45
Zeirdin was beginning to believe the jungle had no escape. Two weeks had passed since his arrival. In this time he had finally mastered fox walking and traversing the jungle and swamps quietly. He was beginning to become a part of the jungle. He knew what the different bird calls meant now. He knew which ones were warning of danger, which were calling to each other, and which were just singing.
In theory, if he walked in a straight line he would eventually reach the edge of the pit. In practice, walking in a straight line would get him killed in under 15 minutes. Zeirdin died five horrible deaths attempting, as he called it the “line method”.
He was becoming more accustomed to the nature of death. After 45 deaths, Zeirdin mused that he’d probably faced death more fully than some battle saints. In the beginning, he thought he would lose count of each death, but it didn’t happen. Each death was something monumental; a small lesson was learned, and part of his being was damaged.
Zeirdin had also fought countless battles against various foes of the jungle in the 15 days since his unexpected and prolonged arrival. His intuition in battle and his lovac ability both increased drastically. Against an average troupe of 15 yemlins, Zeirdin could now tear apart and dispatch six before they took him down. Zeirdin discerned from the regeneration marks covering his body that Yemlins didn’t eat their prey most of the time. He was thankful that his pants were still mostly intact.
Zeirdin sat cross-legged in the hollow of an ancient mangrove tree. The hollow itself was 10 meters above the water. The spidery roots of the mangrove stabbed into the murky green water like tentacles. Many other similarly gargantuan mangroves formed a protective grove in the swamp. Zeirdin found the place while ironically running for his life from a grovewalker. The ancient mangrove grove was out of yemlin territory while providing plenty of shelter from the heat-seeking sensors of androids.
Zeirdin circulated his mana at a medium speed. Slowly, he let it seep out of his skin. He was trying to figure out a way to completely erase his presence. The problem was that his mana got exponentially difficult to control with each millimeter of distance from his skin. He could sense that it was creating a cloud around him that would provide the opposite of the results he desired. Zeirdin was pretty sure that the eye pits of the yemlins allowed them to see the flow of mana.
Zeirdin needed to form a thin shell of mana half a millimeter above his skin, not a cloud. He theorized that the shell would keep the various complex things his body emitted from escaping.
“Wait a minute,” Zeirdin had an idea. What if he had the completely wrong idea? Maybe expanding his mana outwards, and adding to his natural aura was the opposite of what he needed to do. Zeirdin closed his eyes and expanded his perception outwards. In the distance, he could hear the trickling of water, and the rustling of trees in the wind. Closer. Birds chirped in the trees. Closer. Bugs cried and buzzed. A frog croaked. Closer. The gentle beating of his heart. The mana leaking from Zeirdin’s skin slowed to a trickle. The mana swirling within him began to settle. He opened his eyes and felt invisible, yet so in tune with nature. Everything felt sharp and fresh. He could discern individual sounds that he never noticed before. Zeirdin stood up. It took no effort to be silent.
Zeirdin spent the next few days honing the new technique. Erasing his presence proved to be invaluable when staying alive in the jungle. Even the heat sensors of androids could not detect him. However, the technique came with a drawback. He could only maintain it for about eight minutes before he began to feel lightheaded and sick. It was like holding his breath for too long.
Zeirdin avoided fatal confrontation and lived off of raw yemlins and fruit. He could now survive indefinitely in the jungle with his newfound stealth. Making any progress out of it was a different matter. The hollow of the ancient mangrove became his new home. He took a bite out of the Ols fungus pod in his hand, earthy-tasting water gushing into his mouth. Finding clean running water in the jungle and surrounding swamps was a challenge. Zeirdin couldn’t find any streams near the ancient grove so he resulted to get drinking water from the Ols fungus that grew under the mangrove roots. Zeirdin tossed the empty pod aside as he walked. The noon sun peered through the thick canopy of the jungle and cast a green glow on the forest flow below through the leaves. Birdsong filled the air, accompanied by the calling of various animals and the trickling of water.
“Lunch, lunch, lunch. Lunch that isn’t just raw yemlin!,” Zeirdin happily hummed as he silently traversed the rugged jungle floor. Roots, fallen branches, leaves, nothing made a noise under his feet. He stopped at an avocado tree on the right side of the game path. Clusters of rough skin pear-shaped fruit hung heavily and bowed the branches. Zeirdin wiped the sweat off of his brow from the sweltering heat and humidity. He reached up and felt each avocado he could reach before harvesting three ripe ones. Carefully, he put each avocado into the makeshift satchel around his shoulder. The pouch was constructed from a large leaf fibrous leaf with grooves along its surface. The strap was made from carefully braided vine cordage woven together. The pouch leaf part dried out every few days and had to be replaced, but the strap was surprisingly durable.
The birds stopped singing. Zeirdin immediately knew something was amiss. Branches cracked, and the sound of rustling came from the direction of the avocado tree and behind him. The terrible shrieking and cackling of the yemlins grew closer from two directions. Fuck. Could he run? They might’ve surrounded him already. With no time to properly weigh his options, Zeirdin quickly hung his satchel of avocados on a nearby branch. Zeirdin switched into combat mode. Immediately, his atmosphere was different. Conditioned from many deaths, he wasn’t the same inexperienced fighter anymore. His aura was larger and denser, his gaze more focused and sharp. Mana crackled and swirled within him. The first five yemlins burst through the lush jungle flora toward Zeirdin. Instead of dodging or taking flight, he burst forward to meet them, leg muscles bulging with blood. This time Zeirdin held a new level of resolve for survival. The pain and terror of death provided a very strong motive to stay alive, but the promise of avocados for lunch added another level. The yemlins screeched and cackled, dashing on all fours with unrivaled blood lust. Everything happened within the span of two seconds. The first jumped for his face. Zeirdin dodged both clawed strikes for his face with footwork and retaliated with a mana-enhanced left hook to its neck. He put his waist into the strike, twisting to the right like a wheel which added extra explosive power. Its spine cracked like a stick under the blow and the creature flew three meters before landing on the ground in a twitching heap. It did not get up. The next two yemlins reached him, with one going for his ankle, the other his left arm. The one going for his feet had to go first. Zeirdin danced around, avoiding all damage while he quickly allocated mana to his right leg. He saw an opening. Zeirdin twisted his entire body, dodging the second yemlin. His entire right leg roared with static and energy. The first yemlin dashed for his left leg planted on the ground. It was the end of this yemlin. In a quick deadly strike full of conviction, he brought down his heel on the back of the yemlins head like a hammer and stomped it into the ground. The strike was so strong the creature’s cranium shattered like a crimson flower, splattering blood and brain matter all over his legs and the ground. Three more yemlins joined, with a total of four attacking him. More were beginning to trickle in. Avocado lunch. These two words kept him going. The avocados were the only thing in the near future he had to look forward to. He would not let these creatures take it away from him.
Zeirdin couldn’t dodge all of the yemlins, even with his fancy footwork and dexterity. He took his first four strikes, three on his back, one on his forearm. The gashes burned like cuts from a hot knife. He elbowed one in the forehead and sent it flying but took two strikes in return. The trick to winning unfair fights was to whittle down their numbers. To get the kill shot he would have to commit and take hits. Zeirdin dashed for his target, a yemlin that wasn’t as aggressive as the rest. His mana-enhanced body was fast and he caught it with relative ease. With two hands on its thrashing head, he violently twisted its neck. The creature stopped moving and he tossed it aside, just in time to react to the next volley of attacks from the other three yemlins. Five more yemlins trickled in, staying further away and letting the others attack him first. Fuck fuck fuck. They kept on coming. He needed another kill shot quickly. Zeirdin allocated more many to his right arm, sacrificing a little protection on his back. While it wasn’t external armor, mana did make the body tougher. Zeirdin shot forward towards the closest yemlin. Using his left forearm as a shield, he took a large gash but did not falter. He was much more accustomed to pain now. His arm was split opening, gushing blood. Still rushing forward, Zeirdin punched down toward the yemlin. It desperately tried to avoid the strike but it was futile. His fist came down like a rock and crushed the yemlin’s skull into the ground with a crack. Its forehead was caved in. More yemlins joined in on the onslaught.
Zeirdin would not give up. As if possessed by a demon, he fought like an animal, vicious and unmerciful. More corpses joined the area surrounding Zeirdin. They began to become a nuisance and tripping hazard. The number of wounds on him grew as well. Blood streamed down every corner of his body, and red lines and gashes left no inch empty. Zeirdin ripped, tore, punched, kicked, stomped, and even headbutted the yemlins bombarding him. A week ago, he would be dead 5 times over by now. His lovac skills were making leaps and bounds with every battle fought. Blood loss was beginning to make him light-headed.
Four yemlins remained. One jumped onto his back, its teeth sank deep into his lower back. Another leaped for his face. Zeirdin intercepted the attack, grabbing its lower jaw with one hand, and its upper jaw with another hand. It squirmed and trashed aggressively but it wasn’t enough. With a burst of power, Zeirdin pulled and ripped the creature down its jaw, leaving its head in two halves. Limp, it fell to the ground. Another yemlin went for his ankle. He kicked it in the ribs as hard as he could. He could feel the bones cracking and his foot sinking into flesh. The yemlin flew 10 meters before thudding against the ground. Two more remained. Steeling his resolve, he tore the yemlin latched on his back out, ripping his own flesh out with it. It burned like fire. His nerves were overloaded and could not express more pain than intense heat. Zeirdin grabbed its jaw and shoulder. Allocating more mana to his upper body, he pulled and tore its head off in a fountain of crimson rain. One yemlin remained. Zeirdin smiled grimly. He was going to win for the first time ever. Shrieking and cackling the yemlin attempted to escape and dashed for the trees. Zeirdin wasn’t going to let it get reinforcements. Full of exhaustion and light-headed, he was almost at the end of his rope. Pushing aside fatigue, Zeirdin jumped into the air above the creature and brought down both feet against its back, and drove it to the ground. Its rib cage was crushed but it still stirred. In one final act of ultra-violence, Zeirdin stomped his foot down on the back of its head with a crunch, ending its miserable life.
Covered in wounds, gashes, and blood, Zeirdin sat on a small mound of yemlin corpses. The corpses littered the entire clearing, dying the ground red. Not a single inch of his body lacked the crimson coating. Saturated with blood, his shaggy hair stuck to his scalp like a helmet. Pain covered his entire body like a hot blanket. Blood continued to flow out of his wounds and it took him his all to stay conscious. Zeirdin wiped the blood off his brow and looked at his hands. The pads of each finger were raw and bloody. His palms had bloody indents from his fingers digging in from gripping his fist too hard. The entire backsides of his hands were raw, missing at least two layers of skin. His knuckles were profusely bleeding, the bone showing on some of them.
“What am I?” Zeirdin asked the trees. He could not leave the clearing yet. His wounds were too many and he was still losing blood. He had to wait for his regeneration to close the wounds. Zeirdin groaned and looked around for the least damaged yemlin. He regenerated significantly faster if he had meat in him. That could wait.
Zeirdin got up from the mound and tiptoed around the numerous corpses. He counted 17. It was the first time he ever won against an entire troupe. He grabbed the avocado satchel and sat back down on his corpse chair. Carefully, he peeled each avocado using his fingernails. It was impossible to not get blood on the avocados but he didn’t mind.
Zeirdin ate a mouthful of avocado and bliss filled his mind. It was worth it.
