Soul: Tales of the Black Lotus

Chapter Four: Crash & Roll

Meanwhile, in the Natura Forest, I traveled further throughout the dense mist and fog of the region. I ran into zombies and other infested, of course, but they were of little consequence. But what surprised me is that none of them attacked me at all. I saw them devouring the bodies of those that have died before but when I walked past or beside them they did not even notice me. It felt as if I was a spirit, a ghost, roaming through forests of the damned. They chewed on necks, fingers, bellies and other parts of humanoid bodies that were lying over the ground. The trees I had seen before from Abalus were now located above me. They were gigantic trees, as if a giant grew them, and waterfalls poured from them that sprung life throughout the forest.

"We thought you were dead...", the voice of one of the gorgons then spoke and I stopped in my tracks, looking towards the floating trees where I heard the voice come from.

"But you have returned...", I heard the voice come from behind and so I turned my head in that direction. "To right your wrong!", I stated as I turned my head back. "Our wrong?!", it is then that several thorns flew from the shadows behind me and I leaped into the air only to do a barrel roll before landing on my feet.

The thorns passed me and impaled one of the zombies that it sent flying through the forest's terrain in the south.

"We have done no wrong!", the voice from above spoke again and icicles of water rained down upon me but I only had to move aside for them to fall to the ground.

I then prepared my blade for battle with the zombies and the infested growling at me the moment I had done so. In order to avoid combat, I had sheathed my blade and the creatures then kept staring me cautiously before resuming back to their consumption of flesh.

"You could not even save your own people.", the voice of the one before spoke to my right. "You are a failed spawn of nothing and nobody!", another spoke to my left.

"Created to serve slave masters!", I heard running through the forest as the two voices kept speaking together. "But your people are created to serve masters and they are made to serve others like them!", the voices became overwhelming, I believed this was the magic of the apparition that appeared once before.

"Your creators are slaves and that is all that you ever will be, an unwitting and unwilling slave!", the voices continued only for them both to shout together. "Now die!", before a new type of infested ran into the area on all four.

These infested are a mixture of a zombie and a natura infected. They resembled humans but they changed physically with new long, razor sharp teeth and large hideous mouths. Their bodies had bone-like blades protruding from their flesh, especially their arms, and their hands turned into claws.

"Tell me I am pretty!", said one of the creatures, a female, who struck at me along with her kin.

They waved their arm-like bone blades towards me and I responded by waving my obsidian blade that struck them without being able to cut it off. I then swung my blade around in a circle all around me and several times like a blade storm that struck their bones several times as they kept raising their arms in a defensive stance. When I stopped waving my blade around, they huffed and puffed, but then their bone-like blades broke off as they watched them fall to the ground. They all looked at one another that made me realize they had some form of intelligence compared to the zombies. One of them turned around and hid behind a zombie that it pushed towards me while the other opened its jaw to take a bite at me but I cut it down. I then raised my blade into the air as two ghouls impaled themselves by accident on top of it and then I swung the blade with their corpses into zombies that ran at me.