The Shapeshifter - Chapter 72 Run

They didn’t wait for long as the youth in brown, Zimo, finally opened his eyes.

“It’s good that you are alive. I will reveal all of your results once everyone is done.”, Reynard said passively.

“The pill that you fed him with, where did you get those?”, Alex asked.

The pill definitely played a huge role in keeping Zimo alive. It must have healed his internal organs at a crazy rate for him to wake up so fast. Getting something like that should be hard and could even be sold for large amounts of gold.

Having one could definitely be a lifesaver.

“I got those from old man Gil. He usually concocts some of these when I assess the kids.”

“That is so good. I’ll ask him for one later on.”

“Haha. Good luck with that, kid.”

With that they proceeded the hunt with the Big Baldie, Reynard, leading the way.

…

A couple of hours have passed and most of the kids have finished their tasks and only Rezhul was left.

Since Rezhul was the best amongst his peers, or maybe the leader of this group of teenagers, he often acted last.

Although a couple of hours has already gone by, the forest still looks a bit dark. The fog was still keeping their vision somewhat impaired and the supposed sunlight was unable to penetrate the dense leaves of the trees.

An eerie yet serene atmosphere were portrayed by the environment.

As they are walking around, Zimo finally got the chance to talk with Alex.

“U‐uhm, t-thank you for your help earlier. I could’ve ended in a much worse state than I am right now.”

“As long as you are fine.”, Alex replied as he looked at the surroundings.

“About that could you –.”, Zimo was cut short of his words when Alex shushed him. He focused on the side and said, “Hey, is it normal if I’ve been seeing a few webs now for the past half an hour?”

“What webs are you talking about? I am not seeing any webs though.”, Reynard said quizzically. He sounded puzzled at Alex’s question

When he heard Reynard’s answer, he once again focused his eyes to the side and was only able to see fog and tree shapes.

“Hmmm. Sorry, must’ve been my eyes playing tricks on me. Haha.”

Reynard grunted and continued walking. Nobody said a word during that time as they could feel that Reynard wasn’t in a good mood.

They have been walking for a long time, yet they still haven’t encountered any beast.

The naturally timid youth Zimo was forced into silence. Since he was interrupted when he was saying something to Alex, he didn’t try to continue the conversation and swallowed the words that he was about to say.

They continued to follow Reynard since he was the strongest in the group and he was naturally way more familiar in the forest than anyone of them.

“I saw one too, and the next thing I knew it was gone!”

A few of the kids voiced their thoughts as they all stopped dead on their tracks.

“Dad, what is happening?”, Rezhul said.

He finally couldn’t stand the eerie atmosphere and finally asked Reynard.

“I don’t know too. Let’s go back for now.”, Reynard said grimly.

Reynard immediately turned and was about to walk back when he saw what was surrounding them.

The gloomy and foggy forest was now covered in webs. From the grass that they were standing on, to the leaves of the trees. Everything was covered in webs.

Reynard, as the leader of the group, made a decision and yelled, “Run back now!”

The yell shook the teens from their trance, but only stood there for a few seconds with askance on their faces.

Reynard and Alex immediately took off. Before they could even run far, rustling noise came from all around them. It was hard to pinpoint the location, but the sound came from the grass and leaves.

‘Rustle! Rustle!’

“What are you doing? Run!”, Alex shouted at the rooted teens. Since the creatures were already about to take action, shouting in the middle of the forest was in the least of Alex’s concerns.

As a timid, yet courageous youth, Zimo was the first to snap back. Zimo ran after Alex, then Rezhul and the others immediately ran after him.

Alex looked back to see the others following him, but what caught his eyes were the black mass of unknown crawling towards them like a sea of black tsunami.

“Run run run run! Don’t look back, just run!”, he shouted.

After hearing his words, Reynard turned back and said, “You lead them away, I’ll them off.”

As the strongest in the group, Reynard decided to hold the creatures back in order to guarantee the safety of the kids.

He took out his twin axes and fire started emitting heat, soon the axes became hot red and he immediately threw them towards the black mass of creature surging to them.

The pair of axes turned into flaming wheels and flew in an arc. It viciously burnt and destroyed a huge amount of the creatures. The pair of axes soon flew back like a boomerang and dozens of the creatures died along its path.

The attack made by Reynard killed almost half a thousand of those creatures, but the black mass seemed to be endless. The gap made by the death of the creatures was immediately filled and they came surging once more.

Reynard gritted his teeth and was about to attack again when he heard footsteps behind him.

“What?”

He immediately looked back and was stunned to see the group of teens running back towards him.

“The path ahead was blocked. We tried breaking through but it’s impossible.”, Alex said to Reynard.

Both of them looked around and saw that there was lesser ‘black mass’ on the side. Both nodded at the same and Alex took everyone with him and ran.

Reynard did not hesitate any longer and unleashed another one of his attacks.

They kept on running to the path that they have chosen and Reynard kept attacking the ‘black mass’ of creatures behind.

They did this for another hour when they finally stopped at a clearing.

Reynard asked them to stop since he noticed that the creatures weren’t going anywhere near the clearing.

It was then that he felt that warmth of the sun, shining down from above.

“We’re safe.”, he finally said.

Everyone seemingly collapsed one by one and was lying down the grass gasping for air. Even Reynard who is the fittest among them was sitting down huffing and puffing.

The teens were all huddled up together and were still looking around despite them lying down on their backs. Traces of fear were still etched on their faces, it was obvious that everyone was scared by the attack.

“I thought we would all die.”

“I thought so too. What were those crazy creatures anyway?”

With that question, everyone simultaneously looked at the creatures. Everyone were curious what those creepy crawlies were, they attacked with their numbers and were continuously spitting something at them.

Alex instinctively allowed mana to flow through his eyes. His vision instantly focused and magnified right at the creatures.

He saw two circular parts of the body, two large eyes in front, the other eyes are on the side of its head and finally he saw their eight hairy legs.

He swallowed down his own saliva and said, “Spiders.”