Luca's chest tightened and so did his grip.
The world had become a blur to him, and he fixed his form accordingly.
There was one thing that most countryside citizens fail to realize about people like Luca.
They had gone through the difficult process of growing life, tilling it and weeding out the bad parts.
These people– farmers, were slaves to consistency and repetition, and that for most of them, built into a way of life.
Luca, was no different.
The air whistled in his ears as he slammed, legs first, onto the back of the Null Bud. He raised the sword up, and his gaze– focused as always, had never left its target.
A barnacle which stood different from the rest. Where the others projected vertically, this chose to grow horizontally.
Something as simple as this, difficult to spot if you didn't know what you were looking for, was what people would call, a weakness.
"This must be your weakness." He drove his blade down.
A surge of adrenalin burst into his system as the world turned dark.
Shadows made of coiled tendons surrounded him as the tentacles closed in.
"Let's see who gets who first!"
The creature responded.
It let out a sudden cry– hollow like the sound of a dying bison, before its entire body trembled like static current.
Luca's foot slipped and the sword struck wrong with a metallic click.
"No!"
The tentacles pounced on him like predators. Slapping him off with such brutal impact that the air rattled.
Luca was flung like a ragdoll accross the sky before crashing into the snow with a loud thud.
He heaved as a fist full of blood bursted out of his mouth.
Then, slowly, but definitely, he picked himself back up.
'It can move its form?'
He noted down, as he looked up.
Black ichor stained the skies. Long tendrils that had begun to cover the distance between them.
Luca breathed in, cleaned his lips and ran.
The tentacles smashed into the snow with progressive momentum.
The ground quaked as spiderweb cracks ran accross its surface.
Luca wasn't caught in the mix.
He jumped over the ones too near and narrowly escaped the ones that took its former place.
He focused his gaze on the Null Bud. An opportunity would arise again, and Luca knew it.
'All creatures, even in their most agitated form will reveal a moment of vulnerability.'
He simply needed to find it.
But the creature, seemingly had other plans.
Smoke seethed out of the Bullice Titan's maw as it begun to spread apart.
A low rumble shook the air while it's lower lip descended like an airplane hanger.
It crashed onto the snow as black smook oozed out of it.
Luca lifted a brow as he swiped his sword to the left, blocking an incoming tentacle, before spinning into the air and landing. Dodging a bunch more.
'What now?'
A low cry projected into the air, one that Luca failed to recognize.
'Wait… what?!'
From the black ooze, a two legged creature walked out. It's long neck dangled as it's head darted about with curiosity in its red eyes. A pair of tail swayed lazily in the air and it's forelimbs seemed extensively lacking.
Luca gasped at the sight. His identification talent immediately clicked.
[BULLICE RAPTOR- MILD RANK]
'No… is it one of those?' He thought as he dodged, yet another barrage of tentacles.
'Mild? You're telling me that is the same rank as that huge creature?'
What exactly was going on with his trial?!
As soon as he dodged that barrage, the boy kicked the air and blasted forward.
He had already decided he would take the initiative.
The raptor chirped. It's red eyes widening as it focused on Luca. It did nothing even with the open hostility towards it.
Then another chirp-like sound crackled in the air. Another raptor stepped out next to it.
Yet another, and a third raptor stepped out. And soon, the snow fields had begun to fill with tiny, black dots. Raptors which, a moment ago had seemed unassumingly innocent.
Luca had not even covered half the distance before he realized their numbers had reached the fifties.
'this isn't good.'
The raptors chirped in unison. Their crimson pupils trembled slightly as it begun to move erratically within its sockets.
Their cries turned to screams. And their screams because roars that caused the air to hum.
Immediately, they charged. Their forms warped onto each other. A paste of black sleekened that snapped their jaws in reveled hunger.
Luca skidded to a halt just as they begun.
He held his sword loosely as his expression grew dim.
'Ho– how…' He wondered when he heard the air whistle behind him.
He didn't need to turn back– the titan's tentacles where making their way towards him.
'Think.'
The ground beneath his feet rumbled from the rushing storm.
His muscles tensed. His heart began a race that forced his entire body into overdrive.
And his brain? His brain kept clicking.
Luca moved.
The air warped in his wake, as he turned into a blur. His brain ticked with the growing tempest that was his body.
A wave of corrupted beast met human flesh.
For a heartbeat, nothing seemed to happen. Then the world caught up.
The sound wasn't a bang– it was a flat, defeating snap that robbed the world of it's silence. A dome of compressed vapor blossomed around them, a white halo of tortured air.
Beneath them, the foundations of the snowyplains surrendered, sinking into a hollow cavity of its own making.
And Luca ravaged in the epicenter.
He struck down on the first beast with a clean cut. His sword smashed into its head, carved through and split it in half.
Black blood splashed on his face like ink as he swung his blade at another Raptor. He sliced through it's underbelly. Cutting its attempted jump short in a heartbeat.
Then he shifted, his sword slicing through the air like an extension of his being. His eyes flicked about in its sockets. His breathing evened– all palpitations died down.
Luca was neither scared nor wary.
He was just a beast who had finally been let loose.
If anyone were to see him, they would think he were a veteran and not a participant thrown into danger for the first time.
But in fact, they were wrong. Luca had never touched a weapon in his life.
And the only thing that came close were farm equipments. Hoes, Cutlasses, Rakes. The technology of the old world still existed in parts of the world, and his district held most of it.
Farmers were not warriors, but both had the principle of cutting down.
But while warriors used weak points and battle practice, farmers used repetition and structure.
And farmers understood structure!
They knew the parts of a weed where they would give way with least resistance.
They knew the angle a cutlass should fall to clear a patch in one motion.
They knew how deep a hoe should bite without wasting energy.
And Luca who's second favorite thing in the world is farming took it as a mantle in this given moment.
The creature's weren't plants, of course, but they were living things with a structure. And Luca instinctively read the form of what was in front of him and acted at its most efficient point.
Luca kicked one of the raptors with a grunt. The air shifted from the force as it flew back, slamming into a charging bunch. Their pained chirps reached his ears as the snow jumped from the collision.
Suddenly, his skin pricked and his thoughts rushed in.
'Just in time.'
He jumped into the air, spinning diagonally as the air whistled by his side.
Black muscular tendons slammed into the snow and a group of raptors were caught in the mix. Vicious blood burst into the air in a dark spray.
Luca didn't stop.
He charged into the remaining numbers. Inching closer to the inciting beast.
With each swing of his blade came a clinical cut to the abominations.
Five rushed in from the sides. Their jaws snapping and their growling synced. Two jumped into the air, and three charged straight.
Luca's eyes traced their movement as he pulled his blade from a choking Raptor.
He turned to the left, and stumped his foot forward as he lunged his blade into the air.
It stabbed into one of the air-jumpers, then he kicked another and pushed forward. Escaping the enclosure.
The raptors snapped at him, ready to change course when the Titan's tentacles bashed into them, before rushing back at their initial target– Luca.
He took a wide turn as he slashed through an incoming raptor, while weaving his way in the group. The rest who turned after him were quickly swallowed by the flying tendrils, incapable of knowing what hit them before they knew it.
Luca's lips curled into a satisfied smile as he made quick work of what was left, while leaving room for others to follow after.
Just as he had presumed, the Bullice Titan had sent those tentacles on auto-mode.
With its current position of its mouth open, its lateral eyes had been blocked off for a proper forward vision.
That was if these tentacles didn't already have a mind of their own.
'It doesn't matter since it worked, now, I'll only hope this one works as well.'
He rushed through the mix as a blur. Each movement became a perfected repetition of foreseen action.
Their structure had become a clean canvas for him. One he was free to draw on at any given time.
The raptors weren't the problem. Their numbers were, but that had solved itself, quickly.
What truly stumped him was the Titan, and right now, he had begun to pave a path. The finishing blow would take just a moment to grasp.
Finally, he had found his way to the other end of the tide of creatures. Blood dribbled down his form. His fur-coat hung loosely at awkward angles and sweat dried quickly on his skin.
The cold was chilling, and his breath made it evidently so.
But he thrived.
Luca couldn't help but beat loudly as the creature's shadow swept over him.
'Alright.'
He rocketed to the other side of the Mountain-like beast.
Skidding to a full halt before forcing his entire being in one direction.
His breath hitched. Adrenaline surged like it had never done before, and his eyes glowed with an otherworldly golden.
"It's now or never!"
The air crackled as sound detonated with a sudden force. Luca was a golden streak that flew into the air at climbing speeds.
Sound whistled in his ears. A hollow call that sent his blood alive.
The reverse barnacle came into sight, and Luca's entire form stiffened.
Perhaps it was because of that, that he had missed the sudden danger.
A ball of wriggling black tendrils crashed into him from the sides. Sound clapped in a thunderous boom!
Luca's mouth widened as within the ball, hundreds of tentacles plunged their way into his flesh.
Pain rang out in his skull as his eyes went white and his heart skipped a beat.
The Bullice Titan's mouth began to rise back as a horrid, choked gurgle escaped its maw.
It caused the ball of tendrils to disperse, revealing the macabre image for its delighted hunger.
Luca hung like a broken puppet with hundreds of tendrils sticking out of his form.
His eyes white, and his mouth hung open.