Chapter 213 (1/2)

Book 2, Chapter 70 – Waylaid

It was a tree

An absolutely enormous tree practically the size of a small mountain It would take several dozen people to wrap their arms all around it

It'd been dead for many years already, but it's dried out husk of a trunk towered overhead The wind and elements had turned it to stone and all that was left were spindly finger-like branches without a single leaf on the into the sky It looked like the withered hair of a des all the more sinister

But it wasn't the tree's peculiar size or draave Cloudhawk pause hat hung fros that did not naturally appear there A dozen desiccated corpses swayed in the breeze like fruit that rotted on the vine, ie and gruesome scene [1]Some were skeletons already, dead for more than three years [2] Others eathered mummies with dried and twisted expressions Those hadn't been dead long

The dead weren't strange, but seeing the

Cloudhawk cautiously picked his way closer The tattered robes on the corpses were the same sort he wore Were these trainees like him, whose luck had run out? What killed them? It wouldn't ns they were eaten and no ani their dinner up like this The tree itself just looked weird, but in fact was itself dead He didn't think there was any way it could do this to the trainees itself

He was suddenly struck by the ier As he was turning to leave his keen senses perked up, but too late His left leg broke an imperceptible thin silk threat that traversed the path

A trap?!

A palpable sense of danger enveloped him as suddenly spines shot out from crevices in the tree's trunk

They shot out almost faster than he could follow, and were certainly coated in poison Cloudhaas fairly sure he could survive most poisons, but whatever this was certainly wouldn't feel coot a dose

Unarmed, Cloudhawk had no way to protect himself, and it was all too fast for hi down like hail Thankfully he was able to avoid ed to find their mark

However the Cloudhawk of today was far different from the Cloudhawk of old When the spines struck he i the any farther than skin level The toxins in the barbs diffused through the skin almost immediately, but it also awakened the trespasser virus The two microscopic substances started to do battle

Skin around the point of contact turned black

At first it looked like a reaction from the poison, but in fact it was the opposite The discoloration came from trespasser, which forced the toxins to the surface and away froans and brain were protected

He was still getting his bearings when several sures poured out from the trees

The first thing he heard were strange, bestial hisses co from their throats Then he saw that their bodies were caked in soes andskeletons Each one hefted wooden spears with chipped bone heads as they battled for ould be the first to skewer Cloudhawk

Wastelanders? There were actually wastelanders living here!

He had to give it to that scar-faced fuck He thought when they said go quick they were just talking about soerous plant or two But this? An intelligent race of people laying traps through the forest? And the instructor hadn't even hinted at it

Sending a group of people without knowledge, without experience, into unknown territory where an eneine what the results would be

The pygmies weren't typical wastelanders – they were more like sweepers, mutated humans from the wastelands However this race seemed to have developed a stablethem all look similar as opposed to the wide array ofOut in the wastes thehis old haunt a constant freak show

Deadwood pygmies were about a meter and a half tall for adult ility They narled forests quick as the wind They were also smart, that was obvious from their trap But in this case their trap made them overconfident

They assumed that their poison-tipped barbs had robbed their prey of the strength to fight back Like er to be the first to injure the elysian Little did they know that their poisons had no effect on this human He was hardly affected at all

“Go!”

Cloudhawk shrugged his shoulder and Oddball took off It rose overhead to survey the landscape and see how bad the situation was If he found there were a lot of thesein, he would have a chance to prepare

“Yyyyya!”

One of the deadwood natives brandished his spear and charged at Cloudhawk Were his opponent human perhaps Cloudhaould have shown my, however, he had a deep distaste for their kind

The sweeper stabbed, but his spear hit nothing He stared, stunned, when suddenly the weapon was yanked out of his hand He didn't even see how Cloudhawk did it

“Here, take it back!”