Black Phoenix Heir

Chapter 41: Chapter 41 — Into the Forest 2

Chapter 41 — Into the Forest 2

Victor tightened his grip on the dagger.

I need to finish this quickly.

Before he could close the distance, the second beast opened its mouth.

Black energy began forming again.

Victor’s body moved before he had time to think.

He dashed sharply to the right.

The beam erupted past him a moment later, tearing through the trees behind him with enough force to send pieces of the trees flying.

Victor barely regained his footing before the first beast had another attack ready.

His eyes widened.

Already?

The black energy compressed.

Victor didn’t even know what to do.

All he had was a dagger and they had ranged attacks.

And they could fire them far faster than he had expected.

The second beast fired.

Victor dropped low.

The beam skimmed over his head, the heat singeing the hair at the top of his head.

He rolled across the ground.

Before he could rise, another beam came from the other beast.

Victor threw himself sideways.

The attack skimmed the edge of his clothes, scorching the fabric as it passed.

Victor landed hard and immediately scrambled back to his feet.

Another beam was already headed toward him.

He moved behind a tree.

The beam struck it.

BOOM!

The trunk exploded.

Victor dove away as chunks of wood rained across the clearing.

The fight had changed completely.

Victor wasn’t attacking anymore.

He was surviving.

Beam after beam tore through the forest. Trees splintered. Dirt erupted from the ground. Branches crashed down around him as Victor darted from one piece of cover to another, desperately searching for an opening.

His injured shoulder was becoming a problem.

Every time he moved his right arm, pain shot through it. His breathing grew heavier as the constant dodging began to wear him down.

Then he heard something beyond the clearing.

A distant roar.

Victor’s eyes flicked toward the trees.

Another roar answered from somewhere farther away.

Then another.

His expression hardened.

The noise from the fight was spreading.

The explosions and roars were announcing their location to everything nearby.

Victor ducked beneath another beam and felt the heat pass over his back.

I need to end this.

He couldn’t keep dodging.

Eventually, he’d make one mistake.

Victor kept moving while studying the two beasts.

Their attacks were powerful, but there was a pattern.

They needed a moment to gather the energy.

Victor also noticed something else.

Their positions.

If he moved carefully enough, he could force them to line up.

He began circling the clearing, using the trees to control their movements.

The beasts followed.

One moved left.

The other shifted behind it.

For a brief moment, their bodies overlapped.

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

That was all he needed.

The first beast opened its mouth.

Black energy began forming.

Victor waited.

The energy became denser.

The beast’s jaws opened wider.

Victor lowered his body.

Then the beam fired.

Victor exploded forward.

He moved slightly to the right, running parallel with the beam instead of trying to outrun it. The black energy tore past him close enough for the heat to sting his skin.

Victor pushed forward.

Then he jumped.

His body sailed over the beast that had fired.

For a split second, he was above it.

The second beast was directly behind.

Victor descended.

His dagger drove straight through the top of its skull.

He twisted the blade.

The creature released a deep, dying roar before collapsing beneath him.

Victor landed and immediately turned toward the remaining beast.

He was about to attack.

Then his danger sense flared.

Violently.

Victor didn’t know why.

He didn’t have time to think.

His body simply reacted.

He threw himself backward.

A black beam tore through the space where he had been standing.

Victor’s eyes widened.

Another beast stood at the far edge of the clearing.

A fourth.

It had entered the fight without him noticing.

The creature’s jaws were still glowing from the attack.

Victor barely had time to process what had happened before another thought struck him.

I’m running out of time.

More beasts were coming.

He could hear them.

He couldn’t afford another prolonged battle.

Victor turned toward the remaining beast and moved.

He slipped behind it and drove his dagger into its leg.

The blade sank deep.

The beast buckled.

Victor immediately climbed onto its back and straddled it as it thrashed violently beneath him. Its massive body shook with enough force to nearly throw him off.

Victor held on.

His injured shoulder screamed.

He ignored it.

He drove his dagger into the side of its face.

The beast roared.

Victor struck again.

The movement of the creature weakened.

Victor pulled the dagger free and turned toward the fourth beast.

It was already preparing another blast.

There wasn’t enough time.

Victor threw his dagger.

The weapon spun through the air.

It flew directly toward the beast’s open mouth.

For a moment, Victor thought the throw had failed.

Then the creature staggered.

The dagger had struck deep into the side of its skull near the temple.

Its crimson eyes lost focus.

The beast collapsed.

Victor stared for half a second.

It had been luck.

Pure luck.

But Victor wasn’t going to complain.

He sprinted toward the fallen creature and retrieved his dagger.

His chest heaved as exhaustion finally caught up with him. His injured shoulder throbbed violently, and his legs felt heavy beneath him.

He wanted to stop.

He couldn’t.

Another roar echoed through the forest.

Victor’s head snapped toward the trees.

Something was coming.

He moved immediately.

Victor rushed from body to body, quickly retrieving the monster cores and cutting away the most useful materials he recognized from his alchemy studies. Claws, horns, blood, pieces of hide—anything that could potentially serve as an ingredient was taken.

He didn’t have time to harvest everything.

He took what he could and ran.

Victor sprinted through the trees as fast as his exhausted body allowed.

He didn’t look back.

Not until something enormous moved behind him.

A massive tree bent violently in the distance.

Victor glanced over his shoulder.

Something stepped into the clearing.

Victor’s eyes widened.

The creature was enormous.

It walked on two powerful legs, its body towering above the surrounding vegetation. Its dark, rough hide stretched over thick muscles, while its massive head was dominated by an enormous jaw filled with rows of sharp teeth.

For one brief moment, Victor was reminded of a creature from Earth.

A Tyrannosaurus.

Except this thing was far larger.

It stepped into the clearing.

The ground trembled beneath its weight.

Victor watched as it lowered its massive head toward one of the dead white beasts.

Its jaws opened.

They closed around the corpse.

Crunch.

The creature lifted its head and tore the body apart.

Victor didn’t wait to see what happened next.

He turned and sprinted.

The forest swallowed him.

Behind him, another enormous roar shook the cavern.

Victor ran harder.

His shoulder burned.

His lungs screamed.

But he didn’t slow down.

He had come into the forest looking for Spirit Shrooms.

Instead, the forest had given him a lesson.

He wasn’t the strongest thing in here.

Not even close.