304 The Forest Dungeon IV : Draupires?

The moment Soren and I left the glade, I was tackled to the ground by a very foul smelling creature. At first I had no idea what was going on, since everything seemed like a mad scramble and a wild tangle of limbs and bodies. Eventually I was pinned down, and the creature that attacked me stood over me, snapping it's jaws at neck. It was strong, way stronger than I expected, but it's not as strong as I am, or I should say it should not be as strong as I am. But with every second I spent in contact with it, I could feel it slowly sapping away at my strength, completely negating my physical abilities.

I heard Soren roar as he swiped his paw and took of the head of the creature. I scrambled away from it, and took a deep breath of relief as mg strength returned. I was looking at some sort of zombie, or to be more precise it looked like a draugr. It leathery dead skin, piercing red eyes were tell tale signs, however it's vampire fangs, and the weird bone armors on it's body were different. Plus those bone armors covered and protected the vital parts of its body, growing out of it's own skin, but yet it had all manner of wards tattooed on it's bones.

And then another rushed out of the tree line, jumping over Soren's head with it's arms outstretched towards my neck. I shifted to the side and swung my hands at it's neck, giving it a massive clothesline that broke it's neck and pulled out of it's body with it's spine still attached to it's skull. It was a gory sight, but I also discovered something; the moment I came in contact with this vampire zombie, all of my strength and abilities seemed to be either sealed, or drained away. It was the weirdest feeling ever, but it more than proved that the longer I fight oraround this draugrs, I grow weaker.

"Soren we have to get out of here!"

I said to Soren as I took off into the forest with Soren close behind me. I couldn't sense these zombies, they were erased just like those grotesquely combined creatures. However I could still feel nature all around me, and even though I can't tell what sort of movements they were making and had to rely on instinct alone, I could still tell where they were. They didn't show up on my supernatural radar as a moving red dot, just a black one.I sped up, moving so fast that the frees in this forest were uprooted from the shocks of my movement, and then suddenly a huge metal tail was swung at my face.

I was already moving at my fastest speed possible, so you could say I didn't see the huge appendage until it was a little too late. I was blasted backwards throughfew trees and past Soren, who went ahead to attack whatever it was that brought my momentum to a halt. My chest burned with pain and anger, and I felt a dizzy due to the hit I had just received.

But that was not the end of the matter as I saw almost have a dozen vampire draugrs heading for me with their hands outstretched and the fangs exposed. I panicked and quickly got back to my feet. Then I summoned my sword and shield, and quickly weaves the rune for break and light on mg sword, and push and light on my shield, this was enough to face them.

Both my sword and shield lit up like a beacon with the confines of this darkened forest. If I couldn't rely on my supernatural sensing abilities to find these bloody things, I would rely on my natural senses. After all, they're a hundred times stronger than the other. I swung my sword, channeling my soul energy through it as a beam of blue soul energy came out of it, and sped towards a line of approaching draupires? Trees were blasted apart and broken to numerous tiny pieces as the beam carved a swath of destruction through the forest, shredding both the draupires and the trees around to the tiniest pieces imaginable.

The entire east side of the forest; in a 50 meter radius had disappeared, all that was left were chips of wood and tiny pieces of desiccated flesh. I turned my shield to the right and activated the push rune, watching as the shield lit up a d threw back almost two dozen draupires that had crept up on me. And then I swung my sword again, leveling the west side of the forest, these time in a 100 meter radius.

Then I turned back to face whatever it was Soren was battling. It was an armored T-rex; almost fifteen meters tall and over twenty in length from snout to tail tip. This bloody thing waslot more bigger than normal t-rex's and it was breathing fire. What else did I seem to miss.

*voooop!* *Bang!*

The tail was longer than it looked and stronger too. But right before my eyes I saw that the tail wasn't really longer, it just had the ability to stretch past it's normal proportions. The armor on its tail were scales that pushed out of it body, making it seem like the body of a pine cone, giving said tail the ability to shred whatever it came in contact with.

I raised my shield just in time to block another strike from the tail, and this time I took five steps backwards, gradually weakening under the influence of this dinosaurs attack. If seems that just like every other monster, prolonged combat with this dinosaur means that all of my abilities and strength would undergo a constant reduction andweakness. I twirled my sword and slashed at it's two powerful hind legs, cutting them off in on go, and slicing upwards at the same time, releasing a beam of soul energy that sliced the dinosaur into two equal halves.

Even though the dinosaur was dead, I didn't feel relieved or safe, because I could still feel blanks within my range of perception, and they seemed to be getting closer. I gave Soren a look, as we both took off into the forest, running in the direction of the underground city. While these monster are not that strong, their ability to siphon my own physical and supernatural strength to empower themselves was dangerous. Especially since they could do it with just a touch or graze.

Being encircled by these things was a recipe for a disaster, because being surrounded by too many of them means I would be dead before I even knew what happened. I don't know how they were made, but I felt as if all these monsters could kill a god in the right condition. But this was all just my speculation, for now I was just preoccupied with running from my life. Soren was keeping up with me as we vaulted over massive tree roots, scales the trunks of trees and swung from their branches like a pair of bizarre vampire monkeys.

We were moving through the forest in a really rapid manner, and unfortunately for this forest, Soren's and I left quite a trail of destruction in our wake as we escaped from the monsters within, utilizing the agility and dexterity of our bodies in the utilization of what I would simply dub 'supernatural parkour.Branches exploded to splinters when we swung from them, and whole trees collapsed to the ground when we pushed off them. Quite frankly we wereunstoppable in our approach, but we were not silent about it either, however I think Soren and I were past the point of caring.

Eventually we came up in front of a rather weird hill that jutted out of the ground, like a horn of some sort. It was quite huge, and traces of an old road could be seen leading up to a toll booth at the front of the hill. The toll booth was built on the cave like entrance on the hill, and above the hill was a watchtower that looked like it had seen better days. It was completely overrun by weeds and vines; vines that stretched from the watchtower all the way down to the toll booth, creating a sort of curtain over it's entrance.

There were two large mass of flesh standing guard in front of the toll booth. I can't even describewhat they look like, but they reminded me of that glutton of zone boss that I had to kill to assume ownership of the first city. They looked trolls that just kept on getting fatter and fatter until even their face was buried under a mass of flesh and they became confined to one environment. Based on the gem that's embedded in their chest and glowing all eerie like, I believe these guys were put here to stop anybody from going through.

I don't have time for any sort of prolonged fight, so the best and only thing I did was to kill these bastards before they realized what hit them. And that's exactly what I did, slashing my sword at them at full power, and watching with an upset stomach as the rune break, completely disseminated their entire genetic make-up, leaving them as nothing more but a pile of gooey flesh on the ground and very much dead. Soren looked at me as if to say I amethyst overboard, but all I could was raise my nose in the air and pretend I had no idea what he was talking about.

Before we move in, Soren brought his two paws together, striking his two front claws together to create sparks, that in turn grew into a blazing fire that covered all of his paws. His mane also caught on fire, along with his eyes, and soon enough a blazing hot red horn grew out of his head too. I was completely speechless about what I was seeing, I knew that Soren had control over a few other elements, but I never knew that his body could actually shift to match the usage of said elements.

Soren faced the curtain of vines, ignoring my unhinged jaw and sparkling eyes as he roared in the direction of the vines, releasing a stream of flames that began burning the vines with a prejudice. Almost immediately the vines began shrieking and screaming in a very human like fashion. The sound was so unnerving that I couldn't resist the urge to shudder as mg body broke out into a cold sweat and goosebumps covered the surface of my skin. I hadn't noticed that there was something wrong with those vines in the first place, but Soren did, and he most probably saved our butts.

In a manner reminiscent to real, normal, none screaming plants; the vines burned harshly releasing a thick cloud of smoke into the air and our surroundings. I guess Transylvania doesn't have to worry about pollution and global warming. This place was already a wasteland. Faces could be seen from within the thick white smoke as roiled and moved away with the coaxing of the wind. Souls, a lot of them, just like when I had fought Kali on the bridge into Transylvania.

I had a suspicion that whatever we had to face within the underground city that lay just below this hill, was in one way or another connected to Kali. Soul manipulation of any sort was not a mainstream ability, it was very rare, and even frowned upon as the idea of messing with the souls of the living and the dead did not sit well with a lot of people. And so far only Kali and the glutton zone boss had notable achievements in the manipulation of soul energy. But if you think about it, the mutation of the entire vampire race in Transylvania, came from the fact that they took divinity from a demonic goddess. And as such their ability to control souls would most probably also come from her as well.

Soren and I waited for almost twenty minutes before the vines stopped screaming, and almost another twenty minutes before the vines were all burnt to ash, and even then I noticed that the flames Soren had spat at the vines were still burning. It was only when he took a stellar forward that the flames finally died down.

I wanted to ask questions, but that could always be left for later, and in a much safer location. But with the part in front of us finally clear, we stepped through the now burnt away toll booth, and into the waiting elevator within the hill.And then…..we went down, straight into the belly of the beast.