CHAPTER 83: CHOICES

"Step aside..." Ishiki’s scream tore through the gloom.

Filch didn’t need the warning, his instincts were screaming the same thing. He saw as the ice fractured and the two serrated branches erupt like wooden serpents, bypassing Ishiki’s guard with lethal intent.

He had already put Nina down and both his hands were free, so he went against his instincts and stood his ground. Gritting his teeth he summoned the small alloy dagger... that took a few seconds to materialize in his hand.

But the branches moved with an overwhelming speed. They closed the distance within a second, Liu Xi was also running, but he was unarmed... he had just dismissed his long sword.

But, the branches didn’t aim for Filch or Liu Xi.

At the last possible millisecond, they shifted with a sickening, intelligent twitch. They blurred past Filch’s guard and aimed directly for the unconscious girl behind him.

Filch’s eyes widened and he failed to act for the sudden change. He was ready for the strike at him or Liu, but this... was unexpected.

"Damn it... NO!" He twisted around and the dagger has finally completed forming in hand. He slashed at the branches without delay.

But momentum was against him.

The serpentine branches reached for Nina.

Liu Xi was already on a move... he was trying to grab Nina and get her out of the way. His hand was faster then the branches and would certainly reach the girl before the branches would and by the time, Filch would have slashed them too.... Hopefully.

That was how it was supposed to go... but nothing ever did.

The branches suddenly shifted their target again, this time aiming for Liu Xi... who was completely open and mid motion.

He had no armor or active defense and above all, no time to conjure anything.

THWACK!

SLASH!

Filch managed to slash the wooden tentacles... but it was too late.

They had already impaled Liu Xi through the chest. The serrated wood punched through his ribs, exiting his back in a spray of bright red arterial blood.

The sudden push threw him off balance and he fell to the ground gasping. His voice was a terrible, gurgling sound, his eyes going wide with shock.

Filch was frozen until Ishiki collided into him while moving backwards.

"What are you doing damn it! Move..." Ishiki screamed feeling the attack of branches on him getting faster and more coordinated.

Filch came back to his sense and ran to pick up Nina again... his heart was beating like a drum, he felt his vision blur... not because of haziness, but because of the tears that had formed within them.

If he had been a little faster.

If he had a bigger weapon.

Shaking it off... he moved forward. Filch knew very well, Life is filled with ’what ifs’, and none of them matter because there are no second chances in hell.

They moved past Liu Xi’s body which was getting colder with each second. The spark of life was fading from his eyes and that made Ishiki flinch. It reminded him of...

’Focus! FOCUS!’

Just as the Ice around Liu Xi weakened. The wooden serpents rained down from all sides. They lifted his body up like a puppet and More branches abandoned their pursuit of Ishiki, swarming the dying man.

They all wrapped around his limbs, his neck and waist. They pulled violently.

CRACK.

His body was torn from the impaling branches and dragged backward into the darkness of the Canopy. The sound of tearing fabric and snapping bone echoed for a heartbeat before being swallowed by the rustling leaves.

Ishiki felt the burden on him lowering for a second... He stared into the abyss where Liu Xi had vanished.

His heart was grim and his eyes were wild, burning with a mixture of rage and helpless grief.

Filch adjusted Nina on his back and slowly whispered. "Don’t look back, Ishiki. Just don’t look back. Respect your choices."

They ran.

They left Liu Xi to be devoured by the cruel forest... somewhat relieved, in the darkest, most shameful part of their souls—that it might have been them. And very well, the threat was not gone, instead it had just increased.

They all running on the cold calculus of survival. If they wanted actually... they could leave Nina behind and run away. Ishiki was sure the three of them would survive until the Silver Night.

’Curse you... what are you thinking bastard.’ He couldn’t.

Or maybe actually he could... if there was no choice and he had to choose between his life and the girl’s life, he would choose himself without a second thought.

Wouldn’t he?

He remembered the Boneworm. It attacked him during the Crimson Night. The more he looked at it, the more unsettling it became. Why would it attack him when it knew that it might die?

The answer was simple and disturbing. It was pregnant and hungry... worried that its child might die, it choose to wander out during the Crimson Night looking for food.

’AAGHH! STOP Goddamn it!’

With Liu Xi gone, the rear guard collapsed. It lowered for a second but then Ishiki was forced in the role against the barrage of tentacles alone.

He slowly faltered behind, and a dozen of the branches started breaking between him and the group attacking at Filch... which were stopped by Yuki or Filch himself.

"Ishiki!" The Princess shouted from the front, her voice strained. "Close the gap!"

Ishiki didn’t answer, actually He couldn’t.

His workload had just doubled.

He summoned every ounce of focus, and pushed his body past its safe limits. The world became a monochrome wireframe of threat vectors.

Slash. Parry. Duck. Slash.

His arm was a blur of pale bone and black steel.

A thick root slammed into his backplate. The force staggered him. The armor held, but the kinetic energy had to go somewhere and just the chance, he felt a rib creak.

Clang.

’Keep moving. Just keep moving.’

He looked down at his chest. The [Berserker’s Effigy] was scarred. Deep gouges marred the black steel. One of the pauldrons was bent inward and there were a lot of branches struck in the spikes.

"Wake up!" Filch was shouting ahead of him. He was shaking Nina as he ran, dodging roots that burst from the ground.

The girl groaned, her head lolling on his shoulder. "Tired... so tired... Where did big brother go, Mom?"

At the front, Yuki stumbled.

The wall of ice she was projecting faltered and for a second, the path ahead remained dark dirt instead of frozen safe corridor.

"Yuki!" Ishiki yelled. "Are you okay?"

She gritted her teeth, forcing her hand out. Ice bloomed again, but it was thinner now.

"I’m... okay," she gasped, sweat freezing on her forehead. "I can... hold it."

But her hand was trembling... Now, she was feeling the toll too, maybe even more than him. It would not have been easy... creating so much ice out of nothing. She was bound to be exhausted.

’We’re not going to make it.’

The thought was cold and logical.

’We’re too slow and too tired. The wretched forest is just... endless.’

Ishiki parried another branch, the impact jarring his shoulder socket. He stumbled and his boot slipped on the melting ice.

’Is this it?’

’Is this where I die?’

He forced these thoughts out... that didn’t matter. If he would just continue running... he would eventually make it.

’Come on bastards... I am not going down like this. At least not by some wood.’

They ran from the clearing for one reason... to escape from the Lord of illusion, who most like was a being on par with a god. He was worshipped... there was a chance that he might have been an actual god.

Suddenly, Ishiki enhanced senses picked up something around fifty meter to the left.

A place with no movements... it was the same feeling he had when he found the clearing. This time it was a hollow in the earth. A small, enclosed space shielded by the twisted roots of an ancient, dead tree.

’A cave.’

It was tiny, like a glorified hole in the ground with barely enough room for two people, maybe three if they squeezed.

"LEFT!" Ishiki screamed, his voice raw. "THERE’S A CAVE TO THE LEFT!"

The Princess didn’t question him and veered left immediately, throwing the last of her energy into a final, desperate ramp of ice.

Fifty meters.

Forty.

Thirty.

The cave’s mouth appeared—a dark slash in the gray rock face.

"Almost there!" Filch shouted.

Ishiki gave up his role at the back and ran up to them. The Ice path was now much bigger for the branches to reach them.

Maybe... they would make it.

Ten meters.

Yuki took one more step.

And collapsed.

She fell to the ground face first and as she did... the ice around them shattered.

Without the cold to hold them back, the branches surged in from all sides—a tsunami of wood crashing down on the exposed group.