Ghoul Evolution

Chapter 4: Almost dying again

Deciding that he had already wasted enough time thinking, and that staying inside this white room wasn’t going to give him any real answers, Oliver decided that he should leave.

And whooosh!

The moment the thought of leaving appeared in his mind, he suddenly found himself somewhere else entirely.

He didn’t even get the chance to properly register his surroundings before he heard a loud, strange scream from behind him.

"Ghrommwwwwww!!"

The moment he heard it, he immediately turned around and what he saw almost made him scream too.

’WHAT THE FUCKKK?!’

It looked like a monster straight out of his nightmares, and the only saving grace was that it was fairly away from him and it would take the beast quite some time to reach him.

The beast was a grotesque mix of an ape, a wolf, and a spider. Like a spider, it had eight legs, though whether they all truly were legs or some of them were twisted replacement for arms, that Oliver honestly couldn’t tell.

Its limbs were disturbingly thin compared to the rest of its body, almost unnaturally so.

In fact, they looked so wrong that for a brief moment they could even distract someone from the fear caused by the beast itself.

It’s torso was mainly ape-like, covered in black uneven fur that looked rough and wild as seen in apes rather than the layered fur in wolves.

It’s head meanwhile was that of a wolf with red eyes that shone brightly in the darkness, perhaps even brighter than Oliver’s future.

Oliver himself was fairly tall, around six feet, but, even with all the distance between them, he still had to tilt his head slightly upward just to properly look at the creature’s face.

The beast was at least twice his height.

Even back on Earth, the largest apes—including those long extinct—were only around ten feet tall. But this vicious creature stood even taller, at around twelve feet. And so, it was fairly normal for Oliver to stand there completely frozen.

But as soon as the beast started walking towards him, he gathered his senses and started running away from it.

’What the hell is wrong with my fucking luck? Wasn’t I supposed to be fate’s chosen one or something?!’

Oliver cursed internally as he ran, his mind desperately trying to form some kind of plan while he occasionally looked back at the beast behind him.

And what he saw when he turned only terrified him even more.

With how much distance there had already been between them, combined with the beast’s massive size, Oliver had assumed he would easily be able to outrun it or atleast gain some time.

But somehow, the creature was even faster than him.

Using those horrifying spider-like legs, it leapt across the forest in massive jumps using the trees as propulsion. Every leap was so powerful that the tree it used visibly shook whenever it landed or pushed itself forward.

It was only now, while running for his life, that Oliver finally had the chance to properly pay attention to his surroundings.

And what he saw only made his chest tighten, he was in a forest...a really scary forest.

Towering black trees rose around from the ground, their trunks twisted unnaturally with vines hanging from their branches, while countless pitch-black leaves blocked out nearly all light above.

Moreover, the dense canopy enveloped the sky completely, turning the entire forest dim and suffocating, despite it supposedly being daytime.

The little light that managed to seep through was the only reason, he could see at all considering his pupils hadn’t yet gotten used to the darkness.

Many branches clawed out from the trunk, while sometimes roots bulged from the earth, forcing him to stumble and move around dodging them as he ran.

Furthermore, because of the countless trees in every direction, escaping the damned beast behind him wasn’t going to be easy at all. Especially, since it was it’s home turf.

As he kept running, suddenly another large tree appeared directly in his path and because he had been too focused on looking back at the ape-spider beast, he almost didn’t notice it in time and nearly crashed straight into it.

It was only at the very last moment that he twisted his body and managed to dodge.

But unfortunately, he couldn’t do so completely, and part of the trunk slammed into his side painfully. Still, he didn’t have the luxury to stop and focus on the pain and so, he kept running anyway.

In just another two minutes, he was already exhausted, and his breathing was uneven, but the beast was now only around a kilometer away from him.

Thud!

And at that exact moment, the worst thing that was possible happened.

A large rock, almost twice the size of a person’s closed fist, lay in his path, and before he could react, he tripped on it and fell hard onto the ground.

The ginormous beast was now not very far away from him now and Oliver had resigned himself and closed his eyes from sheer fright, but then, something extraordinary happened.

"Hooooo! Hoooo! Skreeeeeeee!!"

A flying beast had suddenly descended from above.

It was around half Oliver’s size and barely one-fourth the size of the giant ape-spider creature.

The beast mainly resembled an owl and had massive wings, and although it’s face looked owl-like, it appeared far more majestic than any normal creature. Its feathers were snow white, and its gem-like green eyes looked strangely beautiful.

Despite the massive size difference between it and the ape-spider beast, the owl didn’t hesitate at all and immediately attacked it with it’s sharp beak, that pierced deep into the ape-spider’s torso, causing the giant creature to let out a furious scream.

"Ghrommwwwwww!!"

In retaliation, the ape-spider grabbed one of the owl’s wings with two of it legs with a speed so fast, that Oliver couldn’t even track it’s movements, and tried to pull the owl down but it was completely useless.

God knew how, but the owl’s wing suddenly acted like a blade and sliced clean through the giant legs holding it. The ape-spider’s legs were cut cleanly into two and the beast screamed again, this time even more crazily.

"GHROMMMMMMMMMMWWWWWWW!!"

The beast screamed again and again and even tried to escape, but the owl clearly had no intention of letting it go. This time it aimed directly for the creature’s neck.

Slassssh!

And just like that, the monstrous beast that had Oliver running for his life moments ago was dead.

The moment the ape-spider died, the owl immediately began eating it from the side and seeing how easily it tore through it’s flesh, Oliver—despite feeling slightly grateful—couldn’t help but feel horrified as well.

Crack!

Instinctively, he took a small step backward and unfortunately, he accidentally stepped on a twig.

The sound echoed lightly through the forest hearing which, the owl immediately turned its attention towards Oliver’s direction.

Oliver froze like a statue and tried to stop his breathing from fright. freewebnσvel.cøm

After seeing how effortlessly the owl had killed the giant beast, he knew he wouldn’t even be able to resist if it attacked him.

And so, he silently accepted death and just hoped for the beast to ignore him, but the owl simply stared toward the source of the sound, looking... confused.

Oliver blinked for a moment and then suddenly understood what was happening.

’Ahhh... it’s an owl?’

’So maybe it doesn’t have very good eyesight during the day?...But it’s already so dark? Does it have bad eyesight in general?’

’Maybe it was sleeping nearby and woke up because of all the noise we made?’

Then another thought appeared in his mind as he watched the owl continue eating, making him worry again.

’There aren’t more of these things nearby... right?’ ƒreewebɳovel.com

’Owls are supposed to be solitary creatures, aren’t they?’

The owl continued eating for a few more moments before eventually stopping after consuming roughly one-sixteenth of the corpse, as soon as it was done, it spread its wings and flew away.

Only after it disappeared did Oliver finally relax slightly and take a deep breath and his eyes slowly moved toward the remains of the dead monster.

"Can I... take the rest of it?"

Obviously, he couldn’t carry the entire corpse, but even a small part of it could be valuable and could fill his stomach for dinner atleast.

And if he could somehow obtain the beast’s soul core and absorb it?

Considering how powerful the creature had looked, even if it had been completely overwhelmed by the strange owl, he was sure it would provide a decent number of Essence Shards.

Essence Shards didn’t just strengthen the body physically, but even helped strengthen the mind and soul along with the attributes of the absorber and for a newbie like him they would be invaluable.

If Oliver wanted to have any chances of completing the First Ascension trial and returning back to Earth, then he had to become much more powerful and these shards were the best way to do the same.