Chapter 20: Chapter 20. The New Land
The new land wasn't barren. There were plains and grassland. There were plenty of vegetations and plants. And though it couldn't exactly be termed as lush rainforest, there were some woodlands and savannas. Going through the outskirt of woodlands was my favorite path. I preferred not to enter them too deep. Who knew what kind of animals this new land had. I heard weird noises from deep inside. It's not a good time to be adventurous. As long as it could provide cover for me from the purger's eyes, then it's good.
Whenever I was out of the purger's direct line of sight, I could use flashlight and had better sight of my surrounding. The flora here didn't look like something we could find in any part of our old Earth. This new land was definitely gods' doing. I meant that this was a fresh and newly created land, it's not merely raising the seabed of this area. To create such a land, complete with the existence of a variety of foreign plants, and probably animals, was more than enough to amaze anyone.
I wasn't claiming to be good with botany since I couldn't even name most of the tree in our original world. However, I was almost sure that the plants and trees here weren't something original of our Earth.
One of the plant I found had a greenish purple budding flower which seemed to be waiting for sun ray to open up. It had a slight reaction when I pointed my flashlight at it, but ultimately closed again. It wasn't the budding flower with combine colors that made me think it's not something we had before, it's the stem. The stem had something moving inside, it's like a small elastic pipe that was transferring unknown stuff up the stem toward the budding flower. The moment I saw this, I backed off, putting some distance away from them. I sure didn't want to be the first Acolyte to be surprised and eaten by this weird plant.
The flora wasn't the only thing looked strange, even the rocks were pretty special too. I couldn't help feeling awe. The moonlight reflected prettily on some stones, making me think that these were similar to valuable gems that we used as accessories. But, what was most interesting is the existence of rock that didn't reflect the light. Neither moonlight nor the light from my flashlight was reflected. It absorbed light? No, that's not right. If it absorbed all spectrum of light then it should be black, but this rock was grey instead.
My head hurt thinking about all this extraordinary stuff. Since there's nothing I could do, I should just let them be.
This new land, if not for the existence of purgers, was heaven for scientists and adventurers. Oh, also for the hunters and nudist camps. Alright, alright, it's an interesting place for just about anybody.
As dawn was nearing, trickles of sunlight was starting to bath the new land. I wasn't in the dark any longer. It was becoming easier to spot me. I got to find a place to hide and rest without actually getting deeper into the woods. It was at this time I spotted a swamp-like area where weird looking trees grew. I dashed toward the swamp in a hurry. My logic was simple, if it was easier for me to see them then it would be easier for the purgers to see me too. The assumption I made was that the orange-eyed had better eyesight when compared to me.
The water of the swamp was dark. I didn't know what kind of water that was and whether it's harmful to us or not. I climbed up one of the nearest trees at the border of the swamp. I didn't need tools for this, the tree bark's texture made it possible to climb by making use of it. It wasn't as brittle as most tree bark in our old world. From this tree, I checked the surrounding.
The next nearest tree was about seven meters away. I prepared myself to jump to it. Being an Acolyte, the distance should not be a problem for me. My muscles strength was enough to propel me that far. It was the landing that's slightly a nuisance since the tree was not a flat land. And this particular tree had no thick branch I could use as landing choice. I did athletic during school days, but I got to admit that this was somewhat different. Well, a man got to do what a monkey got to do.
I jumped and reached that other tree which I grab tightly. I did this because I didn't want to test the dark water. "Phew, not so bad," I complimented myself a bit.
After that first jump, I was more confident. I kept jumping from tree to tree, consecutively about eleven times when I felt I've reached deep enough into the swamp. I chose the only tree in the near surrounding that had thick enough branch for a grown man to sit on relaxly. There was no other tree as thick as this one.
I reached inside my bag and took out two military knives that I got from the troops at Incheon. I planted them on the tree, one knife for each of the outer side of my upper arms. It pinned me and prevented me from falling to either side.
Since the sun had started rising, the sunlight pricked into my eyes. It's making it hard for me to peacefully closed my eyes. Before the Doom, I had myopia, meaning I wore glasses when I need to read or see far in the distance. This condition changed after I evolved, my eyesight got better and I didn't need to wear glasses any longer. Because of using myopia glasses, I hated using sunglasses, and that's why I overlooked taking one. With or without sunglasses, I still needed to sleep. I pulled the hoodie on my jacket to cover my head and, to some extend, my eyes. It wasn't easy to try to sleep with so many things happening and various thoughts swirling in my mind. In the end, though, because of being tired, I still fell asleep.
----
I woke up to a sound.
It was like the sound of water being pickep up. And then there were sounds of schuffling and deep growl. I kept my calm. Judging from the volume, the distance was not near me anyway.
I pulled out the two knives at my two sides and put them inside their sheaths. Slowly, I took a peek at the direction of the sounds.
Several purgers were at the border of the swamp. They didn't see me. But it was afternoon already and since the sun was on one of my side, I had to be careful so my shadow wouldn't give me away. The purgers were coming and going. They used their hands to scope out the dark water. They were drinking it. So now I knew that at least to them the water was alright. Still, I wouldn't touch it. What was fine for the monster might not necessarily be alright for human.
The distance between my spot and the side of the swamp where the purgers were drinking was more than a hundred meters. The reason why I was able to hear them was because they were simply too many of them. And they were loud too. I still wasn't sure how to categorize the way they talked to each other. Was it chattering or babbling? I decided to use prattling for the time being.
I waited until the last of them left the swamp. It was almost dark when that happened. I prepared to leave. Just as I was about to jump, something caught my attention. It was a weird creature. It resembled a snake physically but with the addition of four wings.
It saw me and immediately changed its stance. Swoosh! The creature flew toward me.
I took my knife out, getting ready. By the time the creature was within reach, I swung my knife and it landed right on the body of the creature, directly under its head. But to my surprise my knife failed to penetrate it. It was like meeting a body made of stone. On top of that, the creature was very fast. In an instant it managed to trap me by entangling my upper body to the tree. I couldn't even move my arms.
The snake-like creature opened its mouth and landed its teeth on my neck. I managed to activate Titan Armor before it does. The creature was perplexed that its sharp teeth failed to hurt me. It tried and tried again. At the same time it also tightened the entanglement.
This was not good. If it continued like this then there were three things that could've happened. One, the entanglement could suffocate me to death immediately. This had the lowest chance of happening, I didn't think the snake-like creature could break my Titan Armor. Two, while my Titan Armor would save me, the tree would break under the pressure. This also had low possibility of happening since the tree seemed quite strong. The last was that we were at a standoff. The snake-like creature couldn't crush me, but at the same time I couldn't get away. I felt this was the most likely scenario and it's bad too because I didn't know who amongst us would run out of stamina first.
Now, the last batch of purgers was still in a visible distance so I wanted to wait for a bit more before taking action. The creature didn't have the same idea, it's tightening its entanglement.
'Krek!' Part of the tree on the other side cracked under the pressure. This caught me by surprise since I felt this tree was tough enough. How strong was this snake-like creature?
Krrrrk!
When I heard the next noise, I knew I can't wait any longer. I had to risk it. Earth Breaker! I stomped my feet on the tree. The creature was instantly affected, just as I predicted, and its grip was loosening. I used this chance to free my right hand and a greenish translucent sword appeared. Fiery Sword cut through the creature's body freeing me almost completely.
The creature shrilled in pain. It tried to bite me with everything it has but still failed to harm me. I was frantic due to its shrill, I hacked my sword and the creature was cut into more than two pieces. I tried to catch the falling pieces of the creature, but only managed to catch one.
Splash! The noises when the parts of the creature's body entering the dark water was like cold water splashing on me.
At that moment, I heard growling sound from the direction of the leaving purgers. I was scared. If the purgers missed the shrill, they definitely didn't miss the sound of big snake-like creature body parts falling into the water. They were definitely coming back. And they weren't coming back with just a few of them. They kept making growling and screeching sounds loudly until they got the attention from the camp. Sure enough, a horde of purgers was coming to the swamp.
Darn it all! There's no other choice now. I immediately jumped to the nearest tree in the opposite direction of the purgers.
"Oh!" This tree swayed as it was much thiner and not as sturdy as the one I was staying before. The next tree was even thiner, looking like a malnourished one. I didn't have much choice because the other trees were even further away. Between jumping as far as 10 feet and a thin tree, I chose the later. The tree wasn't only thiner, it's a bit slimy on its bark. Almost falling, I exerted more strength in a hurry to grab it.
I've got to be more careful. Despite knowing that the water was drinkable for the purgers, I still didn't want to test it. From one tree to another I kept jumping until I saw the end of the swamp. I landed on the red soil again. The horde of purgers was on my tail. Some of them were in the water while the rest were following from the side of the swamp. They were running so fast it frightened me.
I ran and ran as fast as I can.
The ordinary purgers were slower than me, they're unable to catch up. It's easy to leave them behind with my Acolyte level power. The yellow-eyed ones were different though, they constantly followed me at a good distance. Although they couldn't catch me, I couldn't treat them as easily as I treated the ordinary one. The worst thing was the appearance of the orange-eyed purgers. This last advance type of purger was faster than me. It was closing our distance fast and there was nothing I could do.
And then my eyes saw what mortified me. Another purgers camp entered my line of sight. I was running directly toward them! Ridiculous, how could this unluckiness all happened at the same time?
I changed my direction right away. This caused the distance between me and the pursuing orange-eyed purgers was lessening. I wanted to curse, but nothing came out of my mouth. I thought becoming a Braver was a game-changer, but here I was, running away like a frightened cat.
The yelling of those purgers caught the attention of the purgers from the new camp. Now new waves of purgers were also coming to pursue me. But they were not the only ones. Something else were with these new purgers.
I couldn't take a good look since I was so focused on running. At one time when I turned my head to check, I saw beasts resembling tiger. It was not bright enough and really not easy to see the detail when running this fast at dusk. What mattered was that the beasts had the speed of the orange-eyed purgers!
So now I had all kinds of purgers and that weird tiger-like beasts coming after me. The ordinary purgers, though still chasing me, were much further away and not getting any nearer. I didn't have the confidence of winning against a small group of yellow-eyed, much less a hundred of them. It would be a terribly stupid gamble. I was also pretty sure the orange-eyed would kick my ass in a one on one fight. There's simply no chance for me to survive if I forced myself to fight them now.
Then the red soil land suddenly ended. I was now in a hard solid land. It was like running on top of rock, enourmous rock. The orange-eyed purgers and the tiger-like beasts almost caught up to me when I suddenly heard sound of water.
Immediatelly appeared in front of me was a magnificent landscape. I was standing on top of a canyon and a large waterfall was in that canyon. A gigantic canyon, more majestic and higher than anything I had ever seen in my entire life. The waterfall was on the other side of the canyon. The canyon stretched as far as I could see, like there's no end to it.
I predicted the distance from the base of the canyon to the waterfall was more than 300 feet. That's very wide, I knew, but that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was the height of this canyon, which was the same as the height of the waterfall, quick estimation from me put it around 2000 feet.
After turning to swiftly glance at the chasing purgers and beasts, I gritted my teeth. The monsters were not letting go. They've been chasing me this far relentlessly, they wouldn't let go.
The choice were pretty clear to me. Stay and fight them, with zero percent chance of surviving or do the other option. There was no time for me to consider anything else. I've got to take this chance. I ran with every strength I have, reached the edge of the canyon and exerted every power of my muscles to leap.
"HAH!"
I felt like my body was floating in the air. The cold wind blew against my face. It was at this time I remembered that I hated height. Shoot! My entire body momentarily lost strength when this realization came.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone