บท 187: THIS is THE Forest Spirit?!

The horrifying needle-like protrusion coming out of the featherless Silver-banded Eagle ended its life swiftly. Hana and co. finally noticed that those were actually umber woody vines which grew at a rate that the naked eye couldn't see; they were simply too fast! The time needed for the sinister 'tree' to grow was like a spark flashing by upon an ember. Without the help of Pi-chan, they would be gravely injured, if not dead. The vines did not choose their enemies; they just spread out in all directions like a burst of firework for a split second. No one could have expected that the tyrannical Silver-banded Eagle would become a hedgehog before blowing itself up. Its ending was tragic, to say the least.

Hana had thought that she would definitely kick the bucket this time, since her trusted guardians were not by her side as usual, shielding her from harm. However, God still gave her a chance to live. She held up her palms towards her face and wept. A myriad of emotions welled up within her, making her feel overwhelmed.

Life was short and fleeting.

Especially in this mysterious land, one careless mistake will spell one's doom. It could end at a flick of a finger. What will happen after that? Hana now carried the burden of preserving the lives of many creatures, not just her own. Moreover, Arash would have waited for years without knowing she had passed on, hoping upon hoping for her survival.

She steeled her heart, wiped away her tears and pushed her anguish deep within. She held her head high, exuding confidence again after that short moment of weakness. She had to. As the de-facto leader of the Serpent's Lair, she could not show how much a wreak she was inside. However, all creatures bonded with her knew her true feelings as if they were their own. In separate locations, they too, drew in a deep breath and tried to calm down the turmoil they felt within their soul. They knew the remnants of the heavy emotion was inadvertently delivered to them by their Mistress through the Soul-link.

…

The woody vines finally receded after a while, revealing chunks of meat from the dead Silver-banded Eagle strewn over the forest floor, dyed in blood and gore. The vines had cut the late Eagle Boss into tiny pieces. Everyone waited with bated breath while readying themselves. Will the creature who axed out the Silver-banded Eagle Monarch into tiny chunks became a friend or a foe?

One minute passed by, then five minutes… Fifteen minutes…

Hana exchanged glances with the weakened Shiro who was in her embrace. Shiro was trying hard to stay awake before. Once, he ascertained that the eagle had truly died, all the tension was gone like a river that flows downhill. The Mirage Fox finally couldn't hold it in and succumbed to his exhaustion; Shiro finally slipped into a deep sleep which could not be waken up. Hana panicked for a while, but when she could sense Shiro's breathing, she finally relaxed a little. She sighed and rubbed Shiro's head lovingly.

Hana looked around with worry as she tried to find Kuro in the piles of destruction ahead. She knew her doted pet was nearby; she could sense him through the Soul-link. The final attack from the unknown woody vines had made her extra nervous. Kuro was the closest to the Silver-banded Eagle Monarch aside from her group. She really hoped Kuro wasn't being impaled by stray vines.

[Mommy, don't worry. That bugger is a coward. It has exhausted all of its strength to release a strike of such magnitude.]

Kuro had scanned the surrounding and found that the Forest Spirit's life was just like a tiny flicker of flame threatening to burn out anytime. It must have put everything on the table in order to survive. Still, Kuro was immensely surprised with the Forest Spirit's prowess. Truthfully, he had looked down upon it for a while now since it could only do some petty tricks. He hoped by inciting the Forest Spirit, it could somehow distract or delay the Eagle Boss for him to keep on delivering deadly attacks from his side. Who knew it had the power to kill it with a single awe-inspiring sinister attack. Now, he was beginning to wonder whether the Forest Spirit was really only a Noble-classed spiritual beast.

Many things ran through Kuro's mind. But he didn't voice out his concern. Mommy was shaken badly so many times today. Kuro, who was the closest to the Mistress, could detect that Hana's soul was on the verge of fracturing. Something must have happened while he was away; something major that had to do with Mommy's family from the unknown place. He had been too preoccupied with hunting the Forest Spirit and being hounded by the Silver-banded Eagles previously to notice the details. But he did feel Mom's emotional turmoil. It was the worst he ever felt since the first time he met her two moons' back. She needed time to heal herself first before they could go into the details about future matters. He needed to be Mommy's pillar of support since 'Papa' wasn't performing his job properly.

…

"Really? Thank goodness." Hana patted her pounding heart. She thought that another more powerful enemy had appeared. They had exhausted all of their resources to defeat the group of Silver-banded Eagles and was currently at their most vulnerable moment. They simply could not afford to confront a new enemy now.

Kuro's telepathic explanation washed away Hana's worry as she nodded with a relieved expression. She trusted Kuro's judgement above all, considering how apt his actions were in most situations they had been through together. She was the one who kept on making a blunder over several important matters.

Hana stopped hesitating and immediately instructed the Elemental Fiends to gather all the reddish meaty chunks without batting her eyelids. In her eyes, those pieces of meat made her reminisced about cubed chicken meat; she cut chicken into tiny pieces almost everyday in their humble apartment. It was Arash most favorite choice of meat after all. The smallest meat pieces were as large as a turkey; they will have so much high-quality meat for quite some time considering that they have a house's worth.

Underneath all the scattered bloody meat, ruptured organs and whitish brain matter was an animal the size of a water buffalo with four hooves-like limbs. It was lying down on its side with unfocused gaze. Green liquid, presumably its blood, was flowing out from its snout everytime it wheezed with labored breath. It looked like it was on its final moment. From afar, Hana could see that the weakened animal was half black and half white! Her eyes went wide in disbelief!

THIS was THE Forest Spirit?!

It was obviously an injured tapir!

The adorable black and white coat! The roundish shape! The snout! The size! Okay, the size was somewhat bigger than she anticipated. Tapirs were supposed to be half the size of a buffalo, and should be shorter too, right?

However, something wrong was glaringly obvious; the 'tapir' had two soft-spiral-like horns on its head. It resembled the horns of a kudu. The horns were more glorious as compared to Maleficient's weird horn-like hair ornament. What made Hana mouth twitched was the presence of soft green leaves attached to the beautiful woody black horns! Those leaves were obviously not ornaments but truly grew from the main horns. The white part of its abdomen was actually tiny white flowers crowded together forming a carpet-like whitish fur. They were not drawn flowers like a painting or birthmark, but 3D live-like flowers the size of clovers. One wouldn't notice unless one critically observed the tapir's body properly. At the edge of its hooves where its black coat ended were adorned with fresh green leaves, making them the highlight besides the majestic horns and the obscure tiny white flowers.

These anomalies made Hana scrunched her brow deeply, trying to figure out the classification of the creature in front of her. Was it an animal or a plant? Was it really a tapir in the end?

Hana peered from behind King and walked near the animal with shining eyes. Once her nervousness faded away, replaced by fanaticism, she forgot to observe danger, as usual. She cleared her throat and tried to be as soft-spoken as possible with the animal. She didn't forget to put on a kind smiley face to make the animal-veggie creature eased its guards towards her.

"Hello, Sweetie. Don't be afraid. We're here to help you."

Its gaze refocused once it heard Hana's voice. It had big deep emerald green eyes which melted Hana's heart immediately. Hana immediately walked to its head and tried to pat its head gently to ease its nervousness. Once it saw the hand came close, it tried to move its four hooves in panic, but thankfully, it couldn't. Hana would've been kicked away. It whimpered softly in fear as it closed its eyes shut!

Once Hana's hand landed on its head, she immediately caressed its head warmly. The fur on the head felt a little rough as opposed to how soft it looked. Hana's hand immediately reached out to the spiral-like horn to touch the green leaves with curiosity. She rubbed the leaves gently and saw the creature winced in agitation.

[As expected! The leaves were real!] Although Hana had prepared her heart, feeling it for herself gave her a mental blow!

Is this the Forest Spirit you've been trying to bring over, Sweetie?

[Yes, Mommy. Take this chance while it is still vulnerable and add it to the family! It could bring prosperity to our future crops! Fast-fast!] Kuro encouraged the aunty immediately. He did not add that at other times, the annoying bugger would've run so swiftly and disappeared once it got its mobility back, one couldn't even notice its shadow.

Hana nodded urgently. She remembered their objectives and plans. This creature will play a big part in the development of their very own 'farm'.

"Come, come. Just open your mouth. It's medicine! You will get well in a jiffy." Maintaining her shameless pokerface, the aunty good-naturedly dripped blood from her nicked fingers over the partially opened mouth of the Forest Spirit while being held down by Kuro. The Forest Spirit was too spent to retaliate and could only accept what was done to it with confusion and regret. Slightly surprised, it was bewildered by the fact that it couldn't understand what the creature with the long black mane was talking about. However, it knew that it needed to cooperate to stay alive, especially when the cursed Serpent was strangling its neck.

The basic Soul-link was established as easy as A-B-C, without any fanfare. Hana called for Ara to send over some All Cure Pellet to help the newly enlisted sla.. ehem, contributor of the team, now tentatively known as Ta-chan. As her group grew, Hana had stop thinking about fancy names. Since it was actually a tapir, she just shortened it to Ta-chan, super easy.

Once the Soul-link was formed, Ta-chan had been in a daze; most probably it was super overwhelmed with the sudden 'traffic' within the public telepathic zone. As an introverted spirit beast who befriended only trees, the sudden onslaught of information and noise had made it so meek and quiet. The worst thing of all, it couldn't run away from it all since the noises were in its head!

…