that tree was brought down too. The crocodiles predicted where I would jump next and collided against that tree so I would have nowhere to land.
Fucking hell.
I was now falling towards the water.
I wrapped myself in a sphere of darkness and hit the water hard. It didn’t take long for one of the crocodiles to collide against the sphere with its jaws, sending it skidding across the water.
Since they wanted to break the sphere, I was a little surprised.
I waited until they were close and attacked again. The moment they did, dozens of spikes covered the whole sphere — the crocodiles didn’t have time to move away because they had already launched themselves.
The beasts impaled themselves on the spikes that pierced through their mouths.
Splash! Splash!
The water splashed as the crocodiles tried to pull themselves off the spikes, but it was futile because I made sure the spikes wouldn’t let them go.
Soon, the movements stopped and the water calmed down.
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]
[You have slain a Mid Common Beast, Swamp Crocodile.]