Alex turned in the direction of the crashing and banging near the carriages, many of the already restless commoners rose to their feet in shock — seeing the shards of wood and glass of what remained of the carriages raining down on them.
No matter the class of the villagers, they all panicked with their wails and screams soon accompanying the destruction occurring around them.
Chaos ensued as each and every villager didn't want to be one of the unlucky ones caught in the path of this unknown attacker. Some people even abandoned their own families to ensure they themselves could survive.
Alex was one of the few who kept his composure — somewhat, mostly because he had been prepared for something like this to happen the moment he was forced into the Primordial Expanse.
Calm and collected, he turned his gaze to his immediate vicinity, seeing that his two companions from his carriage were already long gone.
In the next second, a piece of splintered wood the size of a small child hit the ground only a few metres away from him, with an unfortunate fellow lying underneath it lifeless — his torso ripped away from the rest of his body.
Others panicked even more seeing this scene. More wood and even glass came showering down upon them, more were wounded, many already dead. Laboured groans and wails spread around the area.
"Run for the forest if you want to live!"
The head soldier shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to get his voice to reach as many ears as he could. However before the command could even make its way to the people's ears, a huge shadow made its way through the smoke and dust left behind by the carriages. Each step caused vague tremors through the earth beneath their feet.
It arrived right between the debris of the carriage and the piles of bodies unfortunate enough to be closest to the attack.
Before the dust and smoke cleared, it was but a vague but towering figure. However once the creature gave out a deep and humming snort, the air surrounding it was cleared and its figure was revealed for all to see.
'I have never seen a creature so big…'
Alex was in shock when the 10 metre tall behemoth revealed itself.
The creature looked like an elephant, but with dried brown and flaky skin adorning its lower abdomen, and a green — grass like hair sitting on top. Its long and stumpy legs looked like it could smash any man into paste with a simple step. But the most striking feature of the beast were the burning red eyes practically bulging out of their sockets with rage. The thing as a whole looked like a hill on legs.
On its elongated head, those burning red eyes regarded the silent and mortified citizens with nothing but uncontrollable rage — like it wanted to rip every single person there to shreds.
What really startled Alex though was that long and sturdy snout that had faint green lines running through it, looking like it was about to launch some kind of sinister light show.
'This is just too much for a Seeker…' He thought.
That was his last thought before the silence was broken by a deafening snarl coming right from the beast. Unfortunately for Alex, he was one of the unlucky ones standing closest to the behemoth. He could feel his eardrums bursting and blood pouring from every orifice in his face.
All hell broke loose when the roar finished. The creature moved from its position and appeared before the head soldier and the other higher officials among the soldiers.
Shock and horror filled their faces as they were unable to even follow the speed of the monstrosity with their naked eyes.
The creature slashed its trunk horizontally towards the row of soldiers atop their horses. A wild and rapid wind formed instantaneously as a green line of light flashed through the air sweeping the area around the soldiers and everyone behind them.
One second they were sitting there, stupefied on their horses — in a rush to escape. The next second each and every person hit by the green light was split into two, no exceptions.
Alex was a step ahead and knew something bad was coming the moment he saw the green lines wriggling atop its trunk. Not wasting a single moment he dropped to the ground, into a prone position.
His quick reaction saved his life but the main problem still remained, the beast clearly wouldn't just stop at that.
Temporarily deafened, Alex witnessed a huge shadow passing over him with the earth quaking all around him soon after. He couldn't hear it, but deafening screams filled the firelit environment. Not wanting to look what was happening behind him, he tried to lift himself up from the ground, but was stopped by a heavy feeling weighing his legs and back down.
Lifting bloody arms up as hard as he could, he still failed to free himself. Looking around him, he saw that he was covered from head to toe in the mangled corpses of the soldiers and the helpless civilians.
'As if things couldn't get any worse… Now I can't even escape. This is how I die, right?' Alex thought as he dropped his head down in resignation.
'Of course, how could a nobody like me with no talents or skills expect to survive in a place like this…'
Right as he was about to resign himself to death, something clicked in his mind.
"I can't give up like this!"
Alex clenched his teeth as he pushed with all his might, his muscles and veins bulging and adrenaline pumping through his veins.
As if through sheer willpower, Alex pushed the corpse atop him away and crawled out from the tiny gap it left — luckily for him there was only the top half of the corpse left, taking away the majority of the weight. Otherwise he would be stuck there for god knows how long.
He quickly glanced around at the slaughter fest and the distant figure of the elephant looking creature stomping and rampaging among the remainders of the screaming villagers.
'Something is not right with this.'
Alex grimaced, emptying his stomach shortly after.
Creatures of the Primordial Expanse had a hierarchy of their own, just like humans. Starting from the average beasts, which formed the majority of the population of the first trials. Next came Monsters — usually the leaders of a pack of beasts, followed by Magical beasts with powers resembling magic just like their title. Any higher level beast than that, Alex hadn't heard of but he was 100% certain there would be much more powerful creatures out there.
The first trial was always populated by Beasts with the rare Monster appearing occasionally. Alex had never heard of anything above that level appearing near first arrivals. Especially in the age of the intergalactic internet.
But considering how information about the Primordial Expanse are heavily restricted from the general public, it wouldn't be wrong of him to think this was just another one of those cases.
Perhaps such information was hidden to not terrify the populous, especially with how already nervous they were towards the Primordial Expanse.
But there was no time to think too much in a situation like this!
Whether he was right or not, his only ally was himself in this place.
The creature had just finished stomping the last surviving person to a paste when its gaze turned towards Alex.
'Fuck.'
He couldn't even blink before a huge whirlwind formed in front of the creature and started moving towards him at a rapid pace, sending every corpse flying, along with Alex.
After 10 straight seconds of air time, he felt his body hit something hard and solid and his vision faded.
When Alex opened his eyes again, the sky was blue and clear. Warm sunlight shone on his face, making his eyes narrow slightly in discomfort.
A light breeze brushed past his face, bringing with it the aroma of a stench of rotting corpses mixed with that of the grass and dirt.
Alex suddenly bolted up from his position when the stench reached his nose, his face clenched as he groaned and tried to groggily remember the events of the night prior.
Soon, his memories started to become less and less blurry as the events from the previous night slowly unfolded in his mind. And when it all became clear to him…
He fell to his knees, short of breath. His whole body was aching with pain that he could only describe as an 11/10 on the scale, but he completely ignored that as he felt his stomach retching in even more pain after emptying its contents all over the ground.
Somehow, he miraculously survived the attack of that behemoth-like creature, only recalling the events up until he was thrown away by the last attack it launched.
A few moments later, he forced himself to come back to his senses and looked around, trying to make light of his situation.
'Man this place really did take a beating.' Alex thought.
Every other living person around him was dead. However he was only affected by the gruesome scene before him physically. Mentally he felt detached from the death and horror as he had seen many of his former friends and co-workers die in the mines, fully expecting himself to join them if not for the Primordial Expanse pulling him in to its realm.
Just when he was about to breathe a sigh of relief though, his face froze at the familiar sight before him.
[You have survived the attack of a Higher Lifeform, Galephant.]
Alex was exhilarated. The satisfaction and relief of surviving the attack of such a high level creature was so overwhelming that he forgot to read even further into the message.
But he didn't let the joy of surviving consume him for too long as he realised that he could still be attacked again at any time.
He looked around with vigilance, double checking the area for any sign of life other than himself, only having his sight and hearing to rely on which wasn't very reliable.
Since he only had such a limited area of coverage, he managed to stay fully focused as he proceeded to make his way out of the forest where he landed and back into the clearing.
However, when he arrived the first thing he saw was a huge rabbit peacefully gnawing on the corpse of the head soldier.
At this moment, the 1 metre tall rabbit seemed to have noticed something. Its long ears shot up in vigilance as it suddenly looked straight at Alex.
It had fiery red eyes with blood dripping down its mouth as it continued to chew through the leg of the soldier captain.
When he finally saw the rabbit's mouth open for the first time, revealing the rows of razor sharp teeth, sweat started pouring down Alex's forehead.
'I should've run away the moment I noticed the rabbit…'
Alas, he didn't get what he wished for.
At this moment, the huge rabbit's powerful hind legs slammed against the ground, making an audible thud that Alex could hear clearly. Mixtures of grass, dirt and blood were kicked up in the air as the white furry rabbit rapidly neared Alex.
The gap between them from over a hundred metres to ten in just a few seconds. The rabbit pounced up in front of Alex, it's fluffy paws hiding sinister and sharp claws that it used to slice at his neck with lethal precision.
Alex's fight or flight kicked in as he forced himself to dodge the imminent attack. He subconsciously leaned backwards, dodging the attack on his neck but falling down on his back as a consequence.
Kreee! Screech!
The rabbit showed some verbal annoyance at missing its prey.
Before Alex could even recover, the rabbit landed, twisting it's claws and swiped at his leg.
There was a slight groan and the razor sharp claws sliced through Alex's shin like butter. Blood seeped out from the wound and dyed the rest of his legs red.
"Fuck! Shit!"
Panic and realisation dawned upon Alex it occurred to him that he might not survive this time.
He only had one option left at this point.
Attack!
Alex was no fighting prodigy but he did have a well developed body, forged by his many years in the mines. He grabbed the nearest object he could find, a shard of wood from one of the destroyed carriages.
When the rabbit came charging at him again, his eyes went cold as he performed the only swinging motion he was experienced with.
He swung the decent sized piece of wood over his shoulder, much like swinging a pickaxe.
Still laying on his back, he could only rely on the power delivered through this one attack before the full force of the rabbit came crashing on top of him.
Luckily, the huge rabbit was struck by his attack, offsetting it's landing enough to be clear of his body.
But that wasn't enough to take it out, in fact he only left a shallow wound on the rabbit's chest, spewing a pitiful amount of blood compared to the injury it left him with.
Thus, Alex put aside any pain he was feeling and sprung back up to his feet, pointing the sharpest side of wood at the rabbit as he took the initiative this time.
"I'm gonna rip your stupid rabbit skull to shreds! Do you hear me, you little shit?!"
He clenched the wood tightly and twisted his waist to add even more power, this time he struck the back of the rabbit's neck with as much strength as his body could muster up.
Almost immediately, the effect of this attack was much more obvious than his previous one as the huge rabbit began to wobble slightly.
'It's defence is several times weaker than its offence!'
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