The Shapeshifter - Chapter 17 Beast Horde

The brothers looked at the direction of the village and what should’ve been a clear sky was littered with dark clouds looming up above.

It was like the eye of the storm started forming in the village’s sky.

‘Roar!’

They quickly looked behind them as they were shocked by the loud roar coming from the forest. Both of them knew that the owner of the roar were leagues above them.

After the loud roar they could hear the rustling of the leaves, twigs breaking apart and the sound of beasts approaching.

“Brother, let’s go back. I think they are going to the village.” Alex was obviously anxious when he looked at the numerous beasts.

It was a first for both of them to encounter such a scene. As the older brother, Arthur appeared calm to appease his brother.

“I don’t think we should go back. If we go back now, the beasts will be alerted and we might get caught up on an impasse.”

As he said this, he knocked hard on the gorilla’s head, causing it to lose its consciousness.

Alex mulled over his brother’s words. But they were running short of time. He was still agitated, however, he had to come up with something.

“Let’s just hide somewhere.” Alex suggested. Since they cannot go back or fight, hiding will be their best choice.

“I think I there’s a river a minute away from here. We could probably hide there.” Arthur who was more experienced than Alex knew, that they cannot escape the senses of the beasts; therefore, they could only hide in the waters and hope that it would be clear of danger.

The duo ran fast and in no time, they dove down into the ice cold river.

They could not see any living creature in the water and thought that it was because of the temperature of it.

Minutes have passed and the beast horde still hasn’t finished marching towards the village. They can only peek their heads out from time to time to breathe.

What they did not know was that, there are currently a school of fish in the deep, preying on them. Creeping closer and closer towards their food.

They swam again to the surface to breathe and it was their 30th time doing that. It means that they have been in the river for a quarter of an hour.

Their stamina is running low, it’ll probably be their last and they had to get out of the water, hoping that they won’t run into trouble.

Just as they swam downwards, they could see many tiny eyeballs looking at them. And it sent a chill down their spine in this cold water.

They quickly climbed out of the river out of fear towards the fishes. Unfortunately for them, a troop of Silverback Gorillas were looking at them.

“Alex, Run!”

Arthur reacted fast and erected a wall of earth to block the vision of the Silverback Gorillas, then went after Alex. It bought them time, but clearly wasn’t enough. However Arthur’s goal was to separate themselves from other beasts.

“Brother, only the gorillas are chasing after us. Should we fight now?” Alex, as the one in front looked behind to check the situation.

“Not yet. We’re still close from the beast horde. Just a bit more.”

Not long later, Alex tripped himself because of exhaustion.

“My feet’s giving up on me. We have to fight now or we’ll probably their dinner!”

Alex leaned on a tree as he stood.

“Those that gets past me will be yours. At that time, be sure to kill them.”

Arthur’s voice turned serious, it was the first time he heard him be so cold and distant. So Alex, straightened his posture and watched intently as his brother fought against seven Silverback Gorillas.

Alex knew that his brother will be pressured by their numbers so he attacked two Silverback Gorillas to ease the pressure off his brother.

He didn’t want to attract two Silverback Gorillas, because of his brother’s orders. However, he was fortunate enough to provoke three of the gorillas.

‘Oh come on! You were clearly not hurt by my attack.’

“I’ll kill these four quickly. Just hold on for a bit.” Arthur saw what his brother did and didn’t miss the opportunity to slay the four gorillas.

Alex aimed his hand half a meter away from his feet and casted his spell. He was quickly propelled backwards far faster than him running.

It was because of the sudden inspiration during his fight against Kael. It was fast, however, it drains mana faster.

He was being chased, and he tried to buy some time for Arthur.

During his first ascent, a smile crept up his face. He was exhilarated by the feeling of being in the air. Even though he already did that before, he wasn’t really paying attention.

Now, he was preparing for a problem during his descent. The timing of using the spell to thrust him forward again.

He imitated the posture of the iconic super hero from Marble. The Metal Man. The Metal Man was able to fly across the skies by placing his hands on his side with palms pointing at the floor.

When he was descending, he used his spell and hit the ground. After the spell landed, his body was thoroughly shaken in mid-air. His spell turned into glittering lights as he was hurt by the backlash. His body was unable to support his tricks.

‘Thud!’

‘Cough! Cough!’

Alex fell to the ground and was coughing blood really hard, this was a first for him. So he cannot tolerate the pain from the backlash.

Fortunately, he bought half a minute’s worth of time for his brother to wrap things up.

Arthur, who had just finished up killing the four gorillas saw what happened to Alex. He dashed towards Alex and used [Earth Wall] to block the attack of the leading gorilla.

He summoned an [Earth Spike] at the wall and succeeded on killing the attacker.

But the remaining two gorillas split. One went for Arthur and the other went to the injured Alex.

He was still 5 meters away from Alex while the gorillas can close in 5 meters in a second.

Alex who was still on a fit of coughing was watching everything play in front of him.

With his consciousness growing faint, his hearing was affected and his vision was blurred. Yet, he could still make the outline of his brother and the gorillas.

‘Haaaa. I shouldn’t have experimented on a time like this. They said that a man bursts his potential through tough times. Haha! Yet it seems like I’ll be running out of it real soon.’

He watched as the gorilla prepares to throw a punch at him and he thought that maybe the maroon cape will be able to mitigate a bit of physical damage.

‘Haha! You will not be able to kill me big ape.’ He smirked when he recalled that the cape was an artifact. So he tilted his body to let his back receive the damage.

Everything happened really fast. When he was tilting his body, he saw his brother and gave him a smile of assurance. Then the next second, he was blown away by the huge fist of the gorilla.

“No!”

An enraged and agonized howl resounded in the forest.