Absolute Loser Becomes The Pleasure King Using Satan System

Chapter 57: 57.Forest of No Shade-7

Pain shot up his thigh, white at the edges of his vision.

"Get off! Get off me!"

He slammed the pommel down between its eyes.

Once. It didn’t let go. Twice, and something in its jaw finally gave, a wet crack, the pressure loosening just enough for him to wrench free.

No time to check the damage. A Tkern was already coming from his left, flanked by two Vexfangs spread wide, cutting off the angle he would’ve used to sidestep.

Three against one, and his leg already unwilling to carry his full weight.

Don’t just swing blindly! Think!

He shifted his weight onto his good leg, let the injured one drag, and waited a half beat longer than every instinct wanted.

The nearest Vexfang lunged first, impatient, and he caught it across the jaw with the flat of the blade, not a killing blow, just enough to knock its head sideways and buy himself half a second.

The Tkern used that half second to close the rest of the distance. Horns first, straight at his ribs.

He twisted, too slow, felt one point catch along his side, a line of fire opening under his shirt before he’d even finished turning.

He grabbed the horn on instinct instead of dodging clean, let the beast’s own momentum drag him sideways, and drove the machete up under its jaw while it was still committed to the charge.

It went rigid. Then down.

The blade wouldn’t come free.

He yanked once, twice, and it stayed lodged somewhere between bone and cartilage.

The second Vexfang was already closing on his open side, jaw unhinging, drool hissing where it struck a nearby stone.

No time to pull the blade.

He drove his boot into its throat instead, put everything his legs had left into it, felt it stagger back with a strangled yelp.

He planted a foot on the dead Tkern’s skull and finally ripped the machete loose with both hands.

"Mylo! Your leg!"

"Later!"

Another Tkern came from the side he wasn’t watching. No room left to brace.

He threw himself flat, felt horns pass close enough to stir his hair, and drove the blade up into its exposed belly as it sailed over him.

He rolled to his feet, leg screaming with every motion now, and found Tritia a stride away, back pressed to his without either of them deciding it, both turning slow circles in the dark, tracking shapes that kept multiplying no matter how many they put down.

Somewhere close, one of her claws caught a Vexfang across the throat before it had even finished its lunge, quick, almost bored, like her body had stopped needing her permission for it.

"How many left?"

"Don’t know! Too many! Keep killing!"

Something in her voice had gone tight.

He drove himself back into it anyway, machete swinging in short, brutal arcs, no room left for technique, just reaction after reaction, until his arms burned and his leg had gone from pain to a numb, distant throb that scared him worse than the pain had.

Bit by bit, the shapes stopped replacing themselves. Fewer horns catching what little light there was. Fewer eyes turning toward him out of the dark.

They fought until the sounds thinned out.

Until there was nothing left in front of them but bodies and blood soaking into black dirt.

Mylo dropped to one knee, chest heaving, and finally let himself look at his leg.

Two deep puncture marks, the skin around them already going a dull, spreading grey, colder to the touch than the rest of him.

"There’s a trench," Tritia said, pointing with a bloody hand toward a low dip in the ground. "Rest. Before something else smells all this."

They dragged themselves in, backs against the dirt wall, both of them shaking slightly from more than just the cold.

For a while neither of them said anything.

He could hear his own pulse louder than he wanted to, a fast, uneven drum somewhere behind his ears.

....

Kill count: 10/25 Vexfang, 5/25 Tkern.

.....

Fifteen more Vexfang. Twenty more Tkern.

A smaller number sat beside it, one he’d forgotten to check since the moment he’d left the cave.

[16:04:52]

Sixteen hours. Give or take. Less than he wanted. More than he’d feared.

"We should stop," Tritia said quietly, eyeing the poison darkening around her own bite mark. "For tonight."

He wanted to agree with her. Every part of him wanted to agree with her.

"No. We... we will keep going."

She studied him for a long moment, scarlet eyes moving over his face like she was searching for the fear he was working hard to keep off it.

"You’re scared. I can see it."

"...Yeah. A little. Probably more than a little."

"Then why keep going? Tell me."

He didn’t have a clean answer ready, not one he wanted to say out loud, so he gave her the closest thing he had.

"Because stopping doesn’t make it go away. It just makes tomorrow’s fear worse. I am scared of facing that fear."

She went quiet, considering that longer than the words seemed to deserve, like she was turning it over and checking it for a lie.

"Strange way to think." A short nod. "Fine. A little longer."

Half an hour of rest, then back on their feet.

The forest had changed in that stretch, or maybe they’d only just reached the part that had always been like this.

Bushes thinner. Branches too dark even for this place, bent at angles that didn’t follow any wind he could feel.

The wind itself had died completely, no breeze, no air moving at all, just a stillness pressing against his skin like something waiting to exhale. Even the ground felt different underfoot, harder, packed tighter, like fewer things had walked across it and lived to make it soft.

"Feels so different out here."

"It is."

She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. He could feel it too, the sense that whatever line they’d just crossed mattered, even if neither of them could point to where.

Tritia caught the next group first, nose lifting toward a cluster of black rock. Three shapes, grazing, unaware.

"Wound them," Mylo said. "Don’t let them get a clean look at you before I’m close. If they think they can win easily, they will scream for backup."

"Hmm. A real plan this time." Something almost like approval crossed her eyes. "Didn’t think you had one in you."

"I have plans. You just don’t listen to them."

"Most of them are too many words to be useful." She was already moving. "This one wasn’t. Hmm, I liked it."

She hit the nearest one from the side, a fast, shallow slash, enough to hurt, not enough to kill.

It reared back, startled, and Mylo closed the distance, blade angled up under its jaw, already sure of the strike before he’d even thrown it.

It should have been clean.

The Tkern twisted at the last second, some instinct or panic sending it sideways instead of back, and the blade caught bone instead of throat.

Not a kill. Just a wound stacked on a wound, and it screamed, high and raw, exactly the sound they’d needed to avoid.

"It’s calling!"

"I know! Finish it!"

He wrenched the blade free and drove it in again, properly this time, and the scream cut off mid-note. Too late. The sound was already out there, carrying through the dead, still air.

The other two bolted instead of charging, which was somehow worse.

It meant they’d decided the fight wasn’t worth losing over, and something faster than either of them could chase now knew exactly where to look.

"Let them go," Tritia said, watching the shapes vanish into the black. "Chasing costs more than it gives back."

"You sure?"

"No." Her eyes flicked to the bite mark on his leg, then back to his face.

"But we don’t have the strength to be sure right now. Come on."

They pressed on into the dark and the dead wind, both of them a little slower than before, both of them very aware that somewhere out there, something had just been told exactly where to find them.

Neither said it out loud. There wasn’t much point. The forest would tell them soon enough, one way or the other.

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