23 Tentacles

Whoosh…

A cold gust of wind swept through the dark and eerie forest as Ash stepped forward cautiously.

It has already been more than 5 minutes since he entered the lush greenery and no Phantom had attacked him yet.

'...'

However, his body was still as tense as a spring, ready to immediately respond to any threat that came his way.

Ash knew that the moment he lets down his guard it is the moment that his chances of dying increases twofold.

Crack...

Suddenly, a sound of branch breaking echoed in the area. Ash's head immediately snapped in the direction and right in time.

Hovering, right before him in the air was a strange tentacle with an unhinged hole filled with sharp, needle-like teeth.

Swish...

Ash immediately cut it with his sword, severing the 'head' from the tentacle. If he was just a second late, those sharp teeth would've buried into his throat and...

His body shook from the thought.

'That was too damn close...'

Cursing he gripped the handle of his sword tighter. That tentacle was not a phantom and he was painfully aware of that - his credits didn't increase as he cut it.

Thud...

Suddenly, heavy sounds resounded to his right and Ash immediately threw himself away, just in time as a few tentacles hit the ground where he previously just stood.

Creating some distance between himself and the unknown entity Ash raised his head. His eyes followed the trail of the tentacles, believing that there was a main body somewhere and was surprised, in a bad way.

Those 'things'... they stretched into the sky or rather into the trees. Suddenly, Ash felt something cold fall on his head.

Slowly, raising his hand to his hair, he touched the strange liquidy mass and brought it to his face. It had a terrible stench of rotten food and... blood.

'Saliva...'

His body froze momentarily.

Raising his head, he noticed a faint silhouette gazing at him from above. Two crimson-red eyes without any kind of reasoning stared at him, madness and hunger - the two only emotions burning within them.

For a moment complete silence filled the air...

"Damn!"

And then chaos ensued.

The phantom threw itself from the tree, falling onto Ash while also trying to ensnare him with the tentacles.

Ash, on the other hand, tried to cut the tentacles that blocked his way, trying to move out of the phantom's landing zone.

Just barely did he manage to evade the entity, feeling its claws brush against the collar of his uniform.

His sword was already stained with dark, ink-like blood of the beast's severed tentacles, but those things kept coming one after another, not receding in numbers.

While deflecting and blocking them, Ash caught sight of the Phantom who had already landed on the forest floor.

The creature was a humanoid abomination with sharp, knife-like claws, muscular legs that could easily allow the monster to travel distances at great speeds. Its skin was that of a charred wood, with many crevices and cracks running across it.

On its back, countless holes could be seen, from which tentacles that Ash kept severing repeatedly grew, weaving behind the creature like its hair.

However, the head of the monster was what made Ash frown in disgust.

The creature had no nose, neither did it have any hair, it didn't even have a nose or ears. Its face only had two eyes and a gaping hole, a mouth with silvery teeth that kept changing in size, growing and receding before Ash's eyes.

'You are one ugly being...'

Suppressing a gag, Ash cursed internally as he cut another tentacle that came his way.

From his observation, the creature wasn't too strong on the defensive front - its skin wouldn't be able to stop a direct attack from his sword.

However, the problem was that Ash wasn't able to reach the being. It always kept itself away from him, only coming close when Ash was too occupied with its tentacles to try to deliver a fatal strike with its claws.

Luckily, it didn't succeed... yet.

Slowly, Ash was becoming more and more exhausted.

He was more than aware that his body was in poor condition, he was a street rat after all. A few days of training wouldn't turn him into a trained veteran who would be able to fight endlessly for hours with no end. His hands were becoming numb, his legs tripping on each other, his eyes blurry from the ink-like blood that splattered on his face.

However, his mind was calm.

It was abnormally calm.

Although it was obvious that he was slowly losing the fight, he was too focused to worry about that.

His mind continuously kept searching for ways to slip from those tentacles and pierce his sword into the monster's cheat.

Ash was in a state of deep concentration.

He didn't even notice as his heart began to pump Light across his entire body. He also failed to realize that his bodily capabilities increased two fold because of that.

He was so focused he didn't even hear the AI's robotic voice announcing...