7 Chapter 7: King of the jungle (1/2)
I didn't get very far before I found myself beset on all sides by white wolves.
”Gr…”
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
”Well, hello there.”
I glanced around me with a smirk. The pack of wolves growled as they circled me, deftly navigating the dense terrain. Their spiky fur protected them from thorns and rough shrubbery, and their paws mercilessly crushed whatever twigs or roots that impeded their way. Claws dug into the earth, and they opened their slavering jaws to reveal two rows of knife-sized teeth.
”Oh, scary,” I sneered as I rested the cockatrice rib against my shoulder. ”But I wonder…is your bark worse than your bite? Or are you going to continue snarling at me from a distance without ever attacking?”
The taunt worked. The wolves pounced on me from all directions, their claws outstretched and their jaws snapping ferociously.
I ducked under the first wolf, allowing it to sail past, and then responded with a kick to its gut. The wolf crashed into two of its comrades, the trio toppling over in a tangled heap. I then brought my bone weapon up and stabbed the next wolf that was sailing toward me, piercing its throat in a single, fluid stroke.
The wolf gargled and fell to the ground, suffocating on its own blood. Yanking my makeshift weapon out of its throat, I turned to face the other wolves. The third wolf was around upon me, and I bent my back backward, allowing the wolf to sail past above me. Once it was gone, I straightened up and whirled around with a roundhouse kick that cracked against its hindquarters, sending it spinning. Twisting around, I slashed at the fourth wolf, the bone eviscerating it and causing it to spill its guts out. Turning back to the third wolf, who was sprawled on the ground, I raised my bone and stabbed downward, penetrating its skull and goring its brain out.
The remaining three wolves quickly retreated, instinctively realizing that it was not worth the risk to continue fighting. With a pathetic howl, they fled the scene, leaving their dead comrades behind. I watched them depart, and then sighed a breath of relief.
”That was tiring.”
My foot ached from the two kicks. Damn, but the wolves were a lot tougher than I thought. It felt like I was kicking a brick wall.
”Well, time to eat.”
The wolf meat tasted just fine even without cooking. Relieved, I began to wolf down the wolves as quickly as possible. Tearing the poor creatures apart, I stuffed myself. Again, I was amazed at how I managed to chuff down so much meat into my relatively skinny body without any difficulty. I wondered where all my food went.
”Hmm…any changes?”
With that done, I conjured up my blue holographic screen and frowned. Despite gaining the Devour ability, consuming the wolves didn't net me any new special ability. That probably meant that the white wolves didn't possess such things.
”Oh well. At least I filled my stomach.”
Rising to my feet, I proceeded down the forest, leaving the rest of the carcasses and bones to the ecological decomposers.
I had no clue where I should go. There was nothing but forest, forest and forest everywhere. There was no landmarks I could rely on, and for all I knew, I could be going in circles. Fortunately, no matter how long I walked, I didn't end up back where I started. There was no sign of the cliff, which meant I was actually making good progress.
The problem was that there wasn't any sign of human settlements either. While I didn't want to end up in a big town or major city, where the heroes supposedly dwelled in, I didn't want to spend my whole life in the wilderness either. I needed information and intelligence. And I absolutely must get my revenge, no matter the cost.
Even if I had to burn the entire world of Restia.
But how? I had been venturing through the forest for what seemed like three days now.
”And another day is going to end soon,” I muttered, looking up at the darkening skies. For the past few day, I had been hunting white wolves and other smaller monsters. As I thought, the lesser beasts didn't possess any special abilities. I wondered if the anaconda or cockatrice would have any special abilities, but they were too powerful for me to defeat right now. Right now, I was only armed with a single piece of bone to pierce my enemies. I doubted I could defeat a gigantic anaconda by stabbing it with a big piece of bone. I would probably just give it a boner or something.
But I needed to move on to bigger targets or I would never be able to progress beyond my current repertoire of abilities. So much for eat and grow strong, huh? If only I was a lazy turtle who got innards of a god. Then I could probably…
Unfortunately, I had to work with what I had. Searching for a burrow in a particularly large tree, I settled down and went to sleep.
It was odd, though. Whoever heard of a zombie who slept at night and stayed awake during the day? Weren't the undead supposed to be nocturnal? Then again, I wasn't an expert on the undead, and most of my knowledge came from fiction, so…
I drifted off into a fitful sleep, vague dreams of my classmates flashing across my mind. I couldn't remember the details, but I woke up angry, vowing vengeance on my murderous classmates. I would show them…how dare they…
”Ugh…”
I stretched myself as I rose and left the burrow, creaking my neck from side to side. Morning had come, and sunlight was pouring through the canopy of the forest, illuminating the clearing. I gingerly climbed over the roots and proceeded to traverse the difficult terrain.
”I wonder what's on today's menu?”
Rubbing my cheek, I glanced around at the forest. Usually, white wolves would attack me while I passed through the forest. I had been fortunate so far not to encounter anything bigger than them, such as the anaconda or the cockatrice that I saw in my first day moving through the jungle. Perhaps they were one of a kind, given how I hadn't seen any others of their species so far, but I seriously doubted that.
”Whoa!”
I jumped when a branch crashed down right behind me, followed by a long hiss. Speak of the devil. The anaconda that I was thinking about had arrived.
”All right, you snake,” I growled, turning my attention to the gigantic monster. It stared at me, its tongue flicking out several times, before it lunged.
What power! What speed!
Despite its immense size, the anaconda moved like lightning, darting across the forest and reaching my position in mere seconds even though I was at least thirty meters away. I jumped to the side, evading those vicious fangs that sliced through empty air.
Rolling to the side, I sprang back up and took a stab with my cockatrice bone. The sharp tip clashed against the diamond-hard scales and was deflected.
”Kuh!”
The anaconda whipped its body around to crush me in its constricting embrace, but I jumped on its coils. Realizing it was squeezing empty air, the anaconda spun its head around with its jaws wide open as it lunged at me.
I tried to jump to the side, but the fangs tore a chunk of my arm out. Crying out in pain, I twisted to the side and plunged my bone weapon into the eye.
The anaconda let out a wail, thrashing about wildly. I held onto the cockatrice rib tightly, but it slid out of the anaconda's ruined eye and I crashed onto the ground. Furious, the anaconda snarled and glared at me with its one good eye before lunging at me again.
This time, I spun to the other side and stabbed its remaining eye. The anaconda screeched, but I mercilessly pushed the rib bone all the way into its socket, piercing the brain. In retaliation, the anaconda lashed out with its enormous body, striking me and sending me hurtling across the forest. I slammed into a tree, the wind knocked out of me, and slid down, heaving.
”Huff…”
Wiping the blood from my mouth, I unsteadily rose to my feet. The anaconda was still flailing about, tenaciously clinging onto life.
I had to finish it.
I looked around for another weapon. There wasn't much stuff I could use lying around in the forest, so I made do with a thick, solid branch. Picking it up, I looked up just in time to see the anaconda hurtling toward me in vengeance. Even when blinded, it could roughly estimate my position by tasting the air with its flicking tongue.
Taking a deep breath, I waited for it. The anaconda rushed toward me, and this time I jumped to the side where I had left my bony weapon in its eye. The anaconda had learned its lesson, predicting my movement. But so did I – thanks to me guessing that it would predict where I would go, I managed to dodge the anaconda, who suddenly twisted its head around to bite at the side. Had I repeated the movements of my earlier two attempts, I would have found myself firmly clamped within the jaws of death.
Fortunately, I managed to avoid certain death. Bouncing back to my feet, I lunged at the anaconda and rammed the wooden branch in my hand into its eye socket, driving the bone deeper into its brain.
The anaconda let out one last wail before descending into its death throes. I was struck by its uncoiling body and thrown across the forest again, colliding with yet another tree. This time, I hit the tree with such force that I ended up snapping the thick trunk. The tree crashed down on me, but its various branches held it at bay, preventing it from pinning me to the earth.
”Huff…”
I lay there, winded from the blow. My healing factor was kicking in and mending my wounds, but the poor anaconda didn't possess such miraculous abilities. It continued to thrash about desperately, its enormous body uprooting trees and leaving craters in the earth. But it was clear that the anaconda was dead.
It was only a matter of time.
I waited patiently for the anaconda's movements to die down. It took a while, but I had all the time in the world. After spending a few days in the forest without seeing any human, I had lost all sense of urgency. The wilderness was the direct opposite of urban life – unlike the rigidity and mechanized schedules of the latter, the forest moved at its own pace. Like the anaconda, predators would patiently lie in wait for their prey to pass by, without any teachers or bosses to nag at them to hurry up. There was no need to rush.
And then, the anaconda finally went still.
”Phew.”
I breathed a sigh of relief before crawling from under the tree. Picking myself up, I headed to the dead anaconda warily approaching it. It might be playing dead, or its head might snap at me in one last reflexive action.
Fortunately, it did nothing of that sort. Reaching into its socket, I yanked out the cockatrice bone and began to scrape away at the scales. Unfortunately, like my attack earlier, the diamond-hard scales proved impervious to the bone.
”What do I do?”
I felt frustrated. There was no way I could eat the anaconda if I couldn't tear off the meat. I doubted my teeth could bite through those scales. I was desperate enough to try, and was rewarded with a sharp pain in my mouth.
”Ouch!”
Clutching my jaw, I backed away. The damned scales were like steel. How the heck did the cockatrice penetrate that armor with its talons? It occurred to me that I should have taken the talon claw instead of the rib bone…except that the talons had been burned, without the muscle and skin to protect it from the fire.