Chapter 334: Into the Forest (14)
Perhaps it was just her imagination, but after the fig tree absorbed those several Caribians, the Sacred Tree’s true form before her seemed to have grown somewhat larger as well.
With Everly at its center, it moved around her like a sliver of moonlight, agile and graceful.
During this time, whenever some foolish Carib approached, the tentacle-like branches extending from behind the Sacred Tree’s shoulder blades would pierce through their bodies before flinging them to the roots of the fig tree, where they would be absorbed and digested.
In just a few short minutes, the corpses lying beneath the fig tree had already piled up into a small hill.
Some of the survivors being pursued saw this and cautiously approached the fig tree, attempting to “redirect the trouble elsewhere.”
The Sacred Tree’s true form was gentle by nature and did not mind being used in this way. As long as the survivors did not foolishly try to harm it or Everly, it would not stop them from approaching.
The Caribs pursuing them, however, received very different treatment.
The Sacred Tree clearly despised these red-skinned people. It treated them with the cold indifference of winter, striking down anyone who approached. Sometimes, when it was particularly displeased, several branches would attack at once and tear them apart.
The sight was gruesome, but to the other survivors, it brought an intense sense of satisfaction and overwhelming security.
Once a few people had tested it and discovered that this gray-skinned “monster” did not attack people indiscriminately, every survivor abandoned their reservations and rushed toward this safe haven.
As for the Caribs, after losing more than a dozen of their people in succession, no matter how fierce they were, their gazes toward the Sacred Tree’s true form inevitably became tinged with fear. Some even trembled so badly that they shrank back and dared not advance, displaying a rare moment of weakness.
The commotion had grown so great that the red giant in the center of the food-processing area naturally noticed it as well.
Its scarlet eyes stared fixedly at the Sacred Tree’s true form in the distance. It slowly chewed on something in its mouth, producing a bone-chilling crunching sound.
Everly had been watching that side of the area the entire time.
The red giant seemed to be a little hungry.
After appearing, it first used its roar to awaken the sleeping Caribs. Then it walked over to a Carib child, seized the child and lifted them into the air, before opening its enormous mouth and killing the child with a single bite.
The child’s remains seemed to be little more than a snack to it. After swallowing, it seized the child again and continued feeding.
The child’s mother trembled throughout, kneeling reverently and fervently at the giant’s feet. Only after the child’s lifeless body fell to the ground did she pick it up and shed a couple of brief tears.
After crying, she set down the body, picked up a weapon, and charged toward the innocent survivors with hatred in her heart.
As for the red-skinned giant, after eating one child, it still seemed unsatisfied. It reached out, grabbed another child who was barely over ten years old, and devoured them as well.
After consuming seven or eight children in succession, the giant was finally full. It dropped the body in its hand and rose to its feet.
“Kasa! Breni, Winton!” It raised a hand, pointed its sharp-nailed finger at the Sacred Tree’s true form, and uttered what sounded like a taunt.
As soon as it finished speaking, heavy footsteps rang out, and the red giant began charging toward the fig tree.
Despite its enormous, muscular build, it was remarkably fast. Every step made the ground beneath Everly tremble slightly. The overwhelming pressure made her heart pound and brought a layer of cold sweat to her back.
Behind the giant came the remaining Caribs. Their eyes were bloodshot, their expressions savage, their demeanor both reverent and frenzied. Following the god worshipped by their tribe, they continuously let out fierce, bestial roars.
“Chirp-chirp—!”
Seeing this, the Sacred Tree’s true form flung away the corpse it was carrying, turned around, and released a sharp, piercing whistle from its throat. Swinging its limbs back and forth, it too charged rapidly toward the red giant.
Compared with when it had first appeared, the Sacred Tree’s true form was now noticeably larger. It was nearly four meters long, and even crouching on all fours, its head was as high as Everly’s.
The two enormous mythical creatures collided with furious roars.
The red giant was even more powerfully built. It clenched both fists, brought its arms together, and brought them crashing down toward the Sacred Tree’s head like a hammer.
But the Sacred Tree did not panic. Its body was unbelievably agile. It twisted aside just before the fists struck, evading the devastating blow. It then extended its supple vines, wrapped them around the giant’s arm, and its slender limbs climbed up the giant’s arm like stick insects until they reached its back.
The opening behind its shoulder blades spread apart, and two slender vines shot out like arrows, stabbing viciously into the giant’s shoulder.
“Roar—!”
The red-skinned giant roared furiously in pain. Terrifying veins bulged along its arms as it reached behind itself with one massive hand and grabbed the Sacred Tree’s true form by the back of the neck. It tore the slender gray-white creature off its back like ripping off a piece of adhesive plaster, then slammed it hard onto the rocky ground.
“Chirp-chirp—!”
The Sacred Tree’s true form let out a cry of pain as it crashed heavily onto the ground. Seeing this, the surrounding Caribs immediately seized the opportunity and began hurling spears at the Sacred Tree one after another.
To dodge the spears, the Sacred Tree had no choice but to devote some of its attention to batting away the flying projectiles with the vines on its back.
As it moved its limbs and climbed back to its feet, Everly noticed an obvious crack in the Sacred Tree’s right arm.
She quickened her pace and took the risk of running closer to the battlefield, dragging the corpses the Sacred Tree had previously thrown aside to the base of the fig tree.
The dangling aerial roots sensed the food and rustled toward it, driving their rootlets into the wounds of the corpses. After drinking their fill, the bodies quickly withered. At the same time, a green glow appeared over the Sacred Tree’s body on the battlefield, and the cracked arm healed in an instant.
Sure enough, absorbing the Caribs’ blood could make the Sacred Tree stronger in battle.
Then there was nothing left to hesitate about. They needed to hurry up and help the Sacred Tree deal with those Caribs!
When it came to asking Everly to fight an evil god, she was timid and hesitant. But when it came to asking her to fight her fellow humans, she went all out!
And she didn’t just charge into battle herself. Everly also rallied the male and female lead and the others to join her.
The reason was obvious enough: before the rescue helicopter arrived, if the Sacred Tree lost to the red giant, the outcome was obvious. Everyone there would die.
If they wanted to survive, they had to work together, kill those fly-like Caribs disrupting the battle, then drag them to the fig tree’s roots and feed them to the Sacred Tree as blood packs!
The male and female leads and the Black coach all readily agreed to Everly’s proposal. Each grabbed whatever weapon they had and charged together toward a Carib at the very edge of the battle.
Several of the other survivors were initially unwilling to take the risk. The executive had already fired a signal flare, and if a rescue helicopter had spotted it, enough time had passed that it should be arriving soon. Once it got here, they could simply leave by helicopter. Why risk fighting those savage, terrifying tribesmen?
Besides, that gray-skinned monster still looked capable of holding out for a while…
But they soon found themselves unable to remain on the sidelines, because the rescue helicopter had arrived.
Just as Oseiwa and the Sacred Tree were locked in a fierce battle, with Everly and the other three fighting several Caribs nearby, the familiar rumble of rotor blades suddenly came from overhead.
Bright lights shone down from the sky, illuminating the ground.
Seeing this, the survivors hurried out from beneath the fig tree and into the illuminated area, waving frantically at the helicopter overhead.
“Hey, over here!”
“Quick! Get us out of here!”
“Thank God, you finally found us…”
The signal flare in the sky had appeared only briefly before disappearing. With the forest being so vast—and the moonlight unusually bright that night—the pilot had spent considerably more time searching before finally reaching the location where the flare had been fired.
Seeing the survivors jumping and waving below, he breathed a sigh of relief and instinctively began lowering the helicopter.
As the aircraft drew closer to the ground, various strange details that the pilot had previously overlooked because of the lighting became increasingly obvious. Within his field of vision were bizarre creatures and people fighting around the campfire, along with human remains scattered across the rocky shore. None of it remotely fit within anything the pilot could comprehend.
What was going on? Was he hallucinating?
Just what were those things on the rocky shore?!
“Chirp—!”
The pilot’s mouth fell open. He was still frozen in shock by the sheer impact of the scene before him when a slender gray-white shadow suddenly shot in from the side, carrying the force of a thunderbolt. Like a cannonball, it slammed straight into the helicopter.
“Boom!”
The white blur had been moving far too fast for the rescue helicopter to evade. The fuselage crumpled as though struck by a massive boulder, throwing the aircraft off balance. The rotor spun uselessly for a moment before the helicopter crashed heavily onto the rocky shore amid a cloud of dust and sand.
Fortunately, the helicopter did not explode, but the cockpit had been crushed, and the pilot’s condition was unknown.
After a crash like that, it was obvious that the helicopter was no longer capable of flight.
The rescue they had been desperately waiting for had barely arrived before being destroyed. The survivors’ faces immediately turned ashen. Their despair became even more overwhelming when they realized that the thing that had struck the helicopter was the severely injured, slender monster.
That monster had been so powerful, yet it had been utterly helpless against the red giant, which had grabbed it and thrown it away. With their own fragile bodies, could they really survive until another rescue team arrived…?
Everly had no time for such despair.
She finished off the Carib in front of her with a spear thrust, then, protected by her three teammates, hoisted the corpse over her shoulder and threw it at the feet of several survivors.
“What are you standing around for? Hurry up and carry the corpse over to the fig tree!”
After shouting, she stopped paying attention to anything else. She flicked the spearhead in her hand, planted her right foot firmly against the ground, and charged toward another Carib.
“Right, move the bodies… Hurry, let’s move them!”
The survivors were initially startled by the corpse on the ground. Remembering what Everly had said, they gritted their teeth. Driven by a powerful desire to survive, they no longer dared to slack off. Several of them bent down, forced themselves to overcome their fear, hoisted the corpses from the ground, and stumbled toward the nearby fig tree before throwing the bodies forcefully at its roots.
“Thump!”
The corpse hit the ground, and the aerial roots immediately began absorbing the blood within it.
Before long, the Sacred Tree beside the wreckage of the helicopter received a fresh infusion of energy, and its injuries visibly eased in an instant.
Before the next attack could arrive, it quickly scrambled back onto its feet using all four limbs, then hurried toward Everly in the middle of the battle. As it passed her, it let out a clear cry and tossed something flesh-red toward her.
Everly quickly retreated, temporarily disengaging from the fight. She caught the object without hesitation and discovered that it was a dead snake with its skin peeled off.
She glanced at Oseiwa again. The dead-snake belt that had originally been wrapped around its waist was nowhere to be seen.
Connecting that with the Sacred Tree’s unusual behavior, Everly suddenly understood what it meant.
She had to return the snake’s skin to the snake!