His heart thumbed loudly, his lush Black hair were sticking to his temples and forehead due to the sweat. The mist seemed to shift at the movements of whatever lay beyond them.
Vale quickly assessed the situation.
His shoulder was bleeding profusely, drenching his shirt in wet, mettalic scented blood. Due to his injury, he doubted he could use his right hand effectively. There were obviously more then one eternal hiding beneath the veil of mist, thought there were 50 to 60 meters away, so he could probably reach his hatchet before they reached him.
A drop of sweat rolled down onto his nose from his forehead, it stayed at the tip of his nose for a second before falling down.
But even before the drop of sweat hit the ground, vale was already sprinting towards the hatcheta and the same moment he rushed forward, multiple wolve like eternal of grain rank, resembling the first one but with just a different amount of eyes.
Vale reached the dead wolves in under two seconds as it wasn't far away, he grabbed the hatchet with his left hand, put his right leg on the etarnel's body and yanked the hatched out of it.
By then, the eternals had already crossed over 25 meters.
Vale gripped the dark wooden handle of the hatchet and simply sprinted backwards, running away from the hungrily approaching pack of etarnels
His body heated up and his legs started getting lighter for some reason.
He did not know why he was trying so hard...
He really didn't, he had nothing binding him to this world, he had no family, no freinds and no possesions. He didn't have some grand motive like becoming the strongest, or the richest neither did he have any desire to live a comfortable life.
Yet, he didn't wanted to die, why?
...
Running through the forest, he noticed the mist getting denser, if before he could see 50 to 60 meters in front of him, now he could only see 30.
As the leafs crunched under his, he kept hearing many more crunches from behind him, a sense of dread was slowly envoloping him, but that only urged him to run faster.
Currently, he was only slightly slower then the group of etarnels behind him, yet the situation was looking bleak as they would eventually catch up to him, be it a minute, or ten.
"!"
Then, suddenly, the mist in front of him parted and another etarnel came into view, it was the same as the ones behind him only that this one did not have six paws, it had four, black claws on its legs.
It lunged forward towards vale who, although was surprised, took a careful step sideways and rammed the back of the hatchet on its head so that it didn't get stuck inside it.
Then, his breath caught in his throat as there were two more eternal in front of him, the clawed ones.
Two more running straight towards him, multiple more behind him, and one proposing itself up beside him.
'FUCK'
He dug his feet in the ground to stop himself then swiped his forearm upwards to bash the incoming etarnel upwards by the jaw, then put the hatchet to the side of the etarnel where the ribs would've been, and swiped horizontally, ripping the etarnal's insides but also straining his already injured shoulder.
But that gave the other one enough time to claw at his right lower quadrant area, causing a Peircing pain to stun him for a single movement before his left wrist went straight to the head of the etarnel.
His fist was met with the maw of the eternal but before the eternal could bite down, vale pushed his hand all the way to the back of the eternal and push it to the ground and sunk his fingers to the back of the mouth causing it to loosen it's bite.
He used the hatchet to deliver a cut to the neck of the eternal.
He slashed it one more time before forcefully pulling his hand out of the eternals mouth.
His hand and forearm had multiple long laceration wounds running across it.
It hand was covered it blood moments later, the blood loss from his shoulder, lower quadrant, and forearm making his head slightly dizzy.
By the time he stood up again, the eternals behind him had already reached him and the one he had thrown to the side was already pouncing at him.
He put his left hand upwards towards the incoming maw of the eternal and let it bite down of him, then he swung his arm towards the incoming group of eternals and used the hatchet to slice at the neck of the eternal biting down at his hand.
The force of the swing of his hand alongside the force of the slice severed the head of the disgusting eternal and its body flew straight towards the hoard of eternals ready to pounce on him.
The body landed on a few, and and few more were thrown off there feet, but a few were still standing, and already on him, seemingly not caring about there numbers.
Vale pushed through the pain, grit his teeth and pushed his body forward with the hatchet raised above his head with one hand.
He swung the hatchet straight downwards, landing it on the maw of another eternal and cutting it vertically and digging even deeper, he then flung his right hand backwards, causing the eternal to fall off his hatchet.
but because his hatchet was towards the back, he used his hand to try and bash the head of another incoming eternal, only to have it caught by the jaws of it, but it did not matter as he simply leaned forward and put all his weight on the foot, breaking the etarnal's jaws.
He then used the hatchet with full force to hack into the eternal rushing at him from the side, leaving a deep wound but also having the hatchet get stuck.
He took his foot of the eternal with the broken jaw and put his other foot over the eternal he just hacked into and wretch the hatchet out of it.
The force of the wretched out hatchet made it fly upwards so he used it to cut the paws of a eternal in two and step past it.
But stepping past it turned out to be a mistake.
The eternal, who was pretty close to him, latched it's teeth onto the side of his shirt, causing him to tumble a bit before it tore the short off.
He stumbled backwards, giving an eternal which had been stuck under the headless one and opportunity to strick near his neck of face.
"!"
He felt his senses be numbed and his entire being be filled with a blinding and Peircing pain, he had to involuntarily close his left eye.
The eternal had landed it's paws on the left side of his face, leaving a deep mark on his forehead to his cheek and destroying his left eye.
Vale fell to the ground, and let out a bloodied scream. He felt a pair of teeth sink into his side, he subconsciously flailed his hatchet around, not being able to see anything.
'ah...ah...no....'
His sight was blocked and his ears were numbed, his body was in a world of pain, the only thing he could taste was blood and his smell be damned.
His hatchet hit flesh once, before he felt himself being clawed at, he struggled against the increasing amount of attacks, the pain and wounds piling up at frightening speed.
He didn't know when but at some point, hai lether bag had been broken off and taken from him.
He felt a chunk of flesh being wretched off his calf, his body going number to his senses, pain overwheled his thoughts, and yet, only one thought entered his mind.
'i...don't want.... to die...'
And...as the thought enter, he felt his senses return.
His mind was getting hazy, and his thoughts were getting slower and obscure.
Unbeknownst to him, his body was getting slightly stronger and stronger over time, his bleeding had slowed down considerably. and pain had been somewhat numbed, yet enough to drown his thoughts.
He felt the hatchet break off, resulting in him simply using his hands to claw and punch the hoard of incoming eternals.
'whats... happening...'
He could feel the flow of time, and realised that his thoughts had become hazy for a few dozen seconds.
He forcefully opened his left eye only to have his vision be blurry due to the tears flowing out of it, the moment a thought formed, he tried to quickly get to his feets and run away, only to bash himself against a tree the moment he tried to stood up.
His legs did not seem to move, his eyes were still blurry, but his hearing seemed to return somewhat, he heard the muffled growls of eternals behind him, filled with desperationg or hunger.
His eyes cleared slightly, and he saw the entire area filled with bodies, most of them were still alive, but had their body brutally mutilated, which was probably worse.
The dry leaves clung to his clothes which had been drenched in blood, a lot of it was his, and a lot of it was the eternal's.
The fog had become so dense that he couldn't see past 10 meters.
As his eyes cleared more, he could somehow realize that his thoughts were extremely hazy front eh sheer amount of blood loss, it was honestly highly astonishing that he had held on this long.
His eyes cleared more and drifted here and there, and then he saw it.
Infront of him, a few meters away was a very small pond, which clear water that could allow one to see to the bottom of the pond easily, and on the middle of the pond, floating on the water, was a ball of flesh covered in hundreds of eyes, it had a flesh like pipe that connected it to the bottom of the pond.
Vale's thoughts were getting more and more hazy.