The magic artifact (1)

In a heartbeat, the crawling creature exploded into motion!

In a blink of an eye, it had crawled out of the bed room in frenzied zigzag movements and leapt at Ramie with open jaws, wanting to devour him as a whole!

It moved so fast that Ramie couldn't even react.

Ramie was shocked at the speed of the thing, and his heart sank. With this kind of speed, he had no time to evade.

Suddenly, he felt a force pulling him backward by his shoulder!

Staggering to the back, he saw with the corner of his eyes that it was Lance that had pulled him backward.

In the same time, Lance got in motion.

With focused eyes, he stepped forth, and used his right leg to kick a small table that was beside Ramie toward the creatures.

The hurled table flew off, rotating, toward the leaping creature!

Bang!

The table smashed against the creature, and broke into two pieces!

The creature fell to the ground alongside the two pieces of the table.

Hiss!

Letting out an angry hiss that sounded close to the voice of a cat, the creature stared at the three, furious.

After almost falling to the ground, Ramie stabilized himself,

It was only now that he could clearly see the appearance of the creature.

The creature's figure was almost three meters long, and had the scaly body of a snake with three pairs of short, thin legs that seemed barely able to support the body. The thing also had a flat, triangular, fish-like head with three small horns protruding on its forehead. It also had a wide mouth that stretched back to the neck, almost splitting the head apart.

Its body was as thick as an adult man's waist; with a mouth that was filled with numerous thin teeth.

With its red eyes, it gazed steadily and intently at them, wiggling its thick, short tale while hissing nonstop, to express its excitement for finding preys.

The creature's eyes contained a savage killing intent, while its mouth was trembling in excitement, barely resisting the overwhelming primal urges to jump at them, tear them apart, and taste their flesh.

Ramie's heart trembled in fear; his back was filled with cold sweat, and his composer was hanging by thread. The pressure and fear for having to fight for his life against such monstrous creature was too much for someone like him. He had never faced a situation where the stake was his life before.

He felt death stares at him, as an overwhelming killing intent surged in his direction from the creature.

He didn't know how, but he could feel the creature's indescribable killing intent sweeping at them. He could sense that among the three, the creature had its intent on him the most.

Feeling that the creature was targeting him especially, he started recalling the looks of despair, fear, and sorrow the people had yesterday, as the flying creatures descended on them, pined them to the ground, and started tearing them apart in front of hundreds of people around them with not even one of them stepping forth to help.

He didn't want to suffer the same fate!

His blood surged, and a strong will to live started welling up inside him, raging, and swallowing the fear.

In few seconds, and feeling the threat of death looming over him, a myriad of unspeakable emotions flickered across his mind, but he shoved them aside all.

These moments were separating him between life and death!

As the great desire to live erupted, his adrenaline level soared up in his blood, sending him in a hyper focused state, and pushing his physical performance to its peak.

His mind abandoned 'saving the remaining energy' strategy, and ordered the body to pump its all, putting him in a peak physical condition.

Hiss!

The creature let out a hiss. Then, unable to contain his growing urge to attack, the creature lost its patience, and shifted his posture, preparing to explode in motion and launch its attack at any given moments.

Seeing that, Ramie, held up the knife in one hand, and the screwdriver in the other, and he lowered his body a bit, preparing to respond to any move the creature might make.

Lance looked as focused as ever, bringing up both of his hands, and preparing to respond at any moments.

Neil on the other hand, looked terrible, his complexion not looking good at all. It was apparent that he was in state of a crippling fear.

Upon seeing the creature shift his position, preparing to attack again, Neil could no longer take the pressure, and as he took a step backward, his leg tripped with the carpet, making him stagger to the side, away from Ramie and Lance.

Realizing the fatal mistake he committed, he looked at the creature to see if the creature was taking advantage of his mistake.

Seeing that one of the three preys left the formation, the creature's primal urges surged, and took over immediately. It immediately gazed at Neil intently; its eyes shining momentarily like a flash lights in the dark before dimming back to normal.

Neil froze in his posture, like a corpse. Then, he fell to the floor, backward, like a statue.

Ramie and Lance both witnessed the strange occurrence, and they were caught off guard.

Upon seeing its attack working, and unable to hold itself back anymore, the creature leapt up in excitement at Neil, with all of its might, wanting to devour him before the other two catches up, or before its attack wears off.

In a moment, the creature was atop the non-moving Neil!

Witnessing the creature opening its large mouth, and wanting to bite at the motionless Neil, Ramie broke free from his shock, and spurted in action!

He knew he wouldn't make it in time before the creatures bites Neil. So, he threw the knife toward the creature with all his might, in attempt to scare the thing away from Neil.

He knew his aiming was bad, and that he might hit Neil, but if he didn't do anything, the creature would definitely bite Neil's neck. And if that was to happen, there will be no saving him anymore.

It was a risky gamble!

Luckily, it paid off!

Sensing the threat of the flaying, shiny object; the creature fled to the side, and away from Neil, to avoid the flaying knife.

The knife flew few centimeters above Neil, striking the wall across the room with its handle.

The creature hissed again in agitation before bouncing back at Neil to finish him off, before these two annoying preys interfere again.

Its movement was fast… faster than what Ramie could react to.

Ramie watched with bloodshot eyes, as the creature was moments away from ripping apart Neil's exposed neck, as he lay still, helpless on floor.

In these critical moments, Lance who was beside Ramie, charged to the side, toward the creature with a great momentum!

When Neil fell to the ground, immobile, neither Ramie nor Lance were able to reach Neil in time.

But the knife throw Ramie did, bought Lance time enough to recover his senses and charge toward Neil, reaching him in a blink of eye.

Lance's sudden burst of action caused Ramie to be startled at first, thinking that Lance was another creature rushing from behind, due to his extreme speed!

Ramie himself was closer to Neil than Lance, but wasn't quick enough to move toward Neil, before the creature kills him.

But, Lance not only moved, but he reached Neil in inhuman speed.

Taking advantage of his sudden inexplicable burst of speed and momentum, Lance kicked with all his might toward the creature's head, wanting to kill it before it he even touches Neil's neck.

The creature was startled the most by this scene!

It bestial instincts kicked in before it could even make sense of the sudden turn of events!

The creature leapt to the side, and burst in motion, moving away in wiggling movements. It crushed against the furniture, but didn't care. It wanted nothing more than to widen the distance from Lance.

Ramie was shocked by this sight, not expecting Lance to have such abnormal physical capabilities.

But regardless, he felt great relief. This new variable had given him hope, as the creature was really fast. It was to the point that it was able to leap in a second, reach Neil, and almost killing him, while Ramie was close to him, but still couldn't react in time.

It caused Ramie to feel that the situation was unsalvageable.

Now however, Lance forced the creature away, giving him a ray of hope that today might not be his last day in this life.

As Ramie moved to the motionless Neil's side, to guard him in case the creature assaults again, something unexpected happened!

Lance didn't try to guard Neil as expected, instead, he charged like a mad rhino toward the retreating creature with the knife held high, preparing to stab it!

Ramie was shocked once more, as Lance was moving at such great speed and momentum that caused the pieces of furniture he collided with to be thrown out of his way, as if had been smashed away by great force.

The creature tried to retreat back to the bedroom in frantic zigzag movements, wanting to get away from Lance.

In this moment, something happened that caused Ramie to be stunned speechless!

As the creature retreated in frenzy, a piece of furniture that Lance had picked and thrown smashed against its body, causing it to hiss in pain.

Hiss!!!! Hiss!!

The creature wiggled its body about in agony!

Making use of the chance, Lance actually managed to catch up to the creature and stabbed down at its neck with all of his strength!

HISSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Feeling the sharp pain of the knife penetrating its neck, the creature wiggled its body in agony, with a violent writhes, like a fish out of water. Then, the creature charged to the side in frenzy, escaping Lances grip. Afterward, it turned and charged toward Ramie's direction, to exact its vengeance on the weaker preys behind.

Seeing the creature charge in his direction, with such madness, Ramie's heart shuddered, and his countenance became deathly pale.

The savageness in the creature's eyes was surging like a tide. It knew that it was going to die.

And the creature's pride as a predator demanded a heavy price as a pay, it wasn't going down alone, it had to make them suffer for their audacity!

In a heartbeat, and sensing the imminent danger, Ramie's body exploded with strength!

He tightened his grip at the screwdriver handle, and prepared himself for the deadliest, inescapable confrontation in his lifetime!

This was the most dangerous situation that he ever falls into! And he was not going down without putting up a fight…!

…