Traversing the dense jungle, keeping to the shadows to avoid detection, the white-strained young man jumped from tree branch to tree branch with force that was not befitting a mere man, leaving indentations on the weaker-built branches, making them sway in the wind.
It was easy enough to stay on the thicker branches and away from the critter-infested foliage. All around, insects and small predators wandered their home turf, some searching for fruit, others for smaller, weaker critters to fill the hole in their stomachs or to protect their territory.
Jumping over a sparrow, barely the size of a child's head, with blue patterns spanning its feathers, weirdly similar to the apes he had seen before. With startling speed, it approached a ripe, red, juicy-looking fruit.
Its plate of colors seemed a bit out of place in the blue and black forest surrounding it. The bird nosedived toward the opulent snack, with no hesitation persivable in its movements.
Hesitation was the first thing that had to die when traversing the wild, as if one stopped, one would be devoured by the creatures that had long shed it.
Natural selection wiped out all that could adapt, leaving behind only monsters, perfectly honed for the environment. Those that had the properties to survive in it and pass them on to their young.
Just as it was about to reach it...
Splat
Two big leaves closed, with a speed barely conceivable by the eye, closing in around the fruit and bird, attempting to steal it.
Boom
In the next moment, a bird-shaped hole appeared on the carnivorous plant, and another bird, looking exactly like the other, had suddenly plunged straight through the plant's closed maw with a frightening speed and an explosive sound following it.
Having taken the fruit with it as it slowed its descent, then started its ascent, planning to escape with its spoils, its talons bitting deep into the fruit, leaving behind a trail of red juice, giving off a sweet scent.
The original bird was nowhere in sight, neither its corpse nor a wounded sparrow was clenched between the plant's jaws. It had simply disappeared, replaced by its identical brethren.
Flapping its wings, the speed of its ascent quickened, the fruit leaving a nearly visible trail of scent behind it, which would soon attract other predators.
Bam!
Nothing more than a few feathers left behind where the bird once flew, something had swiped at it with great force, evaporating the small, fragile sparrow in an instant, splattering its insides across the big tree that had sprouted the fruit in the first place. A wooden tendril sprouting from the ground slowly retracted, moving back towards the tree.
And still, despite all the tree's efforts to gain the nutrients, a new contender appeared seemingly out of nowhere, a wolf covered in blue symbols stood there slurping up the biggest part of the splattered insides, and then disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared.
Almost like it had never been there in the first place.
"Quite envious dont you think?"
As Noctis watched the scene from a nearby tree, a relaxed voice came out of thin air. Noctis spat out in an annoyed tone, having had a nerve struck by the sentence.
"Being a weakling whose only survival strategy is to steal from the strong, with its only hope of survival eating what slips through the cracks? Unable to do anything when the time comes… Truly enviable."
Hearing a relaxed tone of rebuke, a bit offended by the harsh words.
"No—no, I meant being a third party that benefits when two fight, shouldn't that be the goal of every conflict?"
Calming down, the man with a white strand of hair let out a snort as he continued onward, with such little strife happening all around him on a constant basis. Nature's cruelty was in full display: the weak were eaten by the strong, and the strong consumed by the even stronger.
Reaching a more rocky terrain, making his unnoticed advance more difficult, a bad premonition started tugging at the back of Noctis's mind.
Having had such premonitions before, he asked, in a hushed tone, "Which way?"
When he asked, his startling speed began to slow, as if waiting for a response to his seemingly contemplative question. Having followed a straight line, the golden shimmer of the huge golden line in the distance had led the way this far.
"Left."
As he heard this, Noctis did not hesitate any longer, jumping to the left, picking up speed once more, keeping to the more densely packed area, when he heard a loud explosion in the distance to the right, a loud roar of a beast thundering through the forest.
"That took you quite long?"
Noctis asked in a hushed voice, not wanting to attract nearby predators.
"You know it's not my fault, the new environment has made it far more chaotic and difficult to read!"
Not answering, he did not rebuke either, staying in somber silence. Noctis continued traveling in this fashion, avoiding any predators as best he could for a few more hours. The golden light washing over the world grew stronger the closer he got to his goal, the once unreachable no longer so ethereal.
"Grrrrrowl"
He quickly jumped to the side, then dodged, falling off the branch he was standing on—a sharp claw barely missed his neck.
His fall from the tall tree was then stopped by a handful of strings he was holding on to, attached to the spot where he had been standing a second ago.
Frowning, the sharp fangs of a beast fell into his eyes, paired with a dark pelt littered with blue ethereal symbols. It was a wolf-like beast, similar to the one that had stolen the prey from the red meaty tree.
Staring at Noctis with a gaze filled with hunger, a blue light shone upon him as its three pairs of eyes shone with differing shades of blue.
Slashing at the threads holding Noctis up, the Wolf disintegrated a moment later, while jumping towards him.
Alertly watching this as he started to fall once more, Noctis heard a voice coming from within speak up, with a mocking tone. "Looks like it didn't like your view on its lifestyle."
Ignoring the comment, Noctis was now falling, and at the same time, he saw a golden string pointing towards the place he would soon land. In a breath's time, another golden string crossed his own, a meter above the point of contact with the ground.
Seeing this, Noctis chuckled, throwing out multiple threads extending out of his fingers, as they wrapped around a nearby tree branch, using the inertia to swing himself towards another branch, landing safely, if a bit roughly.
When he took a look back at the place where he was supposed to land, the first golden line had disappeared, while the other was replaced by the feral, dark-furred Wolf, its eyes filled with confusion, before locking on to Noctis, its hunger reigniting once more.
Jumping forward, the wolf disintegrated once more, every part of its body turning into light blue particles, before fading and disappearing as if nothing had ever been there.
Seeing this, Noctis was on full alert.
Having a premonition, he looked down, two golden strings crossing paths at his chest level.
Smiling lightly, Noctis jumped to the side. A moment later, the wolf's open jaw snapped shut at the spot where he had stood before, the beast's full figure revealing itself as light blue particles gathered from the neck down, its body quickly materializing.
Watching the vindictive joy of consuming its prey turn to confusion, the intoxicating sensation of its sharp teeth biting into flesh never arriving, three eyes found Noctis, who was still falling back, thrown by the inertia of his own jump, just about to hit the tree's trunk.
Not dying, not caught in its maw, completely unharmd.
Meanwhile, now smiling brightly, still flying backward, his mere two eyes observed every emotion running past the beast's six eyes with fascination and a bit of vindictive joy.
At the same moment, he closed his hand, his outstretched fingers quickly turning to a fist, as his distance to the beast steadily grew. Many once-loose strings, simply floating around them, suddenly grew tight as the distance Noctis flew increased, and the speed at which he was flying back lost energy with unnatural intensity, his body slowly being pulled back.
Watching the barely perceptible white strings flash with red light as they closed in around it, illuminated by a red, bloody luster coming from above, breaking through the ceiling of leaves, making them truly eye-catching for the first time.
All the surroundings it picked up with its six eyes, turned from a blue starry sea to one of blood and flesh, the change so fast it couldn't even dematerialize.
The wolf, before seen with a clearly joyous expression at finding an easy meal, was nowhere to be seen as it was replaced with a fear-filled, then pain-stricken, beastial visage.
The threads bite into its flesh, not distinguishing between fur, flesh, or bone—leaving it a bloody mess, the threads passing through its body, wrapping around its head tightly, slicing it into many small pieces.
It was dead.
Because of a singular moment of carelessness, the beast had lost its life.
"Puhhh"
Letting out a long and loud sigh of relief, finally having time to rebuke that annoying voice, stretching out his body while doing so.
"Weak, stays weak. In the end, I was right... Why are you so silent? Annoyed that I won? Hm, Hm. You know if I die you'll die too, right?"
"I dont think it's the time for that."
Raising an eyebrow, his arms still on his back, stretching it thoroughly.
"Why..."
Before he could ask, however, a premonition hit him once more.
Jerking his head downwards, he observed a singular golden thread, meeting five other golden threads, in a moment's time.
"Shit!"
Jumping forward, Noctis landed on another thick branch. Behind him, five more wolves appeared out of thin air, striking at his previous position.
Assessing the situation, Noctis had no time and sprang into a sprint, quickly starting to run towards the golden light that had been his goal from the very beginning, his fighting intent all but gone.
Three of the five wolves disappeared into a blue haze, while the other two started chasing him on the plain he himself traversed, jumping from branch to branch, quickly closing in.
Determined to run, the golden light illuminating his surroundings grew with every moment. At the same time, the engraving on his chest started to glow in a golden shimmer, strengthening his body.
Intuitively dodging claws and maws, emerging from seemingly thin air, a particularly big claw came dangerously close, leaving a shallow wound on his neck.
He jumped towards a particularly thick branch. As he saw a future he did not like, he quickly readjusted his jump mid-flight. The next moment, a wolf jumped out, materializing itself mid-lunge, appearing on the branch he had previously planned on landing on, taking a small bite out of his clothes covered in webs and strings, its original intent of going for Noctis's head staying unfulfilled.
Scrunching up his face from the biting real pain, Noctis was at a loss.
Buying him a bit of time, Noctis strained his right arm, pulling at something, a loose tree branch, snapping and falling on one of his pursuers, who was chewing on a bit of his flesh, almost crushing it to death. Sadly, before it died, it disintegrated into blue dust, escaping a certain death for every normal beast.
I can only kill them with quick, deadly hits, Noctis observed, weaving through the branches while the wolves hounded him. Each time he tried to retaliate, his attacks left nothing but shallow marks. Wounds that would cripple a normal beast simply faded into blue mist, the creatures shrugging them off as if they'd never happened. His traps delayed them at best, but unless he could strike with lethal precision, the wolves would dematerialize, escaping harm entirely. The margin for error was razor-thin, and every moment the threat of failing to deliver a killing blow kept his nerves razor-taut.
Bring in another predator? No, that wasn't the right approach. In the worst case, it would ignore the elusive wolves and go for the easy meal that couldn't disintegrate.
I need to head toward the golden light!
Making up his mind once more, he sped up even more.
Another wolf appeared right before him, blocking his path, the inertia of his jump throwing him forward, too strong to redirect his trajectory.
Going low, as he sped up even more, he pulled at seemingly nothing, closely dodging the snout of the towering beast, merely losing some of his raggedy outfit. He flew through its front legs and came out between the hind ones, his right and left arms pulling at a certain extremely sharp thread, the left one almost buckling under the pressure, still not fully healed.
Slice!
The beast collapsed the next moment before falling from the tree, all four of its legs cleanly severed.
Another wolf jumped after it the next moment.
"What bullshit, this day is supposed to be good to scout?"
He cursed out loud, letting his contempt be known.
Not getting a response, he hurried along the wolves, tight in pursuit, a few small flesh wounds appearing all over his body, along the way.
"Go to the right and leave the wood!"
Hearing this, Noctis suppressed the relief, following the instructions quickly.
Finding himself in a grassy field, illuminated by a faint yet strong golden glow, the golden light grew significantly stronger throughout the journey. It was before merely hidden by the canopy of leaves, but now shone upon him in all its glory.
A weak yet substantial feeling of invigoration spread through his body, almost convincing him that he was not starving to death, strength returning to his malnourished body, coursing throughout his veins, the mark on his chest lighting up, shining through the rags called his clothes.
But he knew that this could only temporarily fight back the hunger, merely giving a taste of salvation.
"At the very least, it's something."
Looking back, Noctis saw two wolves standing at the edge of the forest, not daring to go forth, as if something were intimidating them. One of them, clearly injured, had a visible hump in its step and needed protection from its compatriot.
His attacks seemed to have done something, at the very least.
Unable to mull over his achievements, he noticed an inconsistency.
Where is the fourth?
Boom!
Dodging back somersaulting, his body more flexible than ever before, a giant, pride-filled wolf manifested, clearly bigger than the others, its claw having missed its strike, leaving a crater in its wake.
The leader of the pack?
Not having a lot of places to fasten his threads on the free terrain, Noctis started creating a thread slowly with the intent to kill, charging up an attack with the intent to end this beast in a singular fatal strike, and grew stronger with the invigorating light shining upon him and the rune carved on his chest lending it strength.
Forming a ball of thread in his palms, the thread flowed out of each of his ten fingers, floating in the middle of the two hands.
Watching each other in a tight standoff, neither made a move. Noctis thought back on a battle he was once privy to, between a jung week and a strong, tall man.
Back then, the weak one planned to use a similar move and was terribly mangled as a result, losing without fail, in this head-on clash.
Letting out a silent chuckle, Noctis charged forward with frightening speed, leaving behind all thoughts of retreat as cracks formed on the ground behind him. The Alpha, in response, did the same, taking him on head-on, driven by pride and wrath. After all, Noctis had killed two of its family members.
Closing in on one another, just about to clash head-on, just like in his memories, Noctis was suddenly pulled to the side, his hands clapping together, compressing the thread ball, pointing at the beast.
At the same moment, threads grew tough, which were connected to his arm, pulling him to the side while moving the clenched hands across the creature's body, as he was pulled out of harm's way, an impossibly sharp wave of silk flew forward with great precision and force, colliding with the beast, and gliding straight through it.
It might have dodged the incredibly fast string in any other situation, but the inertia of its sprint threw it forward, making its attempt to dematerialize futile.
Its snout no longer visible, already desolving, leaving the face with three eyeless crevices, the half of the bony skull lay open, for all to see.
Splat!
Lying on the ground, Noctis quickly proped himself up, looking towards the Alpha and its pride, still not daring to enter the field.
Luckily, I'm not stupid enough to do the same.
The alpha wolf slowly turned its head, attempting to dematerialize, having stopped, watching every movement of Noctis as its eyes began to turn glacial, half of its face missing, blue sparks gliding upward, a layer of red gliding over the proud wolf's pelt.
Its head slid off its shoulders. A clean cut had severed the neck.