The next day, he quickly felt the difference between the path he now followed and the path of the day before. The slope wasn't going in the same direction. He had not understood it while he was going downwards but now that he was climbing back upwards, he understood that this part of the trip might be a little more tiring than he had first anticipated. That slope was invisible to him, so softly angled that it seemed flat to him but for his feet, it represented a much harder challenge than before.

Because of the height and density of the surrounding trees, he was unable to see the hills and the mountains he was supposed to cross. He wondered if he would pass them by without noticing.

The weather still felt nice that day but for some reason, the birds seemed more distant than usual. Nearby, the leaves still rustled in the wind but they weren't accompanied by the usual chirping of small animals. He felt sorry he couldn't enjoy the usual melody he had grown used to.

Sometimes, on his path laid enormous rocks, companions to the many small waterfalls littering the river. Sometimes he climbed them and sometimes he made his way around them but every time, he took his time to not injure himself or let the river out of his sight. Those minor setbacks did not stop him from acting like usual and he did not forget to use the hammer at midday.

That afternoon, he was climbing atop a boulder when he suddenly stopped on top of it. He had not yet straightened himself and his hands were still laid on the smooth and warm surface of the boulder. He had stopped because something didn't feel right. Shivers were running through him from head to toes and he couldn't pinpoint from where that sensation had come from. He had never felt like this before in his life, was it the so called fear? His heart was beating strongly against his chest as if to jump out of it but he still did not quite understand. What was going on? He desperately looked around for the cause of his current state.

On either side of him, two dead trees were extending their leaf lacking limbs far into the sky. Was it what had caused his state? A lack of leaves? Probably not. In front, big rocks and boulders covered in moist moss and encased in roots paved the riverside. Everything seemed normal.

Just after the boulder he was standing on, there was a gap, an empty space where another rock should have been but wasn't. It wasn't that strange either, that kind of unexpected dent in the terrain was what made the beauty of the landscape, it wasn't what had scared him either. Above him, there wasn't anything unexpected either aside from the impression that the branches of the nearby trees were slowly closing in on him due to his fear. Bellow him, there was only that enormous boulder...

An enormous boulder, smooth and warm...

Among tens of big mossy stones, moist and cold...

Had he unknowingly stepped on a creature? Why did it look so much like a stone? Was his mind playing tricks on him? Probably not, his hairs were standing so much on his scalp that they could have flown away by themselves at any seconds now. He couldn't possibly have imagined that fear. But why had the creature not attacked him yet? Maybe it had not noticed him? He felt it was impossible to not notice something climbing on top of you.

Then, was it waiting for something? What? For him to fall in a trap, or run away? How to escape the thing? He didn't even know what it was for sure. Did he have the time right now to check in the book of answers? Probably not. He checked around him again, this time for a path to escape.

He would never have believed to be able to feel even more scared than this moment but it would indeed be the case. The leafless trees had gotten closer still while he was thinking! When he had the impression that the trees were closing in on him, it had not been just an impression! How could he have been such an idiot?

As if to confirm what he had just understood, the earth shook, the ground split and the wood cracked. The earth was thrown in all directions as a plethora of roots detached themselves from the nearby rocks and from under the earth to lift the boulder he was crouched on. The two great trees he had previously thought dead were now more akin to gigantic hands with fingers full of sharp claw-like branches as they quickened the pace at which they reached towards him. The boulder, many times bigger than it had seemed once out of the ground, rose quickly into the air. If Emp had not been crouched on it at this moment, he would probably have fallen off already.

In a mere moment, he had been lifted far above the tallest tree. He was under the impression that the earth itself was alive. Bellow the boulder, a mix of earth, stone and wood formed the body of the beast. The two tall trees weren't it's arms but merely it's tiny hands, the rest was made out of writhing roots and vines used to lift up the body and hands of the titanic thing. If he had used Chinui's house in comparison, it would have taken at least five of them atop each other to reach the height of the beast.

From where he was, he could clearly see the mountains, he could even see a cliff side not far from there where a chunk of the mountain seemed to have been ripped out of it. It didn't even cross his mind to admire the landscape. He did not have the time for it. The hands of the giant were closing in on him. He guessed he would have greater chances of survival by trying to climb down the thing than by trying to fend off the trees used as its hands. He quickly let himself slide off the side of the beast and barely escaped the claws. They rammed into the boulder, leaving deep trenches in the stone and making the whole creature shake while Emp tried to slow down his fall by grabbing at anything projecting out of the beast.

Dirt and small rocks that had not been able to keep up with the sudden movement fell all around him towards the forest bellow. Large roots writhed in front of him as if to catch him while he passed by. He gripped holds that came near him before quickly letting them go in favor of newer ones further bellow, dodging the tentacle-like roots.

The body of the beast was bent backward by the shock of its own hands which eased his descent for a brief moment but he was far from reaching the ground still when the thing regained its composure.

Still far below him, he could see a multitude of agitated roots easily comparable to a sea of snakes. If he fell in them, he had no doubt it wouldn't end like he hoped it would.

In the meantime, the beast had started advancing toward the cliff, maybe unknowingly. Did it even have eyes to see where it was going?

Chinui had told him to run away if he encountered something too dangerous but how could anyone outrun something so big? His path downward was blocked and there was nowhere to go upward either, his only hope was to defeat it.

The claws of the beast attacked once more, this time, slower as to not injure itself again. thanks to their reduced speed and the highly irregular shape of the beast, he managed to dodge them again by jumping from hold to hold. The branches still managed to lacerate his left calf. He had never injured himself that badly before , in fact, he had never injured himself at all. The pain and surprise almost made him release his hold but thankfully, the fear had already locked up his muscles which saved his life.

That thing had to had a weak spot, or a dead point in its perception he could use to escape it. He couldn't go down because of the roots but staying up there was equally suicidal.

The beast dangerously neared the cliff, it would probably hit it soon. Maybe if he was high enough, he could use it to escape. he doubted the thing could climb. All he had to do was reach the top of the cliff. He started to climb back up the beast as fast as he could while still somehow dodging the claws. At his back, he could feel the cliff getting nearer and nearer as his clothes were slowly getting thorn apart by the sharp branches and twigs darting at him from all over.

The beast finally got angry at its inability to get rid of the puny Emp climbing on him and decided to try and catch him instead. Emp was now in a difficult situation because if it was somewhat possible to dodge the haphazard swipes of the beast, a spoon could hardly miss a piece of carrot in a soup. Covering him with its entire hand would be easy, what's more, the cliff was nearly upon them.

Emp had no choice now but to take a risk and jump with all his strength away from the body of the beast and unto its earthy arm. He barely managed to grip it with the very tip of his fingers. The beast, intent on making him fall from it at last, raised its arm in the air but only managed to give Emp a good spot to nudge his feet into, securing his hold. It's on that ridiculous scene that the beast slammed its whole body into the cliff.

Never had Emp heard such a powerful sound. Even if the monster wasn't that fast, its impressive weight of stone and wood was more than enough to break down part of the cliff and cleaved the rock upon dozens of meters. The arms of the beast still risen in the air did not smash completely against the cliff but the shock still sent Emp flying into a ordinary tree and finally, back down on normal ground.

Mere meters away from him, the arms of the beast crashed down on the forest atop the cliff and sent dirt and splinters flying once more into the air. Just above the edge of the cliff, The boulder he now saw as the head of the beast peeked menacingly just beside him. The thing had no facial features but an eerie blue glow seeped from the giant fissures its claws had made in the rock, reminding him of his hammer.

Without knowing what madness took hold of him, Emp got back up as fast as he could and ran straight towards its head before it regained its senses and dislodged itself from the cliff side. He jumped once more on top of the boulder and picked up the hammer from his bag.

He lifted it as high as he could and smashed it back down on the rock skull of the beast with all his remaining strength. A frightful shrill resounded and part of the boulder cracked like an egg following the trenches already present before half of it caved in. A glowing and viscous blue liquid rushed out of the opening like a waterfall and the creature shook in its entirety.

As the tentacles at the bottom raged and shamelessly destroyed the local flora, Emp placed the hammer back inside his bag and used all the energy he had left in his legs to fall on top of the cliff. He watched powerlessly as the arms of the creature slid mindlessly from the top of the cliff towards the emptiness after the edge. The beast detached itself from the cliff before it fell backwards into the forest with tons of dislodged rocks. A last rumble shook the forest as the beast hit the ground to never again get itself back up.

Emp was sprawled at the edge of the cliff, breathless and his mind spinning. His calf hurt and his back burned, he had no strength left but he was happy. No, he was more than happy, he was ecstatic he had won! His first victory! He didn't think that victory would come this quickly or that his first fight would be this scary. Even if the creature had pretty much defeated itself, he never wanted to do that again.

When he had found himself dangling by the very tip of his fingers to the beast's arms, he had been convinced he would fall to his death. If he had been just a little bit weaker, he wouldn't have reached the arm and would have fell, just a little bit less endurance and he would not have been able to hang on, just a little bit slower and he would have been ripped apart by the razor sharp branches. That day, for the world, he had become a man, for him, it was only the proof he needed much more training with the hammer.

Bellow, the blue liquid continued to flow steadily from the creatures skull, too far away for him to hear it soak the earth. Up top, parts of the cliff still detached themselves from the rest because of the great collision and fell loudly on top of the enormous corpse.

Emp took a while to take back the control of his breathing, all the while looking at the devastated landscape the creature had made. After, he managed to rise into a sitting position, he got the Book of answers out from the bag and asked it what was that creature.

"A woodland horror, often confused for a Lumberjack eater by the more ignorant. Like mankind feeds the pigs to better eat them later, the earth gives life to man to better devour them. Woodland horrors are often taller than castle walls and guard towers, they hunt any and all creature stupid enough to disturb their endless sleep. They sleep until a prey present itself to them, they consume it and everything else in a ten kilometer wide area before going back to sleep. It is said that the liquid contained in its head is the best fertilizer there is but it is sadly also the rarest since nothing short of a couple dozens of mages or an army equipped with many a siege weapon could possibly hunt it down."

Emp ignored the bits about armies and how scary it was and focused on the fertilizer. If that liquid was such an extraordinary fertilizer, he absolutely had to pick it up. He doubted very much that anything else on the woodland horror had any value, it was mostly stone and wood after all. The blue liquid on the other hand had to be worth a lot of money if they had to dispatch an entire army to get it.

He wondered how he would ever get back down there. The cliff side didn't seem as sturdy as it had before the woodland horror had smashed into it. He had no confidence of being able to climb down, more so in his exhausted state. He was aware that he had only defeated it due to luck but he really didn't want to leave the treasure behind. He needed to go back down there anyway to reach the river once again.

He felt the cliff was really annoying but he couldn't get angry at it. If the cliff had not been there and if he did not have the Great overburdening hammer with him, he was pretty sure he would already be dead. If to kill this creature one needed to break the boulder that served as its head, he readily believed there wasn't many who could boast to have killed one. Maybe a good shot with a catapult or a ballista could harm it, or some kind of spell since the book had talked about mages.

What had gotten into him to go back there to attack the beast once he had reached the safety of the cliff's top? He had taught he saw something important and jumped on the weak point before he could even register what he had seen. It was only now that he understood how much what he had done had been stupid.

He stood back up while putting the book away and examined his wounds. His clothes were soaked in blood and ripped in many places but nothing aside from his calf seemed too bad. He used what remained of his clothes to bandage the wound and got a new set to replace it. It hurt but it did not seem that bad, it would probably heal by itself.