So It's Come To This

Malik watched on with a bit of an appalled expression. From the looks of things, Jack was completely ignoring him. He stood still with an almost eerie amount of composure, but that was simply because the rules of the game wouldn't allow Jack to attack him, or for him to directly attack Jack for that matter.

It wasn't his first time being in this game.

A giant elephant rushed forward towards Lily, but despite having broken ribs she surprisingly leaped up several meters into the air before pushing off a slightly bent tree and hopping directly over it. The elephant was quite confused, looking around quizzically wondering where its prey had gone.

At the same time, Caden, Elena, and Rowan had strangely started to work together, all pressing their backs to each other. It was almost as though they weren't strangers with a bit of a rocky relationship just a few moments ago.

What appeared to be a giant raptor rushed over rather quickly. Caden had a handgun out, and despite it approaching rather quickly he didn't rush to shoot, instead calmly pointing the gun for a few moments before firing a single shot.

A piercing cry rang out shortly after the gunshot.

The raptor stumbled backward, lifting its head up in agony. One of its eyes was spraying out blood, and its roars were quite angry and disgruntled. While the power of a gunshot wasn't enough to grievously injure the raptor, it was still enough to hamper it.

"I won't have the strongest firepower, but I should be able to weaken them."

A bear roughly double Elena's height rushed over towards her. With both paws reaching out. Despite the difference in size, she fearlessly barreled forward, catching both paws with a dull thud. Her feet dug into the ground, drawing lines into the ground as she was pushed back.

However, she was standing her ground.

The bear let out a deep resonant roar before its jaws lunged forward, reaching down to bite her neck. In response Elena grit her teeth and threw her head forward so confidently, it was clear she relied on her hard head for quite a while.

With a thundering bang, the bear was thrown backward a few steps.

She then turned her head to glare at Jack.

"Can't we just take care of him since he's the one commanding them all?"

"Surprisingly intuitive from you, but no, we can't initiate unless he directly confronts us. The House of Cards treats situations like these as a slaughter, not a proper fight."

Rowan frowned deeply as he reached into his pocket, pushing a playing card into a tarot card. There was a gurgling sound coming from inside his body, while the bandages around his stub suddenly broke off and a giant grotesque arm had grown in its place, taking on a form awfully similar to how most monsters appeared.

Despite the strange sight, a gorilla eagerly rushed forward, slamming its fists down into the ground to run faster. Yet, before it could even do anything, Rowan had grabbed it by one of its arms. He narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth.

"Graaah!"

With uncanny strength, he had thrown it away several meters, bouncing on the ground and sliding away several meters. He then pulled out a katana in his still-normal hand with a determined expression.

They had shown off a rather strong start, which seemed to make Jack even more excited. Malik's gaze was supposedly on him according to the direction he was facing. It appeared he was quite intrigued.

Seedy was similarly quite excited, panting from its mouth as its restless vines moved around impatiently. However, it didn't move at all, seemingly following Jack's intention of simply watching.

That is, for now.

Caden fired another shot while the raptor was still wildly swinging its head around, and somehow hit the other eye as well. Its cries became even louder, but this time it was laced more with hatred rather than pain.

While blind, it rushed forward, covering the distance rapidly. At the same time, it recklessly chomped down in the air in front of it as it ran, desperate to get vengeance.

Caden's face tensed up as he realized it was mostly aggravated compared to anything else. He nervously took a step back, but it didn't matter much as the dinosaur slammed its jaws down on the ground sideways, about to scoop him up like a dustpan.

In a flash, Rowan appeared in front of him, in particular his giant arm.

With a crunch, the teeth sunk deep into the monstrous arm. Upon finally latching onto something, the raptor refused to let go, staying on just like a dog. Caden had a complicated expression on his face.

"Shit..."

Rowan let out a pained chuckle, flashing a strained smile behind him.

"It's fine... this isn't the first time I've lost an arm. Focus on the others."

Caden promptly nodded before pointing his gun toward another one of the beasts. At the same time, an elephant was rampaging forward as fast as it could right towards Lily. However, its actions were just like a raging bull, allowing her to evade it fairly easily by dodging to the side. Yet, while her expression hardly changed, the truth was that the bloodstain was gradually spreading in her clothes.

She couldn't keep it up forever.

As for Jack, his smile and bubbly behavior had softened. He looked over at Rowan wrestling with the raptor with its teeth digging into its arm. He was in a slight daze before licking his lips and swallowing.

Seedy noticed the change in him and only got more excited.

After a while, a smile suddenly formed on Jack's face as he pointed forward.

"Let's go and join the fun too Seedy!"

Following his command, Seedy rushed forward, picking up speed rather quickly. Caden had been shooting the other beasts but quickly turned his attention to Jack. However, instead of falling into despair, they actually flickered with hope.

Normally they wouldn't be able to do anything to Jack, but it would be different if he directly attacked. The experience under Caden's belt told him that he could now shoot him.

And so he did.

At that moment, Jack's memories flashed as he remembered when Emma had shown him how to wield a gun and assisted him in shooting a man in the head. He had suddenly flicked his head to the side as a gunshot rang out.

Though he was overthinking it, as Seedy had used a vine to redirect the bullet away. Its blood sprayed in the air because of it, but the vines could regenerate easily enough.

Witnessing this, Caden cursed under his breath.

Despite being attacked, Jack's attention was hardly even on him. Instead, it was on Rowan. Although his intentions were recognized by the person in question, Rowan couldn't exactly do too much about it.

Elena was currently also wrestling with a bear and couldn't exactly provide support. Caden shot several times, losing some of his previous composure even if the shots were accurate. But as accurate as they were, Seedy was willing to sacrifice its vines in order to deflect all of them.

And so, one of Seedy's jaws chomped down on Rowan's leg, while the other twisted past the katana and got the other arm. He let out a scream and dropped his blade. Jack then waved the twig, getting the raptor to release the arm, but just a moment later, it chomped down on his body, lifting him up almost like an offering.

Seedy's vines bound the monstrous arm that he had and held it up close to Jack, who rather eagerly stared at the deep teeth marks in the arm.

Then, he took a bite himself.

The uneven skin and unnatural proportions didn't dissuade him in the slightest. In fact, he was encouraged further by it. After chewing for only a brief moment, he engorged himself further, caring little about the blood covering him.

Rowan screamed the entire time, calling out bloody murder.

"AAAAAaaaAAAaH!"

Seedy got quite excited, using one of its heads to directly break off Rowan's head with a bloody snap. Naturally, the struggling stopped. Together, both Seedy and Jack consumed the rest of his body, while the raptor held his body in place.

Although Jack wasn't able to eat nearly as much as Seedy nor could he really do anything about the bones, he had easily eaten more than he could've with just the paper bag from earlier.

The blood had splattered over the majority of his face, and his hands were covered in it as though he was fingerpainting. Some of the blood had gotten into his eyes, yet he still had them wide open, turning over to Caden with a new kind of fervor he hadn't shown before.

He was still hungry. Not necessarily in the standard sense.

Seedy matched that energy entirely, eagerly looking at the rest of them.

The raptor that had previously been screaming out in agony and rage was strangely docile despite having both of its eyes missing. But it still walked over to Caden with less than good intentions.

Caden's eyebrow twitched before he ripped off all his bandages.

"So it's come to this..."