Chapter 260: Wooden Cabin (11)
The trees with human faces were not limited to the one beside Everly.
As far as the eye could see, every tree in the forest that had sprouted tentacles now revealed grotesque human faces on its trunk after the goat-hoofed monster’s roar subsided.
These faces varied—male and female, old and young—but they all shared one thing in common: their eyes, when turned toward the living intruders, were filled with extreme malice. Their mouths moved continuously, chanting over and over prayers related to the cult.
Everly had sharp observational skills, and she quickly made a new discovery: every tree that bore a human face also had, at its roots, a cluster of dried-out black vines.
She had previously been puzzled as to why the vines from the altar were attaching themselves to the surrounding trees.
If the vines could draw energy from trees, then given how abundant the forest was, there would be no need for such elaborate cognitive contamination traps to capture humans. They could simply parasitize the trees directly. The fact that the cultists did not do this suggested that the energy derived from ordinary trees did not meet their requirements. But if that was the case, then what purpose did those black vines penetrating the roots of the trees serve?
Only now, as trees began to grow tentacles and human faces that defied all natural law—unleashing their malice toward the group in full—did Everly finally find the answer.
It was because the trees in this forest were not entirely “trees.” Some of them were, in essence, cultists who had been turned into trees. And since they were human, they could naturally provide the kind of energy the goat-hoofed monster required.
From this, Everly also recalled the sensation of being watched in the forest during the daytime, as well as the occasional white shadows and black hands she had glimpsed beneath the trees. The black hands resembled the tentacles in color, and the gazes she had felt… all of them had come from within the forest itself.
Could it be…
A chill ran down Everly’s spine.
With time running out, the goat-hoofed monster could break free from the massive vines and catch up at any moment. There was no time for Everly to dig any deeper into the truth.
After a brief lapse in focus, she called back, “Follow me!” and continued running through the forest, stumbling forward with uneven steps.
It didn’t take long for her to realize the problem.
The goat-hoofed monster’s roar was like a signal that had awakened the Black Goat cultists sleeping within the forest. As a result, the already vicious tentacle attacks from the trees became even denser and more chaotic. At the same time, the exposed roots of the towering trees began to silently swell upward, forming row after row of obstacles nearly reaching knee height.
Beneath those obstacles lay muddy ground soaked through with rainwater.
Their escape was becoming increasingly difficult.
Every step forward now required dodging not only the tentacles whipping through the air, but also carefully avoiding the tree roots that could trip them from below. Dividing attention in two directions—especially in such a dark, damp forest—even someone as perceptive as Everly was starting to feel stretched thin. As for the others, it was even worse.
“ROAR—!”
As if adding insult to injury, just as Everly and the others were frantically weaving through the forest of tentacles with flashlights swinging wildly, a powerful roar erupted behind them.
From the ruins of the altar, the goat-hoofed monster—having been entangled by vines and the flashbang for nearly five minutes—finally broke free.
It raised its upper body and roared into the sky. Its short, thick hooves lifted high and slammed down heavily, scattering fragments of vines and foul-smelling mud in all directions. In the blink of an eye, its massive body had already reached the edge of the clearing.
It turned out that when unrestrained, the creature could move this fast.
Shocked by the monster’s agility, which seemed utterly incompatible with its massive size, Everly’s running motion abruptly came to a halt.
This won’t work…
At this rate, the entire forest of tentacle-trees was acting as the goat-hoofed monster’s allies. Meanwhile, the group had already pushed their physical limits, and their escape speed was nowhere near enough to outrun it.
So… should she use it? The final life-saving measure?
Everly lowered her gaze and raised her right hand, brushing her wrist. Beneath the thick fabric, the banyan wood bracelet rested securely around her wrist—its surface smooth and warm, carrying a faint, almost body-like warmth.
Like a panacea, it was her “second life,” something she would only use when her life was truly on the line.
And now…
No—now wasn’t the time to give up.
“Teacher, please give me your gun!”
Everly dodged the wildly whipping tentacles and darted to Harriet in a single burst of speed, half-grabbing and half-snatching the gun from her confused teacher’s hands.
For this field training, in order to ensure its educational effectiveness, the teachers had strictly regulated the weight of equipment each student could carry, and everything had been checked before departure. As a result, Everly hadn’t been able to bring many firearms. The flashbang she had used earlier was the most destructive weapon she had—just that one, and it was already gone.
But Harriet was different. As the team leader, she was responsible for the students’ safety, so both she and Ted were equipped with weapons.
“Bang!”
A flash of muzzle fire lit up the darkness. A bullet pierced through the night and, from more than ten meters away, accurately entered the monster’s open mouth.
After that shot, seeing that it had no effect, Everly shifted her aim and fired again—this time targeting the goat-leg joint.
This shot seemed to hit the right place.
Whether it was just an illusion or not, Everly felt the monster’s charge momentarily slow.
So she steadied her grip on the gun, locked onto the same point again, and fired once more.
A student’s flashlight stayed locked on the monster, so Everly could clearly see its running gait falter for a brief moment. Although it quickly corrected itself, compared to the “ineffective bullets” that struck its upper body, just two shots slowing its movement was already extremely worthwhile.
The landing points of all three shots were not random.
From the moment the monster emerged from the altar, Everly had been thinking about one question: why did the Black Goat cultists create cognitive-contamination traps and use black vines to “feed” the goat-hoofed monster?
Think about it—the creature was enormous, physically powerful, immune to bullets, equipped with terrifying tentacles, and possessed running speed far beyond that of humans. It was practically a walking “ultimate weapon.” With such a monster, hunting humans and other creatures in the forest would be effortless. So why restrict its movements and go through all this trouble to feed it through black vines?
If the goal was to hide it and prevent exposure, that explanation didn’t fit either. After all, they had already created a ritual site capable of altering cognition itself—hiding something should have been trivial.
From this, Everly formed a hypothesis: the monster was injured, or had some kind of defect. In short, it was far from as invincible as it appeared, to the extent that the cultists didn’t dare let it act freely, fearing it might be damaged further.
Of course, all of this was only a hurried inference and might not be correct. But Everly felt it was worth testing.
If the attempt failed, she would activate the final plan and summon the true form of the Sacred Tree to hold the monster off. If it succeeded, she might not even need the bracelet at all—and could escape this death trap.
With that resolve, Everly made a desperate gamble and borrowed the handgun from Harriet.
The first shot, aimed at the monster’s mouth, was simply elimination by testing.
When the monster first appeared, Harriet and Ted had already tried shooting at it. At that time, they had hit its wrinkled, fleshy body, and Ted even managed to shoot off one of its wildly thrashing tentacles. But those shots had almost no effect—the creature’s body only briefly showed a few bullet holes before it “spat out” the bullets and healed itself.
Aside from its tentacles and main body, there was another special area on the upper half of the monster: its mouth.
Unfortunately, Everly’s guess was wrong. The bullet that entered its mouth vanished like a stone sinking into the sea—no response, no effect at all. So for the second shot, Everly abandoned the upper body entirely and aimed directly at the goat-hoofed monster’s leg joint.
The creature was top-heavy. Its upper body was a bloated mass like a swollen meatball, while its lower body consisted of short, thick goat legs. These legs bore most of its weight; if they were injured, its running speed would inevitably drop.
This attempt proved extremely successful.
Unlike its tough upper body, the monster’s legs were surprisingly fragile. After the first shot, its running speed visibly slowed. After the second shot, a fist-sized bloody hole appeared in the leg joint.
Its movement slowed significantly.
The students at the rear seized the opportunity, dodging the tentacles whipping from the trees while increasing their speed to escape the goat-hoofed monster. Everly, meanwhile, kept her stance steady, continuing to fire shot after shot directly at the injured area.
Her aim was precise. Even though the monster was still moving erratically, her bullets barely missed their mark. By the time the magazine was empty, the goat leg joint had already been shattered into a mass of mangled flesh mixed with broken bone.
“ROAR—!”
The goat-hoofed monster let out a wail mid-run. One of its thick goat legs buckled under the strain with a sharp “snap,” and its massive body crashed heavily to the ground, producing a dull, shocking impact that made one’s heart tremble.
It worked!
Just as excitement began to rise—before it even had time to settle—the goat-hoofed monster on the ground suddenly jolted violently.
It seemed to be trying to pull off a “fish leap” to get back on its feet.
Unfortunately, its upper body was too heavy, and its legs were too short. For the monster, standing back up was simply too difficult.
After the first attempt failed, it immediately adjusted its approach. The tentacles wrapped around its body began to writhe like snakes, extending with precise intent toward the surrounding trees. The moment they latched on, they coiled tightly and began to contract inward.
This forest was extremely primitive; nearly every tree was thick enough that it would take several adults linking arms to encircle it. But even such massive trunks were nothing in front of the tentacles. With a single pull, the trees let out cracking groans, their bark splitting as deep fissures spread across their surfaces.
Then, using the trees as anchors, the monster tightened its grip like a tug-of-war. It hoisted its massive body off the ground, abandoning its legs entirely, and began moving through the forest like an ape swinging through branches—using tentacles and trees as its means of locomotion.
Damn it—this thing actually had a vertical maneuvering device!
Everly felt a surge of alarm.
She decided to abandon unnecessary stubbornness and leave everything to the true form of the Sacred Tree.
At least it was a divine existence said to have held an entire continent in place in Native American mythology. Dealing with a mere goat-hoofed monster shouldn’t be a problem… and even if it failed, as long as it could buy time, it would still be better than waiting here to die.
Thinking this, Everly reached into her sleeve, about to remove the bracelet—
When a familiar barking sound suddenly rang out beside her feet.
“Woof! Woof woof!”
It was Buddy.