The Thousand-Year Forest, there are several of them scattered all around the world. Filled with trees that would pierce the skies. They weren’t called the Thousand-Year Forest for they existed for thousands of years, no, the trees that comprised it took a thousand years to reach maturity and their maximum potential height. These were the same trees that the log wall of the town was made of.

Despite its name and their known resilience to the elements–outliving most things in the world–they couldn’t live against the activities of Humans. The one next to town driven to near extinction, the Metham Empire made the harvesting of these trees and various other mystical and spiritual plants illegal.

Old legends and tales say that the original habitants of the world were Giants. After the rest of the sentient races were brought into the world and built civilizations, a war that devastated the whole world for centuries was born. The deadliest group of them all were the Giants.

To combat and neutralize these Giants, a human witch, the strongest at the time, cursed their entire race. This curse is rumored to turn all of them into the Thousand-Year Tree of today.

For thousands of years, outliving civilizations much like the trees, scientists and mages alike have yet to recreate this spell or formula. This had led to the hunting and capturing of druids as it was speculated that the witch was a druid.

Though few believe in the tale now, some cling to the children’s tale and have dedicated their entire lives to it. The creation of the two schools of magic, the Bio-Mages and the Green Mages, are a result of this obsession. They have yet to discover how to turn living organisms into plants.

Others, however, think that the era of Giants is coming back. That they were gathering their strength to launch a thousand year old counter-attack. Of course, the ones who preach this are out on the streets, homeless, screaming as if the world was truly ending. Who knows what is right or wrong at this point?

***

North of the town, the trio trek to the Thousand-Year Forest, or what’s left of it. For the past ten minutes that they have walked, it was nothing but tree stumps that were bigger than most homes. But the last existing trees of the forest had been visible since they left town. Dumog even doubted its existence and thought it was an illusion, there seemed to be no end in their walking. The trees in the distance taunt him, telling him to give up.

Like the other areas around the town, there was no sign of wildlife except for the occasional bird. It was like they were walking through a graveyard.

He looked over to Amihan, an oversized sledgehammer hung from her shoulder, no emotion on her face. She stared back at him, waiting for his usual question. Switching to Jacked, he whistled a tune he was trying to remember, an oversized two-man saw over his shoulder. It had crystals on its teeth instead of the usual metal ones.

“Why am I carrying three plants if we’re out here to cut trees?” He finally asked. Three saplings nestled in his arms, they weigh like a little kid.

“You know I’m not that evil. Since we’re going to cut one down, I figured we could replace it with three more,” Jacked walked backwards to talk to him.

“Aren’t there official loggers for a job like this?”

“You and your questions,” he rolled his eyes.

“It’s illegal,” Amihan answered.

“Then why are we doing this? Does the Job Center accept illegal jobs?”

“They don’t. That’s why the Mayor hired up, through Nox,” Jacked smiled at him as if everything was fine.

“Can you just explain everything to me? Why would the mayor request a job like this if it was illegal?” Dumog was frustrated by his master’s vagueness.

“Oh, naive man, have you seen that fat man? Royalty ain’t any better than the regular man. And he isn’t doing anything illegal, the act of harvesting is. If something were to block a public road in Metham land, it’s the responsibility of the local authority to deal with it. In this case it would be our Mayor. They can’t burn it or throw the wood away either, that is also against the law. So the Mayor has no choice but to use it so that it doesn’t go to waste.”

They finally reach a living tree. It reminded Dumog of skyscrapers back home. The saw that Jacked brought didn’t look suitable for the job. He didn’t think the heavy machines in his old world could even do it.

“But isn’t that law too lax for loopholes like that to exist?”

“It is, but the royal family doesn’t care. It’s mostly to look good in the people’s eyes and to justify that they are the kinder ones compared to the other factions. Make them seem relatable by caring about the environment,” Jacked dropped his tools and threw Dumog a shovel.

“Did the Mayor supply us with saplings too?” He started digging.

“No, these are from Sinta. Planted them 50 years ago when her old group died.”

“Oh.”

While Dumog dug and planted the saplings, Amihan and Jacked scouted the area. The age of the sapling and the trees piercing the clouds made him feel small and irrelevant. By the time that he’s reached a hundred years old. The trees he planted would have only been a tenth of their maximum height. The idea that they could live past ten thousand years scared him. They felt like they had limitless potential compared to him. How different would the world be by the time it reached the sky? How many wars would it survive through if it remained untouched?

“Bad news, there’s too many of them,” Amihan came back.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed as well. They’re still sleeping though, it’s still sunny out,” Jacked jogged from behind her.

“Where? I don’t see anyone but us,” Dumog looked around, just finished with the planting. He saw nothing but the trees and the whitish, gray forest floor.

Amihan pointed up. Craning his neck towards the sky following her finger, he couldn’t see anything but clouds and some leaves past it. Then a white substance fell and landed a few inches in front of him.

“Look around,” Amihan pointed down.

“Is that, shit?” The forest floor was covered in it.

“Flying Foxes. They won’t eat you, don’t worry, they’re herbivores. But they won’t shy away from attacking you with the claws and fangs they use for eating fruit. Saw a swarm of them peel a man alive when I was younger,” Jacked smiled at the memory.

“And we’re about to take down, what I assume, their home.”

“They won’t attack a living being unless they make loud, annoying sounds,” Amihan explained.

“That’s why I brought these for you,” Jacked brought out a copper handheld gong with a mallet to hit it.

“No.”

“But we’ve been training for this moment,” Jacked pouted.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have told me about you watching a man get peeled to death!” Dumog received the gong and mallet.

“I didn’t say he died when they peeled his skin off. They played with him some more after that.”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

Amihan and Jacked positioned themselves around the tree, saw handles in both of their hands. He sprinkled some sort of powder on the saw, causing the crystals on its teeth to glow.

“It’s to motivate you to run faster and make you mindful to not get caught.”

“You really just have to run around the area smacking the gong, just don’t stop running,” Amihan added.

“Fine.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll be done in ten minutes. I’ll shout your name when you can come back,” Jacked gave him a thumbs-up. “We’ll start sawing when you hit the gong.”

Dumog took a deep breath, odors of the droppings filling his lungs. He coughed and puked a bit at the smell and the taste in his mouth. But he had to get over the smell so he could breathe properly as he ran. A few more lungfuls of the stench and he deemed himself ready.

He struck the copper plate, the sound deafened one of his ears for a bit as it caught him off guard. It rang through the silent forest. Striking it again, he wasn’t as affected by the sound anymore. A voice seemed to talk to him from inside his head, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. Dumog turned his head back to Jacked to see if he did some sort of telepathic communication. No, it was just him screaming at Dumog as veins popped out of his neck.

“Run, you fool!” It finally registered to him.

Looking up, he couldn’t see the white clouds anymore. A torrent of dark brown and red filled the sky above him. They looked more like mutated, furry bats than cute foxes to him. The swarm came down like a horde of fighter jets.

He turned and ran away, banging on the gong. Deeper into the forest, they were coming from the front as well. One of them landed a few meters ahead, giving him a full view of what they looked like.

The body of a fox and the face akin to a bat. Their bodies are furry, blood red and brown. It hissed and shrieked at him as he got closer. Dumog didn’t know if the sound it made was something a bat or a fox would make, he had never heard either of it before. Dark, leathery skin was attached to their elongated and grotesque arms, their wings. The movement of their arms to propel themselves and keep afloat was quick and erratic, their speed disproportionate to their size.

It prepared itself to bite. He saw it coming a few steps before reaching it. Barreling through, he trusted his legs not to fail him. Dumog stepped on its face, flattening its already flat nose further. Leaping over it, he didn’t break posture or his breathing, not even his ankles.

***

Jacked and Amihan were sawing through the tree, not a single Flying Fox in sight. They finally had a rhythm going, agreeing on something for once. Though they were barely a quarter through the whole tree.

“I don’t think we’ll be done in ten minutes, let alone twenty,” Amihan said, worry in her voice.

“I know, I lied. From what I’ve read, it took expert loggers an hour to do it. And that’s with a team of eight and no Foxes to worry about,” Jacked remained unbothered.

“An axe would have been better for this,” she finally broke a sweat.

“If it was a normal tree, yes. I had to rent this thing from an old guy in town. It’s specifically made to cut this type of tree.”

“You’re smiling. You have that much confidence in your student?”

“Dumog? No. But I am confident in my training programs. Besides, this is a good workout. Upper back and the rear deltoids. You looked like you needed work in those areas.”

“Creep.”

***

He didn’t know how long he had been running for, but he was starting to have fun with it. It turns out, if you don’t stop moving they could never land a hit on you. They have to slow down at a certain speed to be able to angle their bodies and swipe at their opponent. The sound from the gong also affected and tired the nearest ones out, but they were easily replaced by another one.

However, the Flying Foxes weren’t the only ones affected by the gong. Dumog’s head and left arm had been numb for the past twenty minutes. Somehow, the training that Jacked did to him–hitting his head with a stick while he was running–prepared him for this. It came to a point where he didn’t know if the gong made any sound anymore.

The Flying Foxes were getting tired as well. They tried a different tactic, which was to chase him on the ground and block his path. It was easily countered, he would either change directions or jump over them.

Because it was light out, it was the Foxes’ sleeping hour. Some of them were forced to defecate mid-flight. Out of the thousands of them in active pursuit, a hundred need to relieve themselves. One of them managed to drop one on Dumog’s head as they were flying above him.

A wet, hot, slimy feeling came from his head that went down to his neck. It was fresh. He had to stop banging on the gong to shake the droppings off him. His breathing pattern remained unbroken.

After seeing a reaction from it, the Flying Foxes got an idea. The ones who needed to go were now flying above him and released. It started covering his entire body, but he steeled his heart and held on. He banged on the gong louder, which the Foxes took as a challenge. They shat on him some more.

They knew it wasn’t enough, so they combined all of their previous plans in order to stop the noisy and smelly man. The ground units came back to try and break his momentum. After a few tries, it worked.

Dumog got his foot caught as he jumped on the Flying Fox. He landed into another one that waited behind it. Tumbling on the forest floor, he wiped his eyes just to see one of them go on top of him.

He defended himself from the bite with the mallet. The Flying Fox foamed at the mouth as it tried to get through. Dumog started smacking its head with the copper gong, still ringing it. This stunned it enough to stop biting. It looked like it was about to take off to try and recuperate.

Like their attacks earlier, if the one on top of him were to leave, it would be quickly replaced with another one. One with a lot more energy to spend. So, in a last ditch effort, he clung to the underside of the Flying Fox. Wrapping his arms and legs around its body, he looked like a baby monkey clinging onto its mother.

It tried its best to shake him off, but his desperate grip was tight. The others couldn’t find a way to attack him from that position. Dumog rang the gong again, almost causing the Fox to fall to the ground. An idea came to it.

Flying high, so high up that they were close to the clouds, before he could experience what the clouds felt like, it nosedived. Aiming at the solid tree trunk, it pivoted its body upwards again. Belly towards the tree, it slammed itself on it with Dumog in between. His back hit the tree directly, causing him to let go of his grip.

Free falling, it was the first time he felt something like it. He thrashed his arms and legs in the air. It didn’t work. Dumog couldn’t turn to face the ground, his torso towards the sky. Then, his back hit something. He was still breathing, so it wasn't the ground.

Trying to grab onto the Flying Foxes each time he hit them, it took him three tries before succeeding. He managed to grab one of them. Now riding it, he slipped his arm around its neck. With a good grip and the pocket of his elbow under its neck, he squeezed.

Back at the tree, Amihan and Jacked were done sawing through the whole tree. But it didn’t fall. There was a visible line where they cut it but it was far too wide and heavy to topple over by itself.

“Hit it with the hammer while I call for him,” Jacked said. “Dumog! Come back!” He could only see the cloud of brown and red swarming something, but not Dumog himself. “Shit!”

“You see him?” Amihan swung the hammer, each hit was like a small explosion sending shockwaves around.

“Don’t hear the going anymore, you think he’s dead?”

Some of the Foxes started going after Amihan because of the hammer. She continued hitting the tree, smacking and squishing one of them per swing. “It needs to be struck higher up, it’s not budging.”

“Fuck, I think the swarm is going here now,” he started punching the tree, doing nothing to it.

Amihan stopped swinging after seeing a Flying fox covered in excrement. “Is that Dumog?” It hit the tree above them at a high speed, tipping it over.

“Good work! That’s my disciple!” Jacked screamed.

The tree fell, shaking the ground and stunning everyone and everything in the area. Sinta and Eeya felt it from the bar, they thought it was an earthquake.

Amihan imagined that a Giant’s stomp would feel similar. It brought her down to one knee. Looking up, she saw Jacked unaffected by it.

The tree wasn’t done though, it started sliding down the hill. The path to town was a perfect fit for it. Jacked hopped on it, grabbing Amihan by her bag. Dumog was up ahead, hugging the tree.

Stunned Flying Foxes started to fall from the sky. Amihan looked back and they covered the forest floor. From what she could observe, they weren’t dead yet, just incapacitated.

Dumog woke up, they were still on the tree. Amihan and Jacked ahead of him. They rode the tree straight to town. Along the way they broke houses and some properties outside the wall. The hole in the wall that was used as a gate was a perfect fit, stopping before the body of the tree touched the rim of the entrance.

The trio hopped off the tree. A crowd formed around them. Jacked was trying to think of a way to keep the attention off of them so the residents wouldn’t suspect them of cutting it. Amihan’s hammer and the giant saw he carried didn’t make it easy.

“Ew! He’s covered in shit!” A child pointed and laughed at Dumog.

Everyone around them seemed to focus on that more than him and Amihan. So they ran away into the crowd while they had a chance. Dumog chased after them.

“Hey! Wait for me!” He whined.

“We do not know you, stop following us,” Jacked ran faster.

“Sorry, I don’t have money on me right now,” Amihan pulled her hat down to cover her face.

“Not you too!” Dumog was used as bait until the end.

***

Above the clouds, they hang upside down from the branches of the tree that give them shelter. A pair of Foxes offered the one with golden fur around her neck, a fruit to suckle on.

“The noise has finally stopped. Have you dealt with them?” The matriarch asked. A golden streak above her eyebrows shined as the setting sun blasted its last rays for the day, a natural crown.

“No, madame. They got away.”

“How are the ones affected? Have they found new shelters yet?” She stopped eating the fruit.

“Most trees are overcrowded and scavenging for fruit has been harder as of late. It takes nearly six hours back and forth to gather scraps. It is unfortunate to say, but several families have perished due to starvation,” the Flying Fox reported, sullen.

“Here for your hard work, share it with those you care for,” she gave the rest of her fruit to him.

“No madame! You must eat, you have been skipping meals too much. The clan needs you to be well. The clan needs you in these times.”

“She hesitated, but continued eating. Tears dripped down her head, past her crown. “I am a failure of a leader. Father would have never let it get this bad.”

“It was never your fault. It has always been the humans nearby who have been the root of our problems.”

Another Flying Fox came and screeched as it announced its entrance.

“The Kobold and the Goblins are here! They seek an audience with Matriarch Soro, The Gilded.”

Soro dropped from the sky. The other Flying Foxes gave way to her and directed her to the location. They formed a tunnel around her, shrouding her from the outside. She landed on all fours, neck postured. A dignified stance.

“Speak,” she ordered.

“What amazing flight patterns, speed, and control. Truly natural masters of flight,” the Goblin leader praised.

“I see you’re having a few problems,” Krav smirked as he surveyed the area.

“You come here to mock me!?”

The two rode Wargs of their own. They were armored with leather and metal. Something she hasn’t seen before. With a flick of her wrist, the Flying Foxes surrounded them, forming a dome and blocking the sunset out.

“No, just banter. We come here to seek alliance,” Krav oozed with confidence.

“Do you practice these formations?” The Greatest One asked, more interested in their teamwork than the topic at hand.

“As you have said. We have our own problems to solve,” she said sternly.

Krav threw a crate of fruits and other food at her feet. “We have the same problem. Join us.”