As the unnerving howl passed by their ears, both of them went completely silent. There was no sound. They had stopped breathing. It seemed the whole forest was holding its breath as the nightmare passed. I had been a whole minute of silences.
Only then did they at deep breaths, filling their lungs with the clean air.
However, at that exact moment a loud crashing sound was heard. What ever made the sound also made the everything shake. This caused both Anderson and Zena to fall and try to hold onto the branch that they were on.
Luckily, they both managed to get good grippes on the branches. Unluckily, both of them saw what made the forest shake.
A few trees away their were two nightmare creatures. Well at least one living nightmare creature.
The first creature was the creature that was dead and being eaten by the other. The closest thing to describe the creature was a giant serpent, the size of a small apartment. The only scales left remaining were a mix of blue and black scales. Those scales seemed to reflect the very essence of yourself back at you. Luckily, they looked away before being entrapped by dead serpent's scales.
However, now they had to look at the one that killed the serpent. This one resembled a dead species of animal known as a wolf. Though this wolf was much larger and much more decomposed than those shown in those old books of extinct animals.
The flesh of this creature seemed to have long decayed. Its flesh was dangling all over, only connected by the mitched matched pieces of fur and... scales???
The creature was eating the serpent and it was gaining parts of it. It was rebuilding itself form the bodies of other nightmare creatures.
It had eight legs four ending with mangled paws, two with scythe like arms, and the final two were pikes covered in dark green blood.
The creature had two ears. One of which was bitten in half. It had a long face. Where the front of the face would normally be, there were many red fly like eyes covering the entirety of its face.
As they stared at the creature below they slowly started to fell an immense bloodlust wash over them. Luckily for them the bloodlust was not directed at them, but the area surrounding the creature. With this feeling of bloodlust their bodies immediately tensed. Both of their subconscious were screaming at them to get away and hide, so they finally climbed back onto the branch they were on.
Soon they were both laying on the branch making as little movement as humanly possible. They stayed like this until the light around them was dimming as the sun was starting to set. At that time the bloodlust started to decrease until it was fully gone. However, they stayed like this for another 30 minutes just to be safe.
After, they finally had a chance to recompose themselves. With another 5 minutes passing they looked at the abomination of a creature had feasted on the other.
When they look down, the only thing that remained was the serpent's giant skeleton, a few dozen scales, and 4 awakened soul shards.
Upon seeing the remains the two were shocked. They had not even seen or heard the battle until the end. With this information Anderson made a two worrying possibilities of the wolf like abomination.
Anderson quietly states his two ideas of the abominations rank and class, "I think that the nightmare creature was either an awakened terror or a fallen, most likely a demon." With his statement of the possible rank and class the abomination a heavy silence fell upon the two.
A few minutes pass before Zena says concernedly, "How... How is this fair? How are we supposed to kill something like that? It killed something that sleepers would have a very hard time killing. I mean we aren't even sleepers, we are barely stronger than a regular person."
Trying to calm Zena slightly Anderson speaks softly, "Luckily I don't think that we will have to fight that thing directly. That nightmare creature must be an apex predator, so we won't have to deal with any other nightmare creatures of its strength. Plus we will probably not be forces to fight much as our goal is most likely have to reach the top the mountain we saw at the start of the trial. However before we do anything we need to know each other's abilities."
Anderson continued, "My aspect is a utility one and makes it so I can make excellent plans that if followed will have an increased success rate. I also have two attributes. The first one makes me think more logically and keeps me calmer in situations." Andersons tone changed to one of confusion, "I also gain power from facts? And my other attribute gives me a slight connection with divinity."
Soon after Anderson finished his brief explanation Zena spoke, "My aspect is a combat one and gives me the ability to fight well. However, it says that I will hunt chaotically, like the creatures I hunt. I also have two attributes, the first one lets me see the possible outcomes of something I am looking at. And a bit like yours allows me to gain power from delusion. My second one is the same as yours giving me a slight connection to divinity." Another silence fell over the two, but this one was not a gloomy as the first one.
However, it was broken when Anderson spoke confidently, "I have a plan. First we need to find were the mountain is, so I will climb to the top of the tree and see if I can spot it. Second, we need weapons, food, and cloths." As Anderson look at Zena and himself seeing the old and torn rags they were wearing.
"Third, we need to figure out how long we have till that storm hits and floods this place, but this will come later as we cannot tell how much time passed at the start of the trial."