[The Twining] 21. Through the Forest (Patreon)

Isen knew he wasn’t on the Twining. Where he’d emerged was a dense forest, the first he’d ever seen. It was so different from the scrub and brush. The polished sapphire of the sky stretched endlessly. No gray clouds, no tornados. More significantly, reality was stable, unlike around the Twining’s scar, where merely walking might tear the air and welcome monstrous invaders.

The implications were vast, but he didn’t have enough information to draw definitive conclusions.

He snapped out of his stunned stupor and faced the scar leading into the depths, his dagger poised in his right hand, his left cupped to quickly form an energy ball if needed.

If Isen could escape from the depths this way, so could monsters.

His caution was rewarded when, minutes later, a boney hand grasped the edge of the jagged scar, its talons a wicked, pale gray in the sunlight.

Isen formed energy in his left hand and waited for the beast to emerge. Moments later, it hoisted itself up, moving clumsily as it established a foothold on the grass. The bat monster was white with pure black eyes, its needle-thin teeth covered in blood in its gaping maw. Isen noticed a thin, deep wound on its side.

This was a bat he’d injured—one that refused to relinquish the hunt.

Even though he’d positioned himself in its blind spot, it was ready for him, its dagger-sharp tail whipping like a flail. Isen released the energy ball and air exploded in the beast’s face, disorienting it and causing it to stumble, one of its legs slipping back into the dark passage. It snarled and its claws flashed, scoring Isen’s silken shirt. The makeshift fabric deformed, but didn’t tear, the nails of a tier two beast unable to sever the third-tier materials. That didn’t mean Isen’s body was protected—he felt three bad welts forming over his ribs and the wetness of blood.

He gritted his teeth and bounded backward, climbing into the thick boughs of a tree. The bat pursued, its wings pressed flat to its sides. It shrieked, then immediately launched itself where Isen was hiding, its wings pumping powerfully to propel it upwards.

Isen pushed off the tree and threw the dagger at the bat’s eye. He didn’t have much practice throwing the dagger, though he’d experimented a bit after his success embedding the blade in the third-tier serpent. He had most success throwing it short distances, relying on his enhanced body to throw the dagger as fast as possible. For longer throws, the dagger often wobbled, growing unstable.

In these close quarters, he had decent confidence in throwing the blade, but the bat dodged, and the weapon skidded across its cheek, dealing minimal damage.

The beast closed the distance. Isen whipped the dagger back around, guiding it with the sinew rope, and it sliced into the back of the creature’s head. As it screamed in fury, Isen matched its roar with his own. A blast of wind hit the beast’s face, launching it back. The dagger flew with it until the bat smacked against a tree trunk, tugging Isen toward it and nearly causing him to fall from the canopy. He hung from the branch, breathing heavily.

The bat was still. The blade had thrust deep into its skull and grayish blood dribbled from its mouth.

Isen leapt to the corpse and pulled the dagger free, kicking the bat to the ground. Against larger foes, he needed a spear, or at least a weapon with reach. He’d successfully defended himself while ascending the dark tower, but much of that success was owed to monsters’ reticence to approach the violet light and the awkward angle of approach. Isen was vulnerable on the stark tower, but so were any beasts that approached him.

But more than any weapon, he needed his own strength as a cultivator to improve. His energy balls were good for maneuvering while airborne, and could stun and push back tier two monsters, but they weren’t particularly lethal on their own. Moreover, it took him over a second to form one, and maintaining an energy ball without releasing it was difficult.

There was a lot for him to improve between his equipment, his body, and his skills, but he felt a strange buzz of anticipation thinking of the future.

And the further along I get in my cultivation, the better control I’ll have over my body and blood. And hopefully… he’d be able to sense Ros.

If he’s still down there, I’ll get him out, Isen swore. On the surface, they’d likely part ways and live separate lives, the paths of monsters and humans incompatible. That was irrelevant to Isen. He wasn’t saving Ros because he wanted his guardian back, because he needed a protector.

It was because of loyalty and gratitude and the belief that a beautiful, kind beast like Ros shouldn’t be consigned to endless darkness.

Isen cycled to replenish his strength, but he kept a vigil over the jagged passage to the depths, unwilling to be caught unawares. After an hour passed and no monsters approached, neither from below nor from the surrounding forest, he felt more assured of his safety.

It had probably only been a few hours since he’d sated himself on the blood of the fallen cat monster, but he was hungry, the strain of the climb and fighting draining him. He cut into the bat beast and let its warm, gray blood drip into his lips. It wouldn’t heal him like higher tier blood, but it would still fill him with energy.

Wiping his mouth with a leaf, he decided to address the new wounds on his chest. The silk-and-fur shirt was quite ugly. He’d been surprised to see that the silk he’d collected was ruby red. The only monster Isen had seen in the depths with non-monochrome coloration was Ros, with its golden eyes. Isen had no illusions about how he’d fair if attacked by a monster of the third tier, especially one approaching Ros’s level of power.

Hunted by an ambush predator like he suspected the ruby-silk-spinning monster was, he'd die before he knew what had killed him.

The fur he’d plastered to the silk was a snowy white, but it was translucent, so the red of the shirt shone through, though it looked pink. He pulled the shirt over his head and examined the three claw marks. They were more abrasion than cut, like bad scrapes. He hadn’t considered his silken shirt more than a human comfort, but it had clearly blunted the damage.

He dipped his hand in monster blood, then smeared it on his wound. Ros had told him that doing so with blood of the same tier could slightly speed up natural recovery.

After the blood dried, he pulled the shirt back on and pored over the bat’s corpse, considering if there was anything he wanted to salvage from the body. Now that he was back on the surface, he didn’t know how many monsters he’d encounter. They should be scarce near human settlements, but he had no idea where he was. It was possible he was deep in territory inhabited by monsters and he’d encounter tons of them on his journey.

He just didn’t know. All of this was beyond his lived experience in Goldbounty, and Ros had scarcely spoken of his life on the surface and the habits of monsters.

In the end, he decided to cut free part of the monster’s meat, wrapping it in a torn section of leathery wing. It wouldn’t keep for more than a few days, so he only took a few pounds, stuffing the parcel into his hide pack.

The pack was oddly beautiful, unlike the silk shirt. Where he’d spread loose fur on the shirt, the bag was made from the pelt, so the fur was thick and luxurious, a stunning glossy white in the sunlight. The same was true for the strips of hide he’d wrapped around the sinew that was strung over his body.

Now that he wasn’t in a watery environment—or climbing a structure with a treacherous drop—he contemplated dismantling the harness, but ultimately decided to keep it. Maybe it was irrational, but it was comforting knowing that the dagger was attached to him with nearly unbreakable rope. It was easily his most powerful and useful possession, and it was a gift from Ros. The thought of somehow losing it was unthinkable.

Maybe he’d reconsider if the sinew got in the way of fighting, but so far it hadn’t been a problem.

The sun was already halfway across the sky. Unwilling to waste the daylight that remained, Isen sheathed the dagger and set off into the forest. To him, it felt like he was moving at random. Maybe he was, or maybe the sixth sense was subtly guiding him. The truth of it was irrelevant; he just wanted to move forward and ideally find a settlement.

Nothing attacked him as he moved through the trees, though he saw plenty of mundane wildlife, much of it unfamiliar to him. Birds here were different colors and sang new songs. The gophers were smaller, with bushy tails, and kept to the trees. Tree gophers. He saw plenty of deer, and they were pretty similar to the deer on the plains. He didn’t encounter any wildcats or wolves, but he did hear a distant howl at one point.

He hadn’t seen any signs of monsters.

There’s little for them up here, Isen reasoned. The mist in this area was slightly thicker than in the last stretch of cavern before the exit, but it was still thinner than in most parts of the depths. He figured that the bats didn’t only live in that chamber—they probably had passages they navigated through to places where the ambient energy was thicker. Without other monsters to hunt on the surface, there was little to be gained by leaving. And unless monsters were small and brave enough to scale the Compass of Legacy’s spire, or they could fly and had access to whatever passage the bats used, they wouldn’t be able to access the gap to the surface.

It was more surprising that Isen hadn’t seen the corpses of forest wildlife that had fallen through the gap, but he figured the bats must snatch those up—not for sustenance, but out of instinct.

The agility of his tempered body was put to the test as Isen continued his trek. He made a game of disturbing the overgrowth as little as possible, contorting his body to avoid branches while stepping lightly around roots and rocks.

As the sun set, the ambient energy of the forest was more than enough to navigate by. The sounds of the night were more ominous than the rhythmic calls of the day—ghostly hoots, sorrowful wolf song, shrill screeching, and a number of other startling noises.

A year ago, being stranded in such an environment would have terrified him. Now, while he was unnerved by the unfamiliar environment, he wasn’t afraid. A mundane forest couldn’t hurt him.

He only stopped to rest at the break of dawn. He climbed to the top of the tallest tree and watched the pink and gold radiance blanket the trees and turn the wispy clouds into a painted wonder. Cycling under the rosy glow, surrounded by the earthy smell of soil, dew, and trees, was markedly different from cycling in the depths. Down there, he cycled to persevere and push through to the next day. Here, high above the earth, he found peace.

Energy flowed through his three stacked rings with ease, circulating through his meridians, steadily tempering them along with his body. He felt fresh, alive—free.

For the first time in his life, he internalized that he had his whole life ahead of him. Escaping the depths marked the start of a new chapter. A new dawn. A close to the dismal past.

Isen traveled through the forest for five more days until he finally reached the end of the endless trees—and a crossroads.