Amala immediately shot three arrows at the beast that hit it in its many eyes. As the eyes were punctured more eyes came forth from the gooey blob monster.

It jumped from the ledge attacking them and grabbing hold of one of the soldiers and eating him whole with its blunt teeth crunching as it chewed. More large mouths came forth that smiled in a ridiculing way at the rest of them.

Pema jumped onto its back. He tried to hit the creature as hard as he could with his carbon-enhanced fists, but it was like hitting a pillow with getting no results.

Pair of hands appeared and tried to grab hold of Pema with a mouth appearing under his legs. Pema ripped the hands away and jumped off before they could grab a hold on him.

The creature just smiled eyeing at all of them. Amala felt creeped out as she was firing all the arrows she could muster. None of them were able to hurt the monster with the arrows just at most tickling the beast.

Its body could regenerate almost infinitely and its noises and screams sounded almost human-like.

It created long and skinny arms that looked like branches and tried to grab hold of Erik who swung his sword around hoping that he wouldn't get caught by them.

The soldiers tried to chop down the arms and legs of the monster in vain. More hands appeared and they grabbed hold of the soldiers moving them closer to it. Mouths appeared and ate the soldiers up wherever the hands dragged the helpless men.

"We need to flee now!" Erik yelled.

"What. We can't flee now!" Amala yelled back.

Pema grabbed hold of Amala and started to run away from the hill. The last of the soldiers were swallowed up by the monster as the three of them started to flee.

"What the hell are you doing?" Amala yelled while being carried by Pema.

Pema didn't answer and kept dodging the rocks and trees the monster was throwing at them. The monster tumbled down chasing after them going through trees and rocks like a landslide.

It chased Erik, Pema and Amala back to the village where they originally started their investigations. They climbed on top of the tallest building in the village without a proper plan. The monster just looked and smiled creepily at them as they were on the roof.

"Why the hell is it just smiling like that?! And why is it not coming after us? It could easily bulldoze this building" Amala yelled looking at the monster.

"It also gets partial intelligence from the creatures it devours. Not much but a small amount. Heard one raxnas even learned how to laugh. This one seems to have learned a sick sense of humor and wants to see us suffer before it eats us."

"Are we going to wait here for long?" she asked.

"Do you want to fight that thing instead?" Erik asked.

Amala stared at the monster as it licked its teeth. Amala felt disgusted by it and was happy to stay on the roof but knew there was no other choice.

~ ~

It was night and the monster was still lurking on the ground waiting for them to come down.

"So, tell me. Why did you decide to join the rebels? Did you join to become the lord of the Craiov region?" Amala asked Erik as a way to pass the time.

"Heh….I never wanted to be the lord in the first place. I was given the lordship since I was the only noble of this region that had rebelled. This region is poor so a greedy noble was the last thing the people needed. I was a low-class noble who worked as the lord's personal aide. I was given rights as a cavalry commander keeping these woods safe.

I felt immense pride in my work but realized that killing monsters was not helping the people if they didn't have food on the table. When I realized the lord of Craiov had made villages all around starve just so he would get paid the proper amount of taxes. I knew then what must be done. When count Hunyadi called out every noble to rebel I gathered my men and joined the rebellion. I hope I could have helped the people, but it seems Craiov will always suffer.

"With the central government gone from Craiov, we didn't have enough men to keep the woods safe so the villagers started getting attacked by monsters more frequently."

"And now the forests are full of monsters," Pema said and stared at the monster lurking below.

"It was a hard decision but now I have to live with it. I just hope I made the right decision for my people," Erik answered with a somber voice.

"We all make decisions and we cannot always make the right ones. A good person accepts his mistake and a bad person runs away from them. That is the only difference," Pema explained.