Forest of Cursed Souls
It had been several hours since Jacob left to get supplies. When Sarah woke from fainting, she found a note from Jacob explaining where he went and that he'd be back soon.
She couldn't help but feel bad, because of her actions, Jacob had to risk going to the cave by himself. Normally, venturing into The Forest of Cursed Souls was relatively safe, if you stayed on the paths.
However, the last year had seen numerous monster attacks all over the forest. It was as if something was riling up the monsters and making the forest more dangerous for travel.
If that wasn't bad enough, the area of the forest where the cave was located, was near the central area of the forest. All of the strongest monsters lived here and they weren't fond of trespassers.
If these monsters caught you, you'd never be seen again. Many adventurer teams have disappeared in the forest due to the increase of monsters. Sarah hoped and prayed for Jacobs safety and quick return.
Meanwhile, Jacob had just made it to the hidden cave. He was completely exhausted and needed to rest. He had been on the move since he got to the forest. He had a run of bad luck since he arrived.
First, when he got to the forest he was spotted by a Lightning Leopard! Luckily, he felt it's aura long before it could surprise attack him. When it appeared, he was well prepared for a battle.
'This lightning Leopard is very fast, I need to keep my eyes on it at all times. I also should watch out for its tail and claw attacks.' Jacob begins talking to himself so he doesn't get distracted.
The Lightning Leopard suddenly leaps forward trying to pounce on Jacob. Not expecting the speed of the attack, Jacob barely manages to block the attack with his swords.
'This thing is faster than I thought, based on it's size I thought I could handle it, but judging from its speed I'm severely outmatched. I can try that but it'll be risky.' If he couldn't kill it with this trick, then he'd have to flee, he wasn't confident about fighting head to head.
Jacob launches a flurry of sword slashes at the Lightning Leopard, the monster was fast but it didn't expect Jacobs fierce counterattack.
The Lightning Leopard was able to dodge the majority of Jacobs attacks, but a few managed to find their mark. When the attacks struck, the Lightning Leopard was sent flying over several feet. It hit several trees, snapping them like dried twigs. By the time it landed and shook off its daze, Jacob was almost 200 feet away, and gaining ground fast.
When the Lightning Leopard saw it's prey escaping, it released a mighty roar, which caused other monsters in the area to run and hide. The Lightning Leopard takes off while leaving an afterimage behind. It's speed nearly doubling as it uses its Lightning ability to go faster.
When Jacob sees the Lightning Leopard leaving afterimages, he knows he's in trouble. He puts more energy into his legs, pushing himself faster and faster, blowing past his body's physical limits.
As Jacob runs, he heads for his hidden cave, knowing the area, he believes he has a better chance of killing the Leopard, if he can make it.
With Jacobs extra effort, he's able to stay ahead of the Lightning Leopard by a good distance. As he gets closer to his cave, Jacob turns and heads towards the trap he setup long ago for situations like this.
'I'm almost there, just a few more seconds.' Jacob keeps repeating in his mind. Right before he gets to the trap, he feels the threat of death at his neck and quickly jumps to the side.
Not a second later, a large blue Lightning Blast hits where Jacob had just been. 'A second later and that would have hit me, if it did I'd be dead for sure.' The spot where Jacob had been, was know a charred, barren spot of earth. The heat from the Lightning Blast had even turned some of the sand to glass. It'd be beautiful, if it wasn't so deadly.
After just narrowly avoiding the Lightning Blast, Jacob was able to get into position to spring his trap, he just needed the Lightning Leopard to attack once more and it'd be over.
However, after chasing his prey for so long and wasting his energy on missed attacks the Lightning Leopard was getting tired. It had never took this long to capture prey, it finally gave up and turned to leave.
Jacob had a split second to decide if he should let it go or attack as it try's to leave. After everything the Leopard done to catch Jacob, he was ready to fight to the end.
Pulling on the last bit of his energy, Jacob prepares his strongest attack, and rushes at the Leopard. When the Leopard sees it's prey running towards it, it stops and turns back ready to kill its prey.
However, Jacobs intention wasn't to attack head on, he wanted to lead the Leopard to where he wanted. Luckily the Leopard, being as tired as it was, wasn't totally aware of its surroundings. When Jacob was in position he sheathed his swords and took out a red and blue gemstone from his bag.
"I was hoping to save this for a real emergency, but you've pushed me into a corner little cat. For making me use this, you'll die here and become resources for my family to grow stronger. Come, little cat, I'm ready to send you to hell."
The Lightning Leopard was a very intelligent creature, it had reasoning skills and a good understanding of it senses, but it had chased its prey for hours and was running out of energy. It growled deeply when it heard it's prey talking to it, it didn't understand the words but when Jacob called it little cat it felt the insult from his words.
With that the Lightning Leopard was furious, it no longer thought rationally, in its anger it failed to notice the aura of its prey getting stronger.
At this time the Leopard makes an all out dash straight at Jacob, determined to kill its prey this time. Only, Jacob had prepared this area long ago. When the Leopard was just about to jump and make its attack, Jacob tosses the red and blue gemstone at the Lightning Leopard.
On contact with the gemstone, the Leopard was instantly covered with frozen flames. It could feel it's body being burned and froze at the same time. It howled in pain for a few seconds before it finally died.
After the Lightning Leopard died, Jacob decided to drag its body back to the cave and resting before cleaning the beast and collecting it's usable parts. Different parts of different beasts could be used for many things.
Tools, weapons, armor and medicine was just a few uses of monster parts. The meat of a slain monster was also a good source of renewable energy for warriors and mages. Plus, depending on the level of monster, the meat could improve someone's health after eating it.
After he got enough rest, Jacob harvested all the usable parts of the Lightning Leopard. He was excited because he had gained a very valuable monster core this time. "I knew there was something strange about that Leopard. It was actually a whole three ranks higher than I thought." He had made a mistake while identifying the Lightning Leopard.
He had believed it to be a basic monster, but when he examined the core, it was actually an emperor rank monster core. Monsters had different ranks compared to companion beasts.
Companion beasts have three ranks, Regular, Legendary and Divine. Monsters have six ranks. They are Basic, Advanced, King, Emperor, Legendary and Demon. Each rank of companion beasts were strong enough to fight two tiers of monsters.
Jacob was shocked, he fought an emperor ranked monster by his self and won. He knew he lucked out due to the Lightning Leopard running out of energy, if he hadn't exhausted the Leopard before fighting it, he was sure he would've died in that battle.
When he had rested enough to return to Helgard, he packs some supplies and exits the cave. He blocks off the entrance to keep animals and monsters out and begins his journey back to the city.
'Another couple hours and I'll be back with Sarah and Jax. I hope Sarah's wounds are ok, I left some bandages and medicine but I'm worried it's not enough, I need to hurry.' While Jacob was thinking, and keeping a lookout for monsters, he didn't notice the three human shadows following him.
These shadows are the reason this forest has its name. These shadows are actually Cursed Souls that died here and can't move on. They have so much regret over their deaths, they become evil spirits that feed on pure spirits energy.
Without the Church of Light's holy blessing or an item that reveals these spirits, no one is able to detect them until the moment before they attack. Something about them being spirits makes it extremely difficult to notice them unless they make the decision to attack.
The largest shadow, which stood above and behind the others, signaled for them to attack. They had watched the battle between Jacob and the Lightning Leopard. They were planning to attack mid battle and kill both of their prey, but the human took out a powerful weapon to use on the Leopard.
Seeing this weapon, the spirits decided to wait and kill the winner or the battle. It'd be prefect since one target was already dead, and the other target would be weakened from the fight.
However, when the fight ended they were, disappointed to see their prey still had enough energy to escape. Not wanting to let this meal go, they followed Jacob to his cave.
Here they finally thought they could corner the human and kill him but as they approached the cave a very powerful protection barrier kept them from entering. Undeterred, the leader shadow motions with its hands and the other too spread out and they all start to wait. Time doesn't really matter to beings who are already dead, besides now that there dead they couldn't even sense time passing.
Their patience paid off because, a day after they started waiting their prey resurfaced and started to head away from the protection barrier. They start to close in on their prey as he fully exits the barrier.
As Jacob leaves the cave area, he starts to feel that he's being watched and followed. He looks around to see if he can spot the cause of his unease. 'Nothing there, huh, I could have sworn….' In the middle of his thought he hears sinister laughter and the next moment he loses consciousness.
The Cursed Souls used their strongest skills to incapacitate Jacob. They already seen how strong this human is, they didn't want to take chances.All three used their Soul Sleep and Soul Lock skills on Jacob.