Chapter 79: Locust Town

One of the districts in the southern reaches of the Elderwood Biome’s lower ring was dominated by nature

It was built around vegetation rather than completely over it. A number of trees rose between buildings. Small clearings served as parks or gathering areas and narrow roads curved wherever the trees permitted them.

There were fences, signs, streetlights and plenty of evidence of human involvement, but from the correct angle the district almost resembled an ordinary forest.

Morning painted the sky a clear blue and the air was chilly, carrying the damp smell of soil and leaves as sunlight filtered through the canopy in scattered golden patches

On this particular morning, the district was a ghost town. Everyone who lived here was gone, evacuated due to an emergency.

There was nobody except for the young man sprinting through the trees.

His boots hammered against damp earth while his deep red ponytail whipped behind his head. He vaulted a fallen trunk without slowing down, planted one foot against the side of another tree and kicked away from it to avoid smashing directly into a low branch.

The ground shook behind him, getting louder and louder by the passing second.

Red Deer Rhos didn’t need to look at the massive locusts chasing behind him.

His environmental awareness painted their positions more accurately than sight. Each locust was roughly the size of a small car, with thick segmented bodies protected beneath overlapping plates of dark green and brown chitin.

They cleared the distance with every jump of their hind legs, while their oversized black mandibles snapped continuously beneath their heads.

The droning noise their wings created made Rhos feel like the vibrations were going through his chest. Though it wasn’t enough to slow him down.

Rhos was confident he could kill one without much difficulty. Two or three would require slightly more effort.

But taking on an entire swarm was downright suicidal. A horrible way to die.

Fortunately, fighting them directly wasn’t the plan.

“Come on, you ugly bastards! Don’t give up on me now!”

Without needing to look back, he saw one locust launch itself from a tree, its enormous mandibles opening around his head.

Rhos ducked quickly and the insect passed over him close enough that one of its legs brushed his hair before crashing into the ground ahead.

He continued forward, slid beneath its abdomen and drove his shoulder against one of its rear legs as he passed.

The limb buckled and the locust collapsed directly into the path of the swarm, leading to several others crashing into it.

He wanted to laugh, but the urge was immediately suppressed when the swarm grew more relentless.

“Persistent bastards”

Running through a forest while some oversized arthropod tried to eat him brought back memories from his time outside the Biome. Back when he was still a Ranger in the forest of giant trees..

He remembered the giant arachnid that chased after him. At that time, he had the help of Ranger Division 14. But most of them are dead now.

Still, the comparison almost made him a bit bitter. It was a wonder how much had changed since then.

Not enough as it seems, because he was still in the same situation. Except now, instead of an entire Ranger Division, he had one person backing him.

Once he passed a thick branch, a small shadow dropped from behind.

Her long white hair streamed upward during the descent, scarlet tips fluttering around the two horns protruding from her head.

Both of her hands gripped the handle of a sword suited for someone her size, although calling it a conventional sword would have been inaccurate.

The entire weapon was made out of blood.

Morri landed in a crouch and immediately rotated the weapon, slicing through one of the insect’s legs before stepping beneath a pair of its snapping mandibles.

Her blood blade flashed upward and the locust’s head separated from its body.

She leapt and landed directly atop a locust and stabbed through its head. Ripping the weapon free, she swung horizontally through another locust’s forelimbs before reversing her grip and driving it upward beneath its mandibles.

Dark fluid sprayed across the grass as the little girl moved through the front of the swarm with pure unadulterated violence, slicing and dicing every insect that got too close to her small body.

Rhos kept running up ahead. She seemed to be doing well so he didn’t need to look back constantly. However, once her solid weapon wavered dangerously close to liquid, that was when he decided that’s enough.

“Time to pull you back now”

Before passing beneath the tree Morri had been waiting in, he’d grabbed a small handle attached to a mechanism hidden behind the trunk.

When he pulled it, an invisible line snapped taut and the little girl was jerked backward.

Her eyes widened as the nearly transparent cord wrapped around her waist pulled her away from the locusts that almost swarmed her.

“Shaahh?!”

She flew through the air while screaming like a child.

Rhos turned while running and caught her against his chest. The impact nearly knocked him off balance, but his arms quickly closed around her.

“Got you”

Morri glared at him. She did not look pleased by that stunt, even though she agreed to it beforehand.

“Rha! Morri nai, sha!”

“Thanks, I appreciate your support”

Once he felt like he had her secured, he circulated spiritual energy through his body to sharpen his red deer trait, which was acceleration.

The surrounding trees became streaks of brown and green at the speed he was moving in. He didn’t move so fast that the swarm would completely lose him, just enough to keep up.

The clearing was up ahead.

“Ha!”

He burst from the trees with a jump and landed on an open field. The morning sunlight should have been the first thing he felt but instead, it was the cold wind.

The world darkened when a massive shadow flew above, blocking the blue sky. When Rhos adjusted his eyes, he saw an eagle.

Its wings spread wide enough to cast a moving shadow over the clearing, and every beat sent powerful currents of air rushing through the grass.

Feathers the color of polished bronze covered its body and its talons looked capable of crushing a person effortlessly.

The locust swarm exploded from the trees behind Rhos, exactly where they needed to be.

The eagle opened its beak and blue light spread between its feathers like fire traveling through dry grass, growing brighter as it moved toward the creature’s neck.

Rhos’s instincts screamed.

“Now!”

He clutched Morri tightly against his chest as he threw himself sideways.

The world disappeared beneath a torrent of blue flames descending from the eagle’s beak.

Heat struck Rhos’s back even from several meters away from the inferno that blazed through the swarm. The first locusts disappeared instantly, their armored bodies blackening into ash, their collective screeching lasting less than a second.

A strip of earth stretching from the forest’s edge across the clearing became scorched and smoking as the blue flames tore through everything in their path.

Rhos hit the ground shoulder first. He rotated during the fall so Morri landed against his chest rather than beneath him, then rolled twice before coming to a stop on his back.

For several seconds they just laid there till the chaos died down.

He lifted his head and checked on the little girl laying on top of him. She didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries.

“Thank Morrigan. That was too close”

Relief softened his expression, but immediately hardened when he saw Morri’s expression sharpened.

Thanks to his enhanced senses, he already knew the reason.

A surviving locust charged from his blind side.

“A good opportunity…!”

In response, Rhos bit through the flesh of his index finger, sinking his teeth in until blood welled from it.

Then, he pulled his finger away and swiped it through the air, followed by a thin crimson line that extended from his fingertip.

The giant locust that had emerged from the smoke had half of its body scorched, but it was very much alive. Its elongated black mandibles were already spreading apart around Rhos and Morri.

However, it suddenly stopped. For half a second, nothing happened.

The creature’s body separated diagonally. Both halves crashed into the grass on opposite sides of them, dark insect blood splattering on the ground.

With a grin, Rhos announced:

“Got the hang of it now”