27 ch 1 the city of madness again

I don't know where I am, but I am tired of being knocked unconscious and finding myself in a new place every time. where in the hell was that damn wolf, it left me alone in such a damnable place that too after they shattered my armour ( a long story that I will tell at the end of this log)

I don't remember why it took me there. I remember it taking me there, showing it's barbecue touch on the way. other than that everything else seemed like a dream, like I can almost remember it. leave it be now, I have to be focused now. I am in very unfamiliar territory after all.

right now I am sure that I am in a human city, that much I am sure of. to be honest I could be in a city of gorillas for all I care. it is comfortable for me to move around, it is just about right for human beings.

I was in a jail-like place, though one of the walls is caved In, which defeats the entire point of this thing. I cannot hear the sound of life around me, which is the second time that has happened. something or someone had brought me here, now I need to figure out if they are friendly or I would have to fight them.

( after a while )

this place is filled with the worst possible enemy, snakes. they are All around me. most of them are many times stronger than me. right now I am hiding in a latrine of some kind, as for why I can say that this place stinks. most of the snakes are rushing about, preparing for something. believe me when I say snakes are lazy as hell.

I have seen this kind of activity from when they are preparing for war. if I am right an army of snakes has taken over this place, maybe some kind of a large clan war. those things are bloody, especially if snakes are involved.

they are not keeping their attention on me, so if I am slow and careful, I can escape. slowly but steadily I get up, not ready to give my position. those guys can sense temperature, so if even if they can't see me visually they can see me. in that respect, they are kind of like me with my blood vision. mine works on the cold-blooded ones too.

one of my usual tactics to deal with a massive number of snakes is to start a massive fire and hide in it. it is like putting a sun right in front of them and the fire attracts other beasts and they find it easier to catch dazed snakes than me.

fuck, one of the snakes, has noticed me. it looks like I might just have to light a fire, though it won't be effective. the snake is one of the weaker first class, something I should be able to deal with pretty easily.

I began scratching my arm until blood comes out. the blood kept flowing out and finally took the shape of a sword. it was my totem. I finally managed to fuse the totem to my blood, with a little bit of help from the wolf.

a useful ability especially with my tendency to getting kidnapped nowadays.

being careful not to step on any shit, I jump out of the washroom and enter into the house connected to the washroom.

I don't go out, simply because if I got out I will be attacked from all sides. here I can restrict them to the gate and the windows.

though all the snakes seem to be moving in a particular direction, one of them noticed me, the others won't be disturbed. the snakes have the most herd mentality among all the beasts I have met.

they followed their leaders command absolutely. anyway, the snake had already entered the room and was contracting its body to make a lunge at me.

this is the opening move of almost all snakes

which I like to call a bullet, which is what it resembles. they contract their body and launch themselves with such a speed that it reminds me of a bullet. if a snake were to ambush me, I would end up dead. I can't react to the move at all. only the familiar contracting that they go through, a telltale sign of this technique of theirs, allows me to dodge it.

the move might be one I have seen a thousand times, but I still do not dare to underestimate it.

the snake complete it bullet as I duck downwards. the snake ends missing and its teeth end up in the wall behind, stuck. I swear that the stone wall is corroding right in front of me. the snake removes it's head with a lightning speed, breaking its teeth in the process. they will grow back as the snake slithers towards me.

fighting a snake in close combat is a nightmare, it like mixing dough. anywhere you touch it seems to get stuck on you.

the snake is already close to me as it swings its tail at my chest, I take the blow as my chest feels as if somebody has put a fire on it. it looks like this one has contact poison. maybe others will have a more fancy name, but this is a deadly move. fighting a snake is basically struggling to make sure that the snake never coils around. but this tends to become hard when their very touch ends up poisoning you.

I jump backward, not allowing the snake to coil its tail on my chest.

for a few seconds, we stare at each other, then the snake jumps at me. I sidestep instinctively, which the snake seems to have expected, as it curves its body like a u shape in the direction I jumped in( it is a common move among the snakes as I later find out and name as a boomerang). before I can react, the snake has already coiled around me, tightening around my throat. I can barely, with each breath feeling like I am breathing in a solid.

my body had already begun to feel numb, as I almost on instinct swing my sword in the air. the snake is trying to bite me you see.

if it's contact poison is already so terrifying, I don't want to be poisoned by this beast. I have top-notch instincts, more so than most beasts. I can instinctively attack anything that is attacking me. my sword hit the snake in a pretty damaging way as the snake slackens it's grip over me.

I can feel the numbness in my arms fade away, albeit slowly, I hit the snake pretty deeply below its head and even I can tell that it does not have much longer left.

this is the most terrifying time for any beast. a dying beast is the most maniac being anyone can ever meet.

the snake lunged at me, this time ducking to avoid any of it's tricks. it sailed harmlessly over me, as I struck it behind at it's back.

the snake ignored that slash as it swings its tail, which strikes at my chest. I end up hitting the wall behind me.

I am thankful that this happened, because if I had held my position, the same would use the opportunity to coil around me. right my job is to stay as far away from the snake as possible.

the snake as I have said before is on the verge of death, this is literally its last struggle before death. if I hold on for almost a minute, the snake will die of anaemia. a waste of blood, but without my armour, this is what happens.

the snake had already come very close to me, but I promptly jumped to the side, the snakes reactions were becoming sluggish.

( after a few minutes. )

the snake finally collapsed, bleeding out with the wounds it had accumulated.

it is really tenacious and clearly more skilled than the others of its kind. I have fought against snakes, many times too. this one seems to be more combat wary than the others of its kind.

I think it would be more accurate saying that the snake is more trained than others of its kind.

it also had more tricks like that boomerang, it was clearly a tactic meant to deal with enemies dodging their bullet attack.

that kind of thing came from training, I can say it so clearly because I have been trained in a similar manner.

while I am nowhere near the level to call myself trained, at least I am in the process of training.

whatever, I go towards the snake's body, poking it with my sword a few times to see whether it is dead or not. I can't have it suddenly biting me when I am extracting its blood. snakes are creatures with a pretty low amount of blood, to begin with, after I allowed it to bleed out, not a lot of blood was remaining behind.

using my totem I acquired whatever amount of blood that I could. at the same time, with my knife cut of its head.

after all this, I quickly leave this place, not from the front door, but by climbing to the top. actually, I just took the stairs to the top.

up there, I truly understood the scale of the enemy we are facing. as far as I could see, we are surrounded by loads of enemies.

I have seen many beast clans fight among themselves, but I have never seen one like this.

it almost like an anthill from up( if you were to zoom into that anthill, by a thousand times or any other magnification you can think of )

anyway, all of them are going towards a single location in an extremely orderly manner, which reminds me of a couple of ant documentaries when I was a kid. ( hence the really out of place ant comparison )

from my position, I can see a massive tower at the center of this city. I have a feeling that this location is very important and holds the key to my survival.

I jump from rooftop to rooftop, a simpler way to travel when you have an army of snakes in the streets below. it is simpler, not safer. most snakes have poison spitting ability and some of them can fly.

(after a while)

while all the snakes seemed focused on going somewhere, I can tell that they can't have a human so insultingly close to them. so my collection of injuries have begun to gather. on a more positive note, I have managed to reform my blood armour. all that trouble later I reached the to....

( the explosion in the tower got me, knocking me out. as for what the explosion is, immortal will do a better job explaining.

anyway, I have to speak about my armour now. my armor was originally made from concentrated blood mana initially. this is the armour that I have used since the beginning. but when the tiger struck, it completely destroyed my armour, leaving nothing behind of that.

making my armour is a very complex process, part of which I managed to complete due to the gauntlets. I would need at least a couple of days with my full focus to make it. in the forest that is not possible.

so I used an alternative, an armour made of pure blood. it is similar to my original armour though many times inferior to it. I also can't retract it into my gauntlet like I could do before.

but it is very easy to make it. as long as I have ample supply of blood, I can make it in half an hour and I don't need to put all my focus into it. so no enemy can attack when I make it.

this armour was again ruined when I was fighting that poison thing, though I did manage to completely produce it again when I collected enough blood. the snakes didn't bother me, unless I crossed their path after all. )