Chapter 7 - Taming Danger (5th E)

The paralysis was spreading through Ren's limbs when the spore, without warning, fused with his body.

'What are you doing!?' Ren wanted to scream in frustration, 'Now's not the time to be stubborn, a miserable strength increase won't help me here!'

The glow of the mushrooms in his hair would only serve to attract those predators more, maybe even others, making him a more visible target in the night was the most useless strategy in his mind.

The Moon Toads were getting closer.

He could hear the rhythmic padding of their feet, the wet sound of their skin secreting acid. The acrid smell already reached his nose, like rotting fruit and hot metal.

But something was strange.

The toad in front of him, the one that had paralyzed him, tilted its head.

Its three eyes blinked in an erratic sequence, breaking the hypnotic pattern. The croaking turned to discordant, confused notes.

The mushrooms in Ren's hair pulsed with a bioluminescence similar to the toads', creating patterns that mimicked the glow of their internal organs, his head's flickering lights became, against all odds, a distorted interpretation of his predators.

The leader toad jumped forward, its three eyes now fixed on the glowing mushrooms. The confusion broke its concentration, and with it, the paralyzing skill.

Ren felt the control of his body return just as the ground beneath the toad began to give way.

Everything happened in an instant.

The toad, disoriented by the mushroom's light, didn't notice it had landed on a pitfall trap of a Night Excavator's tunnel. 

The earth crumbled beneath its weight with an ominous crunch. Its bright eyes widened in surprise as it fell, its previously melodious croak transforming into a shriek of panic.

A deep roar rose from the tunnel's darkness, followed by the unmistakable sound of jaws snapping shut.

The other Moon Toads froze, their bioluminescent patterns becoming erratic with fear. Their acid smell intensified, an nonvoluntary defensive reaction.

Ren didn't stop to think.

His legs, now freed from paralysis, moved by instinct.

A jump to the right, away from the formerly invisible tunnel edge he could now see thanks to the freshly collapsed earth.

"The tunnels!" he gasped as he ran. "They form a pattern!"

Night Excavators were methodical, territorial. Their tunnels always followed the same design, a main entrance with traps in a semicircle around it.

If the toad had fallen into one...

Another crunch to his left confirmed his theory. Two of the remaining toads, in their rush to chase him, had jumped directly onto another weak section.

The earth opened beneath them like a hungry mouth.

More roars from the depths. More abruptly interrupted squeals.

The last Moon Toad, perhaps wiser than its companions, disappeared into the night with a terrified croak.

♢♢♢♢

Ren stopped, panting, his heart threatening to burst.

The mushrooms in his hair still pulsed 'weakly', but now it seemed more like that 0.01% was just a bit bad… 

Not so much of a curse anymore.

"You," he whispered to his spore, still fused with it, "are still the weakest beast that exists. But... thanks. I guess."

A distant crunch reminded him this was no time to celebrate. Somewhere beneath his feet, a Night Excavator had just enjoyed an unexpected dinner of Moon Toads.

And Ren didn't want to be dessert.

The dead tree. He had to find the dead tree before…

A deep roar made the earth tremble beneath his feet.

It was just an excavator, he reassured himself, they wouldn't come out...

But the noise attracted something else.

A new sound froze Ren's blood, a metallic hiss, like blades dragging against stone.

The underground roars quieted, as if trying to go unnoticed.

The new sound came from the deep forest, toward the Bronze ring, where darkness was densest.

Ren hid behind a tree.

A Mirror Mantis emerged between the trees, its body covered in reflective plates that fragmented the moonlight.

It was huge, 2 m tall, but something was wrong with it.

Its plates, which should form a perfect pattern, were cracked and misaligned. Deep scars furrowed its exoskeleton, and one of its main scythes was broken near the tip.

Ren's heart stopped.

There shouldn't be a creature like this within 20 kilometers.

Mirror Mantises were creatures of the deep Bronze forest, Bronze-rank beasts that would normally never approach a zone so poor in mana.

Their bodies were specialized to absorb and reflect the dense magical energy of their territory, using their reflective plates to disorient prey with light and mana illusions.

This one had likely been expelled from its territory, probably after losing a territorial battle. The wounds had weakened it so much it couldn't even maintain its natural habitat.

And a wounded beast, hungry, forced to hunt in mana poor lands...

Was a thousand times more dangerous than any local predator.

The Mantis turned its triangular head toward him. One of its eye facets, normally a kaleidoscope of iridescent colors, was now broken and dull, its body mangled and thinned by hunger.

The plates on its body tried to reflect the moonlight, but the pattern was erratic, sickly. Instead of the usual hypnotic illusions, it produced only desperate flashes.

"Don't look at me, don't look at me," Ren silently pleaded, remembering the basic lessons about hiding from beasts that every child learned.

Mirror Mantises usually hunted by creating illusions of their prey, confusing them until they stumbled over their own reflections. But this one, in its famished state…

Created erie and faulty reflections, like a whirling mirror house.

A stray flash from its distorted skill illuminated two unlucky points behind his hiding tree and created a small reflection of Ren.

The creature moved.

Despite its wounds, its speed was terrifying. The scythes, even the broken one, cut the air with a deadly whistle. No games, no more illusions. Just pure, desperate hunger.

Ren ran. 

The dead tree had to be close.

His father had mentioned that the twisted roots pointed north, that the bark marked by ancient lightning formed an arrow-like pattern...

Behind him, the metallic hiss drew closer.

The beast couldn't maintain that speed for long in a zone so poor in mana, but it didn't need to.

It only needed to hit him once.

A scythe plunged into the ground beside him, so close he felt the displaced air cut his cheek. The monster's shattered plates tinkled like broken bells, its breathing a tortured cacophony of hunger and desperation.

Then Ren saw it...

The dead tree.

Its twisted silhouette cut against the night sky.

But the Mirror Mantis was getting closer, the sound of its broken plates a tolling echo of death drawing near.

The tree was less than fifty meters away, a twisted beacon of hope…

Just as Ren gave the next step the ground gave way beneath his feet.