It bordered deafening, shaking the earth and forcing even just the act of standing to require great effort. Pieces of loose rubble tumbled off in all directions, falling small mountains and shifting the terrain. Crouching low as to prevent himself from landing on his ass yet again, Brock glanced around in a panic, the vibrations of the earth so overwhelming that he couldn’t make heads or tails of where the culprit was approaching from.

"I'm so fuckedddddd..."

Cursing out himself, the System, and just life in general, Brock felt his nerves rising and reached over for a piece of rebar that had shaken loose of its cement bindings by the battle beforehand. It was only about the length of his leg and blunt as all hell, but it was better than nothing.

Eventually, as the source of the quakes rapidly closed in and the rumbling redoubled, Brock could only watch helplessly while the decaying remains of the beast’s corpse was dethroned from its position on the hill. It proceeded to tumble into the lake it had created, leaving a trail of sickly blackened flesh behind it clinging stubbornly to the stone.

As the distance shrunk between them, Brock found himself somewhat able to pinpoint the speedily approaching being as coming from the west, a little ways right of where he was facing. A small opening between the buildings marked a street, and he assumed that was where the monster would enter from. Yeah, I don't think I should stick around...

Feeling the flames of fear tickle his gut, he considered the preposition of just turning tail and fleeing, and for the first time since he’d had the repeated idea, Brock decided to pursue it wholeheartedly. Spinning around on his feet, he began sprinting straight for the nearest exit with all the might he could muster. As he ran, the rumbling abruptly halted. Huh?

Brock dared to look back, eying the direction over his shoulder. He stumbled in surprise as an intact building exploded into shards of debris, showering the surrounding area in a thick cloud of dust. He swallowed nervously as sinuous accents of energy shone through the plume of grey, various lines of vibrant emerald blazing, seeming to stare right at him.

"Oh, fuck."

His eyes widening with fear, Brock picked up the pace, leaping over a puddle of blood barring his way and hurriedly approaching the turn-off to escape. Behind him, the beast roared in what he thought was indignance as the prey it had spotted began to run away.

A sound akin to the crack of a whip echoed out as the monster suddenly exploded into motion, the plume of dust around it being dispelled instantly by the air pressure created from its mere movements. Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Holy fuckkkkkk.

Brock was about two seconds from frantically skidding around the turn when his leg was consumed in a flickering of crimson and midnight lightning. His eyes bulged in his skull as the limb sunk into the flora-stricken asphalt, stopping just below his knee. The sudden halt in momentum almost saw him faceplant.

His breathing quick and palms sweaty, he tried to use the bar of rebar to gain leverage for him to pull his appendage out and balance on one leg, but it was to no avail. He just couldn’t muster enough strength to do so.

“FUCK!”

Brock’s scream echoed through the street and he dared to look behind him. His mouth could only gape as his eyes fell upon the horrifically gigantic beast that was quickly eating the distance between them with its thick limbs. You've got to be joking...

While not as large as the decayed hawk, its size would easily contend with a double-decker bus and outwardly appeared rather similar to the Treant he had first fought, though admittedly, that one looked like a baby compared it its big brother over there.

It too possessed a body of interwoven emerald vines, although contrary to the humanoid-crocodile form its lesser counterpart had adopted, this one had fully gone the route of the croc, seeming like an oversized, environmentally friendly imitation of the iconic reptile, but with legs that were slightly longer and more suited for running.

For chasing prey.

Along its back, a thin mane of rustling leaves grew, making the terrifying creature look strangely beautiful despite the fact that the first thing Brock even noticed was the unhinged maw filled with an endless number of enlarged, jagged thorns.

[F] Lesser Treant (LVL 13)

“Well… shit…”

If the level wasn’t enough of an indication for him to run for his life, then he didn’t know what would be. Even though it owned the same name as the infinitely weaker creature Brock had defeated, he would have to be a special kind of fool to even consider them to be in the same realm of strength.

In spite of that, it still appeared to be somewhat weaker than his impression of the Alpha, though he wasn’t willing to go and put it to the test.

Finally, the flickering ceased and his leg bounced out of the ground, returning to the world of the material. The jerking moment sent Brock stumbling back, but he caught himself. With no time to waste, he cast his pathetic metal rod aside and used all the power dormant in his legs to dive around the corner.

It was just in time too. The Treant’s hulking mass lunged right past him as he slammed into the ground, its jaws chomping through the air and creating a small shockwave. Several pieces of debris hit Brock as its outstretched legs grazed the remains of the building beside it.

“Ohhhhh shitshitshitshitshit.” Brock droned, shuddering as the beast’s eyeless face snapped in his direction, a honey-like fluid drooling from its mouth and splattering onto the asphalt. RUN MATE! FUCKING RUN!

Reorienting itself as Brock forced himself to his feet once again and bolted, the monster let out a gurgling bellow so loud it rattled the office worker’s bones. He sprinted from the scene as fast as his legs would move him, and he watched over his shoulder as the beast began to give chase. Belying its size, the creature was fast. The earthshaking rumbles from before were replaced with slight tremors as the monster veritably skimmed over the earth.

Slapping himself across the face twice to get his mind to work as quickly as it possibly could, Brock spotted a multi-story building up ahead and eyed the adjacent rooftops it had access to. He glanced around at other options, but that was all that stood out to him; all that had even a slight chance to keep him from dying for the second time that week.

Because he knew he sure as hell wasn’t going to outrun this thing.

With a grimace, he decided to bet his life and take a gamble. It was only a matter of time before the Treant reached him at this point. Already, it had almost cleared three-quarters of the distance between them, and Brock had owned a head start of about ten seconds. Come on...

Praying to his lord and saviour, the barbeque, Brock powered through the remaining meters and wheeled himself to a skidding stop. Hastily, he dropped down and used his remaining momentum to roll into the building, wincing as the low window he entered from shattered around him and pelted his body with shards of glass. Somewhat relieved, he observed as the Treant slid past only five seconds later, attempting to halt its own momentum and pursue its prey.

Without wasting any time, Brock scrambled over to the stairs and got back to his feet along the way. His leg flicked out as he found his path barred by a locked door, and satisfaction surged within him as it broke off the hinges with a snap. It clattered onto the stairs as Brock began skimming up them, taking deep breath after deep breath to both regain his energy and soothe his nerves.

"Uh oh...", though, the sense of calm it instilled didn’t last long, as Brock felt more than heard as the floor below was ravaged by the beast’s roaming snout. The building groaned with strain as it began to shudder and tilt slightly to one side, "I'm gonna cry..."

Charging up past the second floor, he almost didn’t have enough time to react as the majority of the floor caved inward and tore a good chunk of the staircase down with it, forcing him to make a heroic leap to reach the next few and continue. He heard the wall to the left of the floor crumble as it was shaved off by the enraged Treant in an attempt to locate him.

After dodging falling rubble and avoiding falling down the now fragmented stairway, Brock stumbled out onto the roof, his shoulder colliding with the door and sending it sliding across and off the building. Already, the place was one good hit away from imploding, with entire sides having slumped downward and the whole of the structure itself tilting heavily to one side, the angle only growing as each second passed.

If not for the powerful roots infesting the interior of the place and keeping it aloft, Brock had no doubt it would have crumbled to pieces long ago.

Frantically, he surveyed the surrounding rooftops and found no hesitation in his decision as he picked out the closest one and instantly bolted toward it like his life depended on it. Which it a hundred per cent did. A cold sweat worked its way down his forehead while he ran, the structure beginning to groan ominously. Come on... come on...

Screaming with effort, Brock reached the edge of the building just as it started to collapse underneath him. He grunted and jumped, soaring over the gap, and tapping down on the building opposite the rooftop. He didn’t even give himself time to enjoy his newfound Stat enhanced mobility before he kept running, not neglecting to sprint for even so much as a millisecond.

Grinning triumphantly, he glared at the creature over his shoulder, "Yeah, fuck you!"

Behind him, as the scene of combat faded further and further into the distance, Brock heard a gurgling bellow echo throughout the entirety of the area, stunning him with all the rage and fury contained within. It was so saturated that he felt it was almost made manifest. It was an oddly… human amount of emotion.

It was only ten minutes later, as the sounds of the raging beast fled from earshot and he no longer felt himself in grave danger, when Brock finally slowed down and stopped, panting like a chain smoker. While his body was certainly approaching the realm of superhuman, sprinting at full speed while parkouring across rooftops was a workout and a half plus a little bit more. He was positively drowned in his own sweat, and he feared his lungs were going to shrivel up and pop.

I can’t wait until the adrenaline wears off and makes me feel even worse.

Another benefit of his Stats that he finally noticed was that he had appeared to have slimmed down significantly, the puddle of water he was now gazing into revealing a man with a lot less pudge on his face and body than before, his physique more streamlined and muscular. It was good to know that risking his life tooth and nail voided the need to exercise. In a morbid sort of way, he guessed.

Settling down on the edge of the building he now found safety upon - a badly maintained apartment complex, it seemed - Brock tore open his bag and instantly downed another bottle of water, his throat feeling as parched as the expanse of the Sahara Desert. He should have been rationing his stock, as it was quite limited currently, but fuck it.

He rubbed his neck in an attempt to ease the tension stiffening his muscles as he ripped open a slightly squashed sub, one consisting of meatballs and salad, and promptly devoured it in a handful of quick bites. He rubbed his full belly in satisfaction as he leaned back and savoured the aftertaste of it all.

“I… really wanna go home,” Brock said to himself as he gazed out over the fantastical landscape, a now-familiar fusion of civilization and mother nature’s sticky grasp. It still left him slightly awestruck at the vast mystery of it all, “Two days ago I was trying to get sober on a rooftop, and now I’m Chronicle of Riddick-ing this shit.”

He rested his chin in his hand and sighed, “Life’s stupid that way, I guess.”

No one responded as he licked the remaining chunks of food from his teeth, and Brock glanced down to his hands, left in wonder as he thought back to the explosion that had started the whole crocodile escapade. For an ‘Augment’ with a seemingly weak name like ‘Sparks’, it had created something that he was certain wouldn’t be hard-pressed to compete with the likes of a hand grenade. It's kinda terrifying...

In the end, Brock cut his respite short and entered the next building over as it had a rooftop access door while his current one did not. A minute or so later, he stepped out onto the streets, this one relatively unfamiliar and scummy looking compared to the rest he’d seen so far and that was saying a lot, considering most looked like shit anyway. Huh.

Here, the growth of the jungle had been curbed by a fair amount compared to where he had come from, the area being probably one of the safer places in the city if one took its jungle-ation into account. And that was fine by Brock.

Sparing a half hour to give the apartment building a cursory search, resulting in him obtaining a handful of canned foods and a new, markedly sharper, knife, Brock eventually wandered out of the area, using his improved memory to pinpoint the exact direction he had fled from. That way.

Soon, he led himself down the silent streets once more, following an invisible and partially random path as he tried to return to the depth he had been at prior, albeit far far away from the battlefield he had stumbled upon. In the future, he thought it would be a better idea to navigate using the rooftops, but for now, he walked through the moss-laden street.

He strolled on for another half hour or so, only getting into a fight with a Pontiac, albeit one by its lonesome, strangely enough. Despite the reaction of fear its sight induced in him, the ensuing brawl had been anything but pitched. Hell, with the help of his new knife and enhanced stats, Brock had almost decapitated it in a single swing.

The mere thought of it all left him feeling powerful and relieved, so much so that it was intoxicating. Despite those thoughts, however, he abruptly paused in his tracks as a shadow passed overhead so quickly he almost missed it.

"What the...?"

It took a few seconds, but Brock managed to locate a winged blur as it exploded through the canopy polluted sky, travelling at speeds that would make most modern fighter jets jealous. The details of its gargantuan form were obscured by the sun shining down behind it, but a simple fact soon became clear to Brock as the beast dived down and reappeared in the blue expanse seconds later, the silhouette of a crocodilian beast hanging limply from its beak.

That Treant was an overwhelming monstrosity, but he was still yet to meet the true apex predators of the jungle.