System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 49
Night held a full, pale moon above the treeline. Moonlight filtered through the gaps in the forest and painted a face with terror.
Stubble had crawled into a grayish scrub across the man’s jaw, grown out to the length of his fingernails. His skin sagged and puffy with sweat. Deep dark circles framed bloodshot eyes that rolled like copper bells, neck twisting as he craned to peer into the dark.
He wore a faded yellow linen shirt, tucked tight into mud-caked trousers. Coal dust and slag stained his sleeves. His pants were torn by the sharp branches of the woods, two wide holes at the knees rimmed with sticky, pale red smears.
“Huff, huff.” He leaned against a coarse pine, hands braced on his knees, gasping like a man who had been dragged out of the sea. Coal-blackened fingers trembled. He gripped his trousers so hard his knuckles blanched, trying to choke down the shaking.
“Thud!” “Thud!” “Thud!”
The forest itself answered with giant, pounding steps that cut through the needles and shook the ground under him. Thin leaves slid from the branches and dusted his shoulders.
He covered his mouth and nose with both hands in a panic. He curled into himself like a hedgehog and crouched behind the tree, every muscle coiled, breath held, ears pricked to the small sounds around him.
Each thunderous stomp felt like a knife at his ribs. His fingers pressed harder to his face as if smothering himself would stop the terror. Images of some unspeakable horror crowded his mind. His gaze flickered, frantic.
“Thud, thud, thud.”
Time lengthened; five minutes felt like an age. Then the forest sighed, a long, lonely sound. The huge footsteps retreated.
When silence came, he collapsed with a soft flop. His chest heaved; he thrummed with air like a fish pulled from the river. He gulped for life.
Breathe, breathe. Sour tears tracked from his eyes.
“I’m alive. I’m alive. Tina, Jim, your old man comes home tomorrow, I’ll take you far away. Wait for me, wait for your pa.”
He mumbled as if possessed, the hollow hopeless eyes slowly fusing with a new, fragile hope.
Stillness.
A vine the thickness of a child’s arm slid from the oak behind him. It moved like a hunting snake, silent and cold, creeping up until it hung over his head.
The vine lifted its belly in a sudden, coiling motion. Its tip rose like a serpent’s head, arced and wound, preparing to strike.
Whoosh. Snap.
It struck and wrapped. The unguarded man snapped up off the ground ten feet, face flushed and white, hands clawing at the vine strangling his throat. He spat froth and blood. His legs kicked the air.
It was useless. He was hauled backward through the trees. His eyes flashed past patches of moss suspended in midair, growing upon two stout legs like trunks.
Then his body slackened. He fell like a burst bladder. Several rough, branchlike appendages rammed into his torso with a wet, grotesque sound. Hot liquid sprayed out like fountains.
His life was taken.
The man’s face went from sweat-slick to bone pale in an instant. His lips twitched once in a last protest. His legs kicked and stilled.
...
A pale corpse hung impaled by a tangle of branches, ten feet off the ground. Moonlight revealed glistening ribbons of intestine slipping from the abdomen, swinging with the cold night wind among the thick trees.
Spotted blood flecked the earth, greedily soaked in by the soil. From the depths of the dark came a low, satisfied sigh.
...
Roy drew a long breath and sat up, drenched in sweat. He smoothed his rumpled clothes and brushed leaves and stems from his sleeves.