Pulling the trigger, Flo let his e-bullet fly straight into the head of the mech.
Completely destroying the mech’s head.
However, the mech was still moving.
Missing a head, the large machine punched towards the dodging Max.
Missing, he tried again.
No longer a punch, more of a downward slap, he hit straight at Max.
Flo began to collect another e-bullet as the slap connected to the ground causing a large rupture in the ground’s surface.
Max jumped.
The other hand of the mech swiped towards him and grabbed him, the hand of the mech tightened around Max.
Max didn’t scream but gritted his teeth in pain.
Blood dripped from one corner of his mouth.
Still Flo hadn’t finished getting his e-bullet ready.
Max tried to use his wind element but couldn’t gather enough energy as he was being crushed.
Realising the short time Max has left, Flo pulled out his dual pistols, placing his coffee on the floor.
He let out a flurry of shots towards a tree behind the colossal machine.
The bullets slung against the tree, the core of the tree started to break and shatter.
Creak, Creak!
The loud sound of the tree slowly breaking was registered by the almost shattered mech.
Gradually the flurry of bullets slowed and the power lessened.
Flo was running out of life essence.
But even if he had a bucket load of essence, it wouldn’t mean much.
The mech swung his only arm around and threw Max right into the tree that Flo was shooting.
Max’s back snapped against the tree as they both fell backwards.
His whole body drained of essence as he coughed up blood across his dangling legs.
The monstrous headless machine turned towards Flo and sprinted straight at him.
Knowing he can’t dodge out of the way, he kept using his dual pistols, the shots were nullified by the scrap metal armour.
Flo’s face stayed calm but his head most likely in chaotic thoughts.
His time running out.
In the middle of sprinting, the mech pulled his only arm back and his fingers clenching tightly, the metal scraping against each other, irritating Flo’s ears.
Only a step before Flo, the mech’s arm flew directly at him.
Only a few tens of centimetres away from connecting to Flo’s body a familiar:
Swoosh swoosh, entered the field of battle.
A blade of wind targeted the mech’s feet.
The blade made impact with the moving feet of the mech causing it to tumble over, its chest landing directly on Flo.
Silence claimed the battlefield.
Only a few seconds later, a very familiar figure rolled out from under the machine’s corpse.
Cough-Cough
Flo wheezed and spat and coughed onto the floor.
The remnants of smoke lingered on his face.
Still coughing he looked towards the direction of the wind blade—at the collapsed tree where a boy lay spread out.
His finger held outwards from where he released his life essence.
Flo gathered himself from the ground and rubbed his face against his sleeve.
He gave Max a look of gratitude before checking his guns were safe (luckily they were).
Max also picked himself up and went to grab his fallen halberd, cleaning it of any dirt.
They both went round the mech and astonishingly between the split legs of the mech stood Flo’s cup of coffee.
He went to pick it up with a steady face, taking another sip from it.
“Still hot.”
Max went round the right side of the mech and pushed it over so it faced skyward.
Multiple of its connectors at the neck broke from the impact causing its death.
“Let’s take the core and get out of here.”
“Agreed,” replied Max.
They both pulled the remaining metal sheets off the chest of the machine with little effort required.
The large core revealed itself, covered in bramble-like wires, the glowing blue of the core barely alive.
Within seconds, the massive core was placed into a small ring on Max’s finger—not a plink but a storage item (extremely expensive).
“Fancy,” Flo muttered.
“My family is rich.”
They set off together, back to the city.
“If your family is rich, why are you putting yourself in danger like this?
I mean I find it quite strange, that’s all.”
“Because I want to live.”
“Good answer, if you’re wondering my answer I just do what I want.
Your soul only has one chance at life and right now, my soul wants to kill someone, well more than one.” His gaze wandered to the sun, a light smirk gracing his face.
“I wasn’t,” Flo turned silent from the response.
Max exhaled through his nose and the corners of his mouth slightly upturned as he stepped far in front of Flo.
Max walked a lot faster than Flo, a wide gap spreading between them.
The journey for the most part was peaceful but it wasn’t long until a warning scream ripped through the air:
Kakaaaah Kakaaaaa
A bird most likely but what it was didn’t matter.
The scream of the beast shredded the ground causing large cracks to appear.
A peak platinum core or maybe even above crystallisation.
A beast of such a high level shouldn’t be anywhere near these parts.
They shouldn’t be even in a ten thousand metre radius of the forest.
All Max and Flo knew to do was…
Run.
Neither of them had fully recovered from the previous fight, so the fleeing wasn’t without its moans and groans—some more agonising than the others.
Multiple fields opened up in front of them, the grey trees—living up to the forest’s name—flying past the two of them.
Gradually, Flo lost sight of Max.
His entire body vanished from Florian’s view into the endless maze of trees.
Now, all he could do was run to the city walls whilst admiring the shivering grey trees, still shook from the terrifying scream.
The rest of the forest wasn’t stagnant either, dangerous and peaceful beasts fled in all directions of the forest, some crossing paths with Flo but most ignoring each other, only survival on their minds.
Still running ahead, fields of destroyed colourless grass flooded past Flo.
More beasts ran past Flo whilst he for some reason still balanced his coffee in his hand.
Finally spotting the top of the city walls, he sprinted faster.
A strange fog covered the sky—not a natural fog.
It invaded the clouds and sheltered the forest.
Another shrill scream ripped through the air:
Kakaa Kakaah
A much more urgent scream but a lot more power lifting Flo and all the beasts off their feet, assaulting the ashy trees and grabbing them off the ground.
Torrential amounts of wind rushed through the air shoving the beasts, plants, trees and Flo in all directions.
Luckily for Flo he landed near the forest.
Unluckily for Flo he landed next to a blood wolf.
A blood wolf whose large jaw was overflowing with saliva.
Not thinking much, Flo pulled off the cap on his cup of coffee and through it directly into the eyes of the wolf—momentarily blinding it.
“Bye bye,” he said cheekily before using the short time to pick himself up and start running once again.
The city gates appeared before Flo as he hopped out the bushes.
The top of the walls lined with archers and gunmen.
The cracked cobble built in large columns firmly protected Birnam City.
The unnatural fog still covered the air, slowly darkening until it was charcoal black.
The blood wolf also jumped out the bushes slowly after and Flo kept on running towards the gate.
Screams and shouts could be heard from within the walls, on top of the walls and outside of the walls.
Closer to the gates, only a short hill to make up and he would be directly in front of the gates, he began his ascent.
The wolf not far behind and as hungry and angry as ever.
Whoosh
A blistering arrow darted past Flo and pierced straight into the skull of the wolf.
The arrow came from the wall’s top.
Not knowing who to thank, Flo flooded into the gate with a crowd of others.
Making it out of the crowd, he leaned against a random surface he found catching his breath and checking his gear.
The table he was leaning against was actually the same place he brought the coffee from:
“Best coffee of my life, sir,” after checking that everything’s fine, he walked off:
[Currency – 0 Shards 0 Sols 0 Eclipse Shards (Owes 35 shards to Blake Hospital to be paid within 28 sunrises and 250 shards to All Gunnery to be paid within 89 sunrises)]
Around a building a figure with a colourful halberd attached to his back watched for a few seconds before leaving.
…
Above the dark charcoal fog, only two figures could be made out.
One the obvious cause of the screams and the other the obvious cause of the fog.
A human with his whole left arm being entirely made of fog and a blue-feathered bird with demonic eyes, locked in a standstill.