The city wasn't just in chaos - it was being digested alive.
Blood didn't simply stain the streets; it moved with a terrible purpose, thick rivers of it oozing between cobblestones like the veins of so dying beast.
Bodies lay twisted in angles that would make a contortionist wince, limbs bent backwards at joints never ant to bend.
The air hung heavy with the stench of iron and sothing far worse - a thick, vegetal rot that coated nma's tongue like spoiled honey, making every breath a battle against nausea.
Screams ford a grotesque symphony around them. So cut off with wet finality, others dissolved into gurgling pleas that sohow hurt worse than the sudden silences.
The decapitated Nature Form at nma's feet spasd violently, its vine-like limbs thrashing against the cobblestones before finally going still.
Thick green sludge, too viscous to be called blood, pulsed from its severed neck in rhythm with its dying tremors.
That final gurgling rattle wasn't just death throes - it was a beacon.
From every shadow they ca. Shattered windows vomited forth their twisted forms. Alley mouths disgorged pulsing, root-knotted horrors.
Even beneath overturned market carts, the cobblestones heaved as sothing burrowed upward. Their flower-heads gaped obscenely, dripping acid that hissed and spat against stone like angry serpents.
Most disturbing was how they moved - not with a predator's calculated grace, but with the desperate, erratic energy of prey fleeing sothing unimaginable.
nma exhaled sharply through his nose, fingers flexing around his sword's hilt. The ring embedded in the poml burned against his palm, its heat intensifying with each new threat that erged from the chaos.
"Zayne." One word, flat and final as a guillotine's drop.
No hesitation. Zayne moved like lightning given human form, scooping up the sobbing girl before the echo of her whimpers could fade.
Her tiny fists knotted in his shirt like drowning hands clutching at driftwood as his Speed Creation ignited.
The world dissolved into streaks of color as they blurred toward the relative safety of the tree line, the girl's terrified gasps lost in the wind's howl.
His mind worked with machine precision even as his body moved at impossible speeds: *Nature Forms don't leave the Dark Forest.*
They were sluggish, territorial things, content to lurk in the shadowed hollows of ancient oaks, waiting for prey to stumble into their domain.
This frenzied invasion reeked of outside influence - sothing had stirred the hornet's nest, and now the entire city was paying the price.
The oak's rough bark scraped against the girl's knees as Zayne deposited her in its highest cradle, but she made no sound beyond ragged, hiccuping breaths.
Smart kid - she'd already learned screaming only brought the monsters faster.
"Stay." He turned her face away from the carnage below with a gentleness that belied the situation's urgency. "Breathe through your teeth. It helps with the sll."
Her nod was chanical, her eyes glassy with shock. There would be ti for trauma later - if they survived. Right now, movent ant survival.
A new scream sliced through the chaos - higher, younger, threaded with the particular terror only children can produce. Zayne's boots hit the ground running before the sound fully registered.
The boy had pissed himself. Zayne noted the dark stain spreading down threadbare trousers with clinical detachnt, the sharp tang of ammonia cutting through the general miasma of rot.
The Nature Form looming over him was wrong even by their twisted standards - its head a grotesque parody of a sunflower, comprised of dozens of smaller, snapping maws, each dripping venom in a different hue.
One particularly large bud drooled yellow pus that ate through solid stone like soft cheese.
The boy's lips moved soundlessly, his chest heaving with silent screams. Shock had stolen his voice, but his body still rembered how to beg.
Zayne moved.
The creature's head hit the ground with a wet thud before its body registered the attack.
Acidic blood sprayed in a wide arc, burning tiny craters into whatever it touched.
The boy didn't even blink when droplets seared his cheek - his terror had passed beyond pain into sothing far more primal.
"Breathe." Zayne grabbed his collar, giving a sharp shake. The command brooked no argunt.
The boy's body obeyed even if his mind couldn't, sucking in a ragged gasp before promptly vomiting down Zayne's leg.
*Fantastic.*
The rustling behind him might as well have been a trumpet's blast. Zayne didn't bother turning - the stench of swamp rot and decaying vegetation announced their arrival better than any herald.
Three more nightmares slithered from the alley's depths, their vine-wrapped limbs scraping against stone with a sound like knives on bone.
One pulsed obscenely, its central bloom swelling until the petals split with a wet pop, unleashing a stream of crimson acid straight at Zayne's face.
He yanked the boy sideways with barely a heartbeat to spare. The liquid struck the wall where his head had been, eating through three feet of solid brick in the ti it took to blink.
*Red acid. New variant. Hotter, faster, nastier.*
He shoved the boy toward open ground. "Run until your lungs burst or your legs give out. Whichever cos first."
The kid ran like hell itself was at his heels.
Zayne turned his full attention to the creatures. Their movents were... wrong. Not the mindless lurch of predators hunting, but sothing far more disturbing - coordinated. Herding.
Movent above. Zayne rolled just as the fourth horror dropped from the rooftops. Not fast enough.
A whip-like vine snapped around his wrist, thorns punching through flesh with surgical precision. Blood welled dark and thick in the twilight.
The creature gurgled, a sound like a drowning man laughing through a mouthful of mud.
Zayne's grin would have frozen lava. "Dumbass."
He let his sword drop.
The vine went taut as he threw himself backward, using his full weight to yank the creature off balance.
His free hand shot out, catching the falling blade midair and driving it upward in one fluid motion. Steel t pulsating core with a wet crunch.
The shriek that followed shattered every remaining window in the alley.
nma felt the change before he saw it - a vibration in his teeth, a hum in his bones that had nothing to do with sound.
Every Nature Form in the street froze mid-motion, their flower-heads twitching in perfect unison before snapping toward the eastern gate.
The silence lasted exactly three heartbeats.
Then the gate exploded.
nma's sword sang in his grip, the runes along its length burning crimson. The thing that erged from the debris was easily three tis the size of its brethren, a grotesque tangle of roots and thorns that moved with terrible purpose.
But it was the face that stopped nma's breath.
Embedded in the center of its flower-head was a human skull, its jaw fused with the petals, the eye sockets glowing with sickly green light.
The creature *laughed*—a sound like cracking bones.
nma's fingers tightened around his sword.
But he was calm and knew this wouldn't be too much trouble, afterall in these past 10 months,Zayne had pushed him so far that he unknowingly started to use his demon powers,little by little.
But just using them uncontrollably wasn't enough,so he worked hard in order to master them...
He could even control how much percentage of his demon's powers,he could release,before going berserk!
*Demon Power: 10%.*
The dark aura erupted around him, twisting like living smoke. The symbols along his blade burned brighter, the tal singing as it thirsted for blood.
The skull-faced abomination charged.
nma t it head-on.
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