Predatory eyes glowing red, mechanical limbs that would crush you, and terrifying jaws that would make your knees tremble with fear just by looking at them. He saw all of that cruelty charging straight at him.
He didn't even hope that his small dagger would be able to defeat this monster. He could hardly wound it... Only a miracle could help him escape.
Everything that was happening seemed to be in slow motion. With each step Ryskar took, his heart beat faster and faster, like a sprint at full speed. A mixture of adrenaline, strange energy, and a touch of madness flooded his blood.
At that moment, he stopped, seeing a mechanized monster in front of him. The charging beast began to resemble an enraged bull, and the red forest turned into crowded stands. The only thing missing was the music... But his imagination was able to fill in even that.
In his past life, he had watched similar bullfights. A brave matador danced on the edge of life and death in front of the enraged beast, and the crowd cheered his actions. There was something about this madness that stirred the blood.
Something that made him want to follow the matador's dance with death.
Someday, when it was all over, he wanted to try it himself... or at least in another life.
But even though he found himself in another life, the reality was not so rosy. Just to turn around, he had to endure unimaginable pain.
This bull would undoubtedly catch up with him, crush him, and tear him apart, but...
But...
But...
But...
But...
But...
"…!"
Why was his heart on fire right now? Why did it look forward to facing the bull?
Why did it refuse to surrender and beg for battle?
Why was it blazing like this?!
"RRRAAAHH!!!"
The bull was 10 meters away from him and charging forward at full speed. He had about 3 seconds.
He needed a miracle.
3...
He had a dagger clenched in his right hand... But it couldn't help him avoid the beast, only wound it, and now that was useless.
2...
'Damn!'
With growing panic, anticipation, and fire in his heart, thoughts raced through his mind at terrifying speed.
He still had the metal cable clenched in his left hand... But it was too slow. The bull would catch up with him before he could push off the ground or try to climb the rope. It was useless.
Apart from the objects in his hands, all he had left was his body... But it almost refused to obey him because of the wound on his back. His limit was running, but even that was too slow.
1...
"RRAAAWW!!!"
The foul stench of blood and mangled flesh hit him. The bull was right in front of him.
'DAMN!!!'
None of his equipment would help him. Only a miracle could save him, and...
A moment before the collision, his gaze fell on the mechanism at the end of the rope.
But his left hand reacted faster than his eyes, already grabbing the handle.
He felt a vibration. The identification check took less than a split second, and then...
"RRRRAAAAH!!!" Ryskar opened its mouth, intending to bite into his neck.
*Swoosh!* There was a tightening sound, and an irresistible force carried him upward, nearly tearing his arm from his shoulder.
"...!" He wanted to shout something, but found neither the strength nor the opportunity to do so.
Shock and ecstasy were all he felt now.
The mechanism pulled him out of mortal danger, but Ryskar still tried to bite off at least his right arm.
Without looking, he pulled his arm back and then stabbed the metal head with his dagger. There was a steel screech, then the crack of something breaking, and then...
"RRYAAAA!!!"
Only now, as he flew through the air, did he realize that what he was facing was not a bull, but a mechanical monster in the form of a feline beast. And right now, this beast was howling in hellish pain.
A steel dagger was lodged in the narrow slit of its right eye-socket, and its predatory red color had noticeably faded. It was monstrous luck, but more importantly...
'A miracle?!' he screamed in his mind.
He flew straight towards the branches where his automatic hook was stuck.
The sensation of flying without having to climb, the heat of emotion, and the piercing feeling of a battle won — all this took his breath away, but what surprised him most was the sudden miracle.
'But how?!' he exclaimed in disbelief in his head as he tried to figure out how to hook onto the branches.
His shock was understandable. He checked every fingerprint on the seven corpses, but none of them matched... Who would have thought the eighth corpse — the former owner of his body — was the true owner of the automatic grappling hook.
After his first failed attempt at identification, he stopped trying, as he considered it logical. He himself had witnessed the body literally changing its structure before his eyes, returning it to its appearance from a past life. Of course, this should have affected both his fingerprints and everything else, and he saw this for himself, but...
Apparently, he would have to revise his theory that his appearance was identical to his past self. Perhaps everything really seemed that way to him, but from the outside or in the eyes of other people, he might have looked different.
But now none of that mattered, because a miracle had truly happened... And now he was flying.
And the enraged Ryskar, rushing after him, was now wounded, just like him.
'An eye for an eye,' he thought with grim satisfaction and flew headfirst into the branches.
…
'Daamn!'
There was almost no chance to scream out loud. Not only was his breathing rapid, but he was also experiencing sharp flashes of pain.
The wound on his back had torn open again, leaving a bloody trail behind him. His face was covered with all kinds of scratches and bruises.
The process of adapting to the strange mechanism of ascending and descending was simply awful, but still...
'This is a real grappling hook!'
In his mind, such an item was the dream of any teenager. And although he was long past that age, right now he had a modern and greatly upgraded version of this hook in his hands.
With it, he could almost fly.
"RAAAW!!!"
"Aaaaaaaah!"
However, he couldn't hold back a panicked scream from the roar chasing him.
Using the hook, he could evade the monster's jaws and claws. Probably the forest was the best terrain for such flights. However, the hook was designed to climb up, not fly around.
He clung to tree trunks and branches with the hook, while trying not to crash from the height he was gaining. Fortunately, the hook mechanism also allowed for safe descents.
"RRRAA!!!"
The Ranger's claws tore at the ground, and the beast's jaws tried to bite off his heel every time.
'When the hell will you stop?!' Even if he shouted, the predator would hardly respond with anything other than a roar.
The initial joy of flying had not yet faded, but the constant pursuit of the beast brought back the tension.
And yet, strange as it may seem, he now felt much safer than he had with a pistol and dagger in his hands.
Was it just bravado, or was he sure he could keep the beast chasing shadows until all the blood finally drained from it, or the lifesaving hook finally broke? Unfortunately, both endings were dead ends, which meant he needed a plan.
"Left, left, left!" And he was already executing it, moving in the direction indicated by the spots on the trees.
The map of Red Lamb Ryskar said that this bloody forest was to the left of the "Entrance." He had definitely entered the forest from the opposite end, and the spots roughly indicated that he should keep to the left. Perhaps he was walking towards what should be "right next to the Entrance" or walking diagonally, approaching the Entrance directly.
Unfortunately, he did not know what the mysterious Entrance was, but both of these options seemed better than the hungry maw and the mechanical grinder waiting inside it.
"...!" Be that as it may, he again escaped the predator's claws and threw the hook forward.
He hoped to escape from the bloody forest as soon as possible.
...
Fifty minutes passed.
"Bha..." He was gasping for breath and spitting saliva with a taste of iron.
Almost an hour of marathon climbing and running at full speed. His muscles felt like lead and almost refused to respond to his brain's commands. The bleeding had formed a huge dark red stain across half of his back.
In this state, he began to think that the idea of being torn apart at the very beginning wasn't so bad after all.
But anyway...
"Finally..." he croaked, landing behind a tree.
*Crack!* The trunk behind him was almost immediately torn apart by the monster's claws, but the grappling hook was already carrying him away.
Every second was literally a dance on the edge of death. And now he was coming to the end.
The trees were finally coming to an end, as was his strength.
He trusted the signs on the pale trees and came straight here.
Something had to happen, or else it would be the end for him...
And that something was the terrain that replaced the forest.
It was a small field dotted with truly beautiful flowers.
These flowers were poppies, dyed an intense scarlet. Just like blood.
"...!"
The miraculous salvation turned out to be not what he had expected.
After all, all six senses, including intuition, literally screamed about it…
He had come straight to the field of harvest.