The forest stirred.
From the arching shadows of the labyrinth, something peeled itself from the trees. For a heartbeat Nhilly thought it was just another trunk but then it moved.
Sixteen spindly legs, each like sharpened spider pincers made of bark and sinew, unfolded from beneath a colossal body. They carried a warped trunk bristling with hundreds of eyes. Each orb blinked wetly in different directions, their milky whites crisscrossed with red veins, watching him from every angle at once. Drool spilled from a crooked gash in the middle of its "face," a jagged mouth gnashing with teeth like splintered wood. Four more appendages jutted from its side's pincer-like arms tipped with thorned hooks, twitching with grotesque hunger.
It loomed nearly two and a half meters tall. The smell hit next rot, sap, and something that reminded Nhilly of old blood.
His body froze. He had seen sketches of this thing, crude drawings in the returnee texts. None of them captured the reality of it.
A Stellar-ranked beast. The books had called it a Widowroot, a labyrinth predator that never stopped hunting once its prey was marked.
The Widowroot screeched, a sound halfway between tearing wood and a human wail and lunged.
The impact came like a landslide. Nhilly's back smashed into a tree trunk, breath ripped from his lungs. He barely registered one massive leg pinning him down before instinct roared back to life.
"Drift!" he gasped. Gravity halved, and he slipped free just as the leg drove down, splintering the wood where his chest had been.
Nhilly stumbled backward, hyperventilating, sword already in hand. Draco's Shroud glimmered darkly, its faint golden script pulsing like the heartbeat of a star. His hands trembled, but he forced himself into a defensive stance.
Breathe, Nhilly. Breathe. Catch your breath. Think.
The monster didn't wait. All four of its pincer arms shot forward in a barrage of jabs. Too fast. Too many. The air whistled with each thrust. Nhilly slashed desperately, parrying only the blows aimed at his heart or throat. Sparks of pain shot up his arms with every impact, the sheer force rattling his bones.
Branches and vines hemmed him in, no space for Overload to launch away. He wasn't fighting the beast. He was drowning in it.
"There's no way… no way this is only Stellar rank," Nhilly rasped between strikes. "I underestimated… no I overestimated myself. Underestimated this world."
He staggered back, desperate to buy space. The Widowroot shrieked and lunged again.
Nhilly's eyes narrowed. His free hand tightened on the sword hilt. "Oblivion Veil."
A wave of suffocating black mist poured from Draco's Shroud, swallowing the world in darkness. The labyrinth disappeared into shadow. Light itself seemed devoured. Nhilly vanished.
The Widowroot's eyes rolled frantically, searching, but in the pitch-black veil Nhilly could see faint white outlines every tree, every vine, every monstrous limb. He held his breath, lungs already straining, and repositioned.
Drift sliding silently to the beast's flank.
Overload launching himself forward in a blur of speed.
The sword arced for its neck.
Too fast. Too clumsy. He couldn't correct mid-flight. The blade bit deep into one of the monster's arms instead. Bark split, sap sprayed, the limb dangled by a thread, but the neck remained intact.
Nhilly's chest burned. His lungs screamed. The mist dissolved.
The Widowroot's countless eyes snapped toward him again. With another guttural screech, it stabbed. Nhilly kicked off its lower arm, trying to Float away, but the beast extended three more limbs upward with horrifying speed. They writhed through the air, pincers snapping. One hooked his jacket, yanking him out of the sky.
"No!"
He smashed into the ground. His back struck a thorned log, spikes punching through his clothes and skin. Blood blossomed. Vines slithered around his limbs, tightening, dragging him down into the living forest floor.
Gasping for air, vision narrowing, Nhilly fought to raise Draco's Shroud.
The Widowroot shrieked, its injured arm dangling uselessly. With a sickening crack, it tore the limb off with its own jaws, sap and gore spraying. Then, slowly, it turned its eyestalks back toward Nhilly. Hundreds of pupils dilated at once, all locking onto him as one.
Pinned, bleeding, and fading fast, Nhilly's last conscious thought cut like a knife:
So, this is how it ends… eaten by bark and eyes.