Chapter 29: Pursuit

That time was good for Xin to calm down.

How did they get here, where was here, where was Ying Zheng, what's happened to Maha. Many questions and he wished he had any answers. The calming doll in his hands slowly tilted her head. If it wasn't for her shining eyes, he wouldn't know she was alive. Demons neither breath nor have a heartbeat. Too bad she also wasn't any warm, the temperature around was freezing, and his palms were sweaty and cold touching the ground. He also smelled strange; seems like the pill has started working, how timely!

It was anti-mosquito; however, would it work on bees? Seems like it does. A little swarm appeared out of nowhere, but once the insects were touching him, they were dropping dead. It's angered them, and soon he was literally sieged. Gladly, after several minutes most of them were covering the floor and only lucky survivors and cowards were still buzzing around.

"Zzzzzz~"

His body relaxed; now he was sure that the exit from that structure, or at least a window, was nearby.

So, what should he preoccupy his mind with for now?

First, he put his hands on Maha's pleasant smooth cheeks and started turning her head around, inspecting the place. The room was quite small and completely unfurnished. So, what was the point of it?

Good question, he should think about it.

He should think about anything to keep his mind from the fact that he couldn't release the girl, that he was so scared that…

Never mind.

"ZzZzzzZ~!"

He heard a sound: as if a hive was poked with a stick on fire. At first, it was coming from the floor, then it vanished for some time, then he heard it from the wall. The boy turned pale and stood up; It was heading toward him.

He sprung forward and to the right, into the corridor. The light was shaky, but the didn't need to see; the path was straight. He ran until his feet hurt and stooped only when there was no more buzzing to be heard.

He finally took a deep breath. He was still in a corridor, nothing changed. How vast was this place? Maybe he should run a bit more.

However, when you glad that something has vanished, you rarely notice when something new appears.

Xin turned back after breathing enough, a simple instinctive motion, and then his gaze froze.

A large statue, no, a beast. Three pairs of legs, a large body, a perfectly round head with a diagonal mouth and rattling yellow teeth. And itself it was covered in something yellow, like a thick layer of solid wax. He could barely see in the darkness, but the hollow ravine on its belly, from which countless bees were crawling, was easy to spot.

Did it had hands?

"YOU THERE!" The buzzing shaped into words and rang in the air. Something exploded and the ceiling trembled, the light trembled, the boy trembled and ran.

"WHERE?!" It shouted released its bees, and like an avalanche, they covered all four sides of the corridor. Only a little space around Xin was safe. The boy ran, ran, ran and ran and the beast was behind, clock, clock, clock sang its legs.

Thub, thub, thub – sung the boy's heart.

His mind was in disorder at the moment, or rather he was stripped of his mind.

His legs run and he was glad about that; the girl's head was swinging side to side, shining and hiding; his way was in blinks.

Light, darkness, light, darkness, light, darkness, Light!

"..."

He felt something familiar, like a sudden recollection; he was standing before darkness back then, but now it was different: an endless green forest was below, the sky was a diamond-clear, the sun was the sun on that diamond.

He was on a great pyramid, half-way to the top but already so close to the clouds if they were present.

The first breath of fresh air in a while made him aware of what was going on. He felt a strong headache as if his brain was in a vice and, at last, he woke up.

What was that monster? He couldn't remember, but he could try to analyze. It had no eyes, it was full of bees, it was… It was, possibly, an inhabitant of this place. Xin turned back and saw a wall with some moss here and there. Illusion, he guessed, and in that case...

It's running to him, he only has several seconds while it can't see him. Wait, it can't see! Then...

...

"WHERE!" A large creature passed through the wall revealing its handless body to the light.

"WHERE ARE YOU, WHERE? HOW DARE YOU TOUCH THEM, COME HERE, COME HERE!"

At once it exploded with thousands of bees and thunderous buzzing.

The monster concentrated. He could perceive the world only with the help of his insects. And now they were searching, searching for that damn lizard who was eating them. He will find him, he will... There!

The six-legged beast sprung up to the next step of the pyramid.

Suddenly, a large sting emerged from the hole in its belly and then the rest of a big, hairy bee. It pierced the air like a lightning.

"Wrong guesshh."

A strong impact knocked the beast forward; it staggered several steps but didn't fell. It turned and its mouth revealed its long yellow teeth.

"You finally went mad, Big-bee?"

Asked a large lizard standing on its two legs and dressed in a simple rough cloth with several ropes tying it to its green body. Its long tongue swirled in the air around the six-legged beast and retreated into its mouth as if the lizard swallowed it.

"YOU, YOU KILLING THEM, HOW DARE YOU KILL THEM!" The buzzing thundered in the air, the lizard only tilted its head.

"Who? Yorshhh delusionshh again?"

"DON'T JOKE, YOU, YOU, YOU WILL PAY!" The beast jumped forward with a cloud of bees surrounding it. The lizard, meanwhile, didn't react at all.

Only when the storm was just a hair away from it, the lizard eyes suddenly fixated on it. It jumped into the air and with a somersault landed behind the beast. Then it lifted its slim but muscular hands to the sides and said:

"Vo-la!"

The hive-like monster slowly turned to it.

"YOU!"

"Me! But you crazyshh, Big-bee. I didn't touch you precisions beeshhh at all."

"WHO THEN?"

Big-bee's legs started rattling at the stoneground.

The lizard closed its eyes, its green nose slightly shivered, then strained. He smiled as wide as his protruding face could.

"The scent, the alluring swamps, the disdainful volcano, the ash, the poison, and behind it, ohhh…"

It jumped on the layer lower, where Big-bee came from in the first place.

"And shweat…" The lizard suddenly extended its clawed and webbed palm into the wall. It went through, slightly jolted, and then went out.

"You rat!" Several green drops fell to the ground. The lizard looked at the thin but deep wound on its trembling hand.

"You… Big-bee, here!" He shouted and vanished in the wall. A crash sounded and the Six-legged beast followed it.

"STOP!"

…

Xin was running with all his might through the cold wind ripping his skin. It was hard for him to comprehend what went wrong. First, he tricked that blind and deaf beast and crawled back through the wall under its legs, then he started waiting for it to go to search for him to some other place, he was planning to slowly descend from this pyramid from outside. Sadly, several factors disturbed his nearly perfect strategy. The main one was that he couldn't hear what was happening outside the wall. He planned to count one minute and go out, but at forty seconds a hand grabbed his shoulder. Panicking, he sliced it with his sabre, took Maha and started running. From the very beginning, it was just a set of unlucky coincidences. The boy wished to sigh but couldn't waste air. Slimy steps with rattling and buzzing were following him.

The situation was getting hopeless.