Pluto had always been of the idea that Saul was an immovable object. He had always thought that mere predators could never worry the whirlwind of steel that he was. But tonight, that illusion was shattered in the worst possible way.
The collosal tree that had seemed like an impregnable fortress a few hours ago, now felt like a wooden cage. Despite its monolithic size, its interior did not offer much space to maneuver, forcing Saul to abandon his usual style of battle. The rushing tide of predators pushed them into a frantic defense, pinning them to the edges of the
trunk's base.
Saul fought like his life depended on it because it did, mowing down the horde with such generic movements that he resembled someone stamping parcels in a production line. Still, the sheer numbers of the zealed stampede was enough to overwhelm even him. For every five he swung down, fifteen took their place, driven mad by the pulsing signal radiating from Pluto's shoulder.
Still, his situation was something to wish for. Pluto had been craving a good sleep for the remainder of the night, only to be disturbed by the nuclear bomb equivalent in muscle contraction and release. Now, even the weight of his shadow was too much to bare. He had been relegated to the role of a cleaner, travelling through the corridors of beasts Saul had ruthlessly carved out with one sole purpose. When Saul's blade flashed by too quickly and the predator remained alive, Pluto finished them off to prevent them from nipping at Saul's heels. Worst of all, in the morbid flow of war, trying to harvest cores to recover strength was an invitation to a dozen fangs into his neck.
Their cooperation was as shaky as Pluto's steps. With the intensity that Saul moved at, Pluto could barely track, let alone support. The eel did its fair bit in assisting in that area, but Pluto's mind had been ravaged too much by the pulse to follow it well. Saul cleaved through a series of leathery deer-sized warthogs, only for Pluto to stumble into the gap and almost lose footing to a stray claw.
"Keep your feet, boy!" Saul roared, his voice barely audible through the cacophony of snarls. He parried a heavy limb into the path of a leaping predator, connecting a sharp blow with its jaw as it spun disoriented in the air. The beast blew past Pluto's face, spraying a bit of
its insides as it passed by.
Pluto deflected the jaw of a lunging predator with the side of his arm, drowning his elbow in its flank as he struck down hard. He followed up with a well timed kick, sweeping it off its legs and barreling into the path of another charging beast. He tried to tap into his Combat Class ability that usually turned chaos into chessboards, but without spirit to ignite it, he got no feedback. And without that feedback, he was just a guy with a piece of metal, suffocating under the pressure of his own thoughts.
***
The nature of the battle began to change once the minutes' hourglass ran empty. At first, the pulse had attracted lower level predators as these creatures were too animalistic to resist its call. Soon, even the bigger ones began to succumb. These weren't the titans of the forest, but they did have a lot of mass to throw around.
A massive, six-legged reptilian predator– a Crag-back– tore through the lines like a sentient wrecking ball. Saul caught sight of it just in time, blocking against its heavy swing with the flat of his blade. He pushed up, then drove his shoulder into the armpit of it to create space. As it staggered back slightly, Saul executed a lightning fast thrust, piercing his blade into a soft spot under the creature's jaw.
As the crag-back collapsed, three smaller hyena-like beasts used its body as a ramp and leapt over Saul, and headed for Pluto. Pluto stepped forward to meet them, clumsy but determined. He impaled his blade into the first, dragged the snout of the second into the ground, but the third caught his sleeve. Luckily, it could only tear off a bit of fabric before Pluto swung it off in uncomfortable motion.
"No slacking, Pluto!" Saul barked as he rushed to engage with a pack of sharp toothed flyers that were descending from the upper branches.
The collosal tree had begun to creak, groaning with a rumbling sound. From the outside, it looked like something that could uphold the sky, and it probably could. But the bleeding battle didn't just hit on it, it chewed against its structural integrity. Splinters shot out as its waned under its own weight.
***
An entertaining thing about battle was the fact that it was always changing. And as such, Saul could not remain using the same tactics even though it seemed to work for him. He switched to his ability, using teleportation to control certain key nodes of the field without having to claw through the horde whenever he wished to move between them. He flickered into unreality, appearing a few feet away to decapitate a muscular lizard that was approaching Pluto from his blind spot. It was a good way to dictate tempo, but each jump left him a tiny bit weaker than before. But it wasn't just that, his frequent jumps left Pluto with a lot of work to catch up, having his dash through the thicket of maws and claws to rejoin his "partner".
A pack of dark haired beasts –shadow lynxes– rushed in from the side, using their natural camouflage to blend in with the shadows of other predators in the dim light to approach unnoticed. That worked well for a few yards of distance, but Pluto caught them by their thermal scent.
"Heads up, to your left!" Pluto roared.
Saul teleported to meet them, repelling them back with a dirge of steel. The lynx at the forefront was their leader, so Saul took it out first with a clean stroke along its spine. In the same moment, a bear-like predator with bony scales waddled for Pluto, throwing a heavy but lofty strike.
Pluto caught the half of it with his face as his sword failed to block properly. The impact sent him skidding back, thumping his waist against a hollow protrusion in the ground. He didn't let himself feel, pushing back up to dodge the strike that followed. Mist swirled around as the paw crushed into wood.
Flicker.
Saul appeared right in front, catching the following attack with nothing but his bare hands. His muscles rolled with tension as he held back literal tons of pressure. Pluto joined it, momentarily overwhelming the creature with his added might, toppling it into the oncoming swarm.
He took a glance at Pluto, and watched his mask of grim resolve break under the pressure of each bead of sweat. He had stopped teleporting to amplify carnage, but now to intercept threats Pluto could not deal with quickly.
He hated the feeling of protecting someone willingly without any incentive. It was this very sentiment that had cost his father everything, yet he was foolishly falling back into the snare of emotions.
He snapped back as a fresh wave of shrieks announced violence. This was the biggest battle he had seen, and rightly so. It was no place to get carried away.
He continued his work, butchering the parts of the unholy abominations in his way and that of Pluto's. But as his slayed on, he noticed that the amount of bodies at the back looked thinner than before. He focused and saw it.
Something was killing the beasts, and faster than them both. It did not harvest, it didn't not eat.
Instead–
It hunted like it hated.