When Mel opened his eyes, a green gleam was radiated in the cave. He quickly raised his left arm and checked it. The external wounds were healed. He moved his fingers and made a fist, confirming that there was no problem.
“Harm first, then get well and get stronger. A little ruthless, isn’t it?”
These words poured out of his mouth as he moved towards the plants. His tone, especially while saying the word ‘hurt’ was proof of what he was feeling at that moment.
“Come on then!”
He sat cross-legged and after the wild creature bodies mingled with the ground, he tried to extract energy from the plants. When he had tried it previously, he couldn’t get any response. But this time, green energy streaks, darker than usual, appeared.
This new energy was coming from certain plants. Mel immediately realized that these were the ones near the creature’s bodies.
“Even the feeling it gives is different. I was not mistaken. Plants that feed on creature bodies can offer energy with much higher quality!”
The smile on his face was accompanied by the thoughts passing through his mind. He soon filled his body with energy again.
“One last try left. I hope I can find a few aggressive creatures!”
He rushed out of the cave. When he came near his old friend, he found it being transformed into a tree at the height of several men.
“One, two, three, four five! Not bad! Come on!”
As Mel shouted, the same number of creatures he counted jumped out of the bushes. The boy had already noticed them while his one hand was on the trunk of the tree.
“You can help me a little, right? This is the first time I will fight against so many creatures. Have no worries. All of them will be yours!”
Mel left the tree behind by caressing the hollow of it, which was still wet, and then began to watch the creatures which were circling him.
Not more than two seconds had passed, three of them attacked at the same time. One of them jumped up in the air, the other two dashed at him from opposite directions.
With no sign of panic on his face, Mel waited, standing still until he heard the big noise of a branch hitting on the creature in the air. When the tree, which was very young just like Mel, struck the enemy passing by, Mel moved forward quickly and clashed head-on-head with the enemy coming from the front.
While protecting himself by holding out his right hand in front of the big sharp teeth, his left hand, which he annealed with puppets all day, hit on the creature’s head in the form of a Dragon’s Claw. After that moment, the enemy no longer had ahead. When the dead body fell on the ground, Mel struck the final blow at the wolf that had been suppressed by the branch.
Eliminating two enemies in the blink of an eye, the boy did not stop. Without turning his face to the approaching creature behind him, he rolled to the right. The creature missed Mel and its attack came to nothing. Unlike the creature, Mel got power from both of his feet and his Dragon Claws hit the creature’s body that was covered with mottled gray fur.
“Three are gone, two are left!”
His eyes were not on his enemy. He spoke by looking at the fresh tree that helped him. While carrying the energy of plants fed by the corpses of dead creatures, traces of a different self-confidence were felt in Mel’s movements.
“Come!”
When Mel made a hand gesture that had the same meaning as the word ‘come’; this time, the enemies prepared for an attack by positioning themselves side by side since they wanted to use their numerical superiority. As each one had four claws in total, it wasn’t unreasonable to do that. But there was an important point they forgot.
The young tree had more branches than any of them, and these branches went up and down ragingly. The animals, whose attack patterns were destroyed, were not Mel’s exact match. So, the number of creature corpses on the ground reached five in a short time.
“Thank you, buddy. I didn’t have to run away this time!”
Having killed five enemies in less than ten minutes, Mel began to meditate by leaning his back to the young tree, this time without the hassle of removing the cores. As two kinds of energy had begun to flow into his body, his eyes suddenly opened. He was looking at both of his hands very carefully while muttering to himself.
“The plants in the cave provide higher quality energy by using the monsters as food. But these wild plants allow me to steal wild energy from corpses. I feel that my hands are getting a little stronger with each breath.”
Looking carefully at his hands, Mel noticed something he missed with the excitement of the moment. The wound on his hand, which he had used when blocking the first creature’s attack, was still there.
“The strengthening effect does not provide healing. When I’m done, I have to use the mixtures I prepared!”
Since only one tree had absorbed the energy of all five corpses, the skinny boy devoted his afternoon to this task. When he got up, Mel had dust in his hand which he took from the clay pot. After sprinkling it on the open wound, he covered it with a small cloth and quickly drank the other concoctions he had poured into his water bowl.
“This speed is too low. I’ll take my chance tonight!”
He didn’t hesitate to execute what he had in mind. He planned to spend the night outside without leaving the nearby surroundings of the cave.
He wandered around until midnight but did not encounter any creatures. Although he saw small animals, he did not think of killing any creature that did not attack him.
He went a little further inside the forest. By getting out of the circles he had drawn, he moved forward on the land where he set foot for the first time. He also did not hesitate to enter the valley on his way. He confidently walked towards the cold winds blowing within the valley.
The valley was quiet and calm and the slopes rising on either side were covered with thousands of colorful flowers. Until coming to the middle of the valley, Mel couldn’t stop himself from staring at the flowers admiringly. This situation continued until he heard roars one after another.
The atmosphere of the environment suddenly changed and claws appeared on the stunning flowers. His four sides were not covered with beauty but covered with wild creatures.
“My stupid head! How did I fall into this trap?”
Seeing the wall of wild creatures when he turned around, Mel lamented. The first-night watch seemed like a disaster now.
When he turned back, he noticed a crowd several times bigger than the one behind him. Moreover, with its red fur and huge body, several times bigger than normal creatures, there was a thing quite different here.
“Their leader has come. They waited for me here so as not to miss me. But I will not die. Not until I get my grandfather’s inheritance!”
Suddenly he started running in the direction he was coming from. His enemies were also running towards him. He was clamped on both sides. Mel moved towards the lesser-numbered part and made his first attack after his two hands took the form of a Dragon’s Claw.
The boy, who did not have time to spend on tactics, used his hands against claws. His skin was scratched with the first blow. After the creature was blown by the force of the hit, another came, and then another.
Like his arms, legs and body were covered with red marks; he broke the barricade and tried to escape towards the cave by being accompanied with angry howls. The presence of enemies chasing him on all sides made it impossible for him to use the concoctions on his ring. Thus, he kept swinging his paws and focused only on running forward.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not avoid getting a paw strike in every two steps. Sometimes he was receiving minor abrasions and sometimes deep wounds. As he began to gasp and his feet began to stall, the breaths behind his neck increased. A claw, large enough to cover his whole body, was about to hit on his back.
As he closed his eyes and leaned forward, a big noise came out. The claw that was supposed to hit on his back was now plunging to the ground, creating wide cracks. When Mel turned his head for a moment, he saw the tree blocking his enemies with its branches by using them like a whip.
He had come this far unwittingly. He looked at the tree and then looked at the path going to the cave. He stepped to turn back, but at that moment he came face to face with the red wind. Mel crossed his arms in front of his body. That was all he could do to counter the ferocious creature’s claw attack.
The skinny boy was thrown back several meters. He was out of the range of the enemy now. But the tree he had formed his first band was being attacked by hundreds.
