Chapter 36: Pests: Part One
Evanna jumped to the edge of the hole, pressing her back against the dirt, keeping as far from the monster as possible. Its legs kept crawling forwards; she lost count of how many there were. The click-clacking sound they made caused her to shiver as her face turned to one of distaste. Looking to her left, into the dark tunnel from which it came from, she could finally see the other end of the long monster; shaking her head, she forced herself to move. It would be attacking the others if she did nothing.
Evanna made a quick assessment of her situation. If she attacked it in the hole, she could be worse off from the small space. Putting her swords back into her scabbards on her back, she took a deep breath and made a gamble. Evanna ran forwards, grimacing as she got closer to the legs but leapt over them and landed gently on the top of the monster.
The surface was hard and smooth. At every pair of legs on each side, the top part had a rectangular segment. Looking back up, Evanna checked to see that it was unaware of her standing on it. She quickly started running up it as it continued to move forwards. With its body sloped, she ran up it efficiently.
The cool air from outside the hole hit her face; bracing herself, she neared the top of the beast she was on. Luckily, Evanna had outstanding balance because it started to move side to side, and its body twisted as though it was looking at its surroundings. Grabbing her swords, she ran and jumped towards the head, bringing both blades down into the top of it. The creature screeched in pain.
Evanna gritted her teeth at how hard the surface was but used all her might to push deeper into its head. The pair of antennae moved side to side until the whole thing collapsed down. She jumped off it, forwards-somersaulting herself out of the way and landing gracefully to the side as it landed heavily on the ground.
Evanna walked back to the creature, making sure it was dead. On closer inspection, she realised it was a gigantic centipede type monster. The only difference was that its face, if that is what you could call it, mainly had a huge round mouth, filled with rows and rows of jagged teeth along with four mandibles and six eyes circled around it. How revolting. The mandibles suddenly clasped shut, making her jump and step backwards, and watched as its eyes glazed over, showing it was dead.
However, this did not stop her from seeing the chaos around her. As she spun on her heel, she saw enormous bug type creatures everywhere; each person was fighting one-off. Even Nesrin used her powers to create vines to wrap around the flying insects that came towards them, stopping them mid-air to crash into the ground. Suddenly, a shiver went down Evanna’s spine. She gripped her swords and spun around, swiping them both towards a creature in front of her, sticking both ends into it in a swift motion, taking it by surprise.
As she brought her blades back out of the body, leaving it to drop to the ground, her body once again felt like it was being pulled forwards, but she stayed rooted to the ground. She sensed something watching them. Her head raised up and looked into the distance, knowing the exact location of whatever it was. Still, she could not see anything; another shiver went through her as she continued to stare. Yet, Evanna needed to focus on the insect type creatures around them, so she forced herself to look back to the next monster that came towards her.
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