13
"Come on! We are almost there." Amera chuckled. The mountain was farther than they expected, but that just means that it is massive, for some reason, the overall temperature had also decreased. Thanks to that, Kuro wasn't suffering as much as before. He was happily walking alongside Hisato. Looking down upon the small fur ball, Hisato looked quite relieved. Watching him suffer was a pain to see, but he didn't really know what to do about it besides quickly reaching a colder biome.
It seemed like they finally reached the last dune, which separated them from the new biome. Hisato heaved a sigh as he began to tread forward. With each step, grains of sand fell down before they landed onto others, making them vanish from sight.
Amera, who was already at the top, energetically waved at him. She seemed quite excited. Kuro jumped onto his shoulder and meowed. He responded by carefully petting him, causing Kuro to purr. Before he knew it, he had reached the top of the dune. Looking ahead, Hisato encountered quite the view. It was a huge landscape filled with withered trees covered with snow. Their branches covered in icicles, which firmly held onto them whenever the wind passed by.
The sky was filled with white particles, which flickered with colourful lights. It gave off a surreal feeling, and serene feeling, but the silence gave off an unsettling one which caused them to be on edge. It was frankly bizarre.
"Cool right?" Amera looked at him, when she reached the top of the dune, she was in awe. Even though she found it weird for a snow biome to be situated right next to a desert, that thought was quickly forgotten. She began to focus on that tiny bit of uneasiness. Her gaze fell upon the mountain range in the far distance. The mountain range consisted of several mountains varying in shapes and sizes, there was one mountain which stood out in particular.
Unlike the rest, this mountain reached above the clouds. It was covered with gigantic stalagmites made out of ice. The feeling appeared to come from the very top of the mountain. As she shifted her gaze towards the centre mountain, the uneasiness grew.
"Auntie?" A sudden voice pulled her out of her trance. She looked at the source of the voice. Hisato looked at her while tugging her sleeve. She seemed mesmerized by something…
"Ah. It's just the view." Ruffling her hand through his hair, she gave him a bitter smile. "Let's go."
"Okay."
Amera continued walking with Hisato and Kuro following. They began descending the sand dune, the sandy ground slowly began to change into that of dirt. Snowflakes fell from the sky, before melting upon touching their skin.
The wind rustled through the trees, causing some tree branches to break off the trees, and falling into the snow.
Although she was on guard, Amera seemed to quite enjoy it here. She was about to venture even further, when all of a sudden, a loud sound echoed through the forest.
"Is that.. a gunshot?" Amera immediately turned towards the direction which the sound came from. She muttered a bit, before grabbing hisato, and dashing off. He almost left Kuro behind, but hastily grabbed him along.
Within seconds, they arrived at the scene. Trees had fallen, and a weird smell filled the air. She looked at the surroundings.
It seemed desolated, and not a single soul could be seen. Or so she thought, a creepy creature jumped out of the wilderness. The creature had four stick-like legs. It had a tail growing from its back resembling the stingers of a scorpion. The thin neck supported a head which looked like the pincers of a crab.
Although Amera had no clue what the creature was supposed to be, Hisato clearly knew. This was the scorch, but unlike the previously decapitated scorch, this one had a deep blue colour instead of red.
Directly after the first one appeared, a total of 4 more jumped out of the woods. Blue orbs began to surround them and were fired into the woods. Bullets soared through the sky before making impact with the orbs causing them to explode. Simultaneously, a huge quantity of lasers dashed through the sky, targeting the blue scorches. They easily dodged most, while slicing apart those they couldn't.
The scorches were continuously bombarded by countless bullets, lasers and much more. Explosions surrounded the scorches and floating guns began to encircle them, firing from all directions.
The scorches slowly began to lose momentum, and became desperate; and thus entering a frenzy. Numerous orbs began to appear, shooting out in all directions and exploding in the air. The scorches themselves began to slice apart the guns with their thin, yet extremely sharp legs.
The tides seemed to turn, when suddenly a man walked out of the forest. His clothes were ragged, and covered in blood. He sighed and seemed to mutter some words. He flexed his hand and the quantity of gund multiplied and immediately began to rain down bullets upon the scorches.
They continuously dodged the bullets by a brim. One of the scorches abruptly escaped the barrage of bullets and leapt horizontally towards the man. A dozen orbs soared past the scorch while it was flying and imploded near the man. Seemingly unscathed, an odd shaped gun materialized in the man's hand. A small compressed ball of blue energy began to form within the barrel. He took aim, targeting the scorch who was approaching him at high speed and pulled the trigger.
A thin grey laser exited the barrel at abnormal speed, and almost instantaneously made impact with the scorch's leg. The leg began to turn grey, seemingly decaying, before falling off. The scorch began to lose it's steadiness and crashed onto the ground a metre away from the man. It made a weird screech. The scorch began to illuminate a dark blue colour, and its body started to swell up. It tried to self destruct taking the man down with it.
Suddenly, a gigantic arctic coloured beam descended from the sky and made impact with the ground. The man swiftly jumped backwards in an attempt to avoid the beam.
The beam slowly started to become thinner and soon disappeared, leaving behind a frozen ground, the scorches completely encased in a smooth, blue ice. The guns within the range of the beam had disappeared and frozen bullets fell to the ground.
Fortunately, he has managed to avoid the beam. The man frowned and looked up. The beam seemed to originate from the centre mountain. A huge hole had formed in a cloud which floated in its path. He stared at the hole, as a menacing presence was emitted from beyond it.
He heaved a sigh before noticing two bystanders. One was a voluptuous woman, while the other a drowsy looking teenager. He immediately perked up, as he recognised who they were.
He leapt towards them and embraced the woman. "I missed ya." He placed his hand on her back before giving the woman a quick peck on the lips.
"Hello darling~" She brightly smiled. She looked at him for a solid second, before suddenly giving him a headbutt. "You made me worry." A sinister aura started to appear behind her as she 'innocently' smiled.
"Why headbutt me then?" He kneaded his forehead while looking at her.
"You forgot the anniversary~"
Coming to the sudden realization, he quickly tried to come up with an excuse. "Ah! I didn't forget about it, I uh.. brought a present along, but it uh got destroyed by monsters." He awkwardly laughed and rubbed the back of his head.
Folding her arms, Amera looked at him. She knew he was lying, but decided to let him off with the headbutt, the situation wasn't optimal either. "Oooh, it's fine then dear. We have bigger problems right now, so no worries."
The second bystander looked at Zen, before patting him on the shoulder. Unlike certain dense fuckers, Hisato knew what was going to happen, and gave Zen his condolences.
Suddenly, a deafening roar erupted, resonated through the air, causing the trees to shake, and snow to fall. An avalanche could be seen on one of the mountains. The ice in which the scorches were held, began to crack, and abruptly broke into pieces. The scorches had died just like that.
The three simultaneously turned their heads into the direction the roar came from. An ominous aura exploded, causing them to flinch slightly.
It seems a terrifying creature has awakened...