Niphru waited a few more minutes before he began moving again. That had been a very close call, and he was gd he had dug into this new chamber, otherwise he would have had to flee, if he could. Once he was certain it was safe, he began digging another chamber to rest in, as well as auo exit. He was uain if the warriors would return and che the den they smashed, so he didn’t want to ge how it looked.

  As he finished digging, he heard an immense crash, and the ground shook. Immediately after he heard a triple bst of a whistle, with two answering whistles a moment ter. He knew he probably shouldn’t a his curiosity, but he was certain he would be able to flee if needed. Thus he left his den and raced in the dire of the whistles, hearing a loud thud from the same dire.

  As he approached, he slowed down, pg an illusion over himself, thankful he had finally finished healing earlier. A few moments ter, he saw a human wearie armor sail through the air, smming into a tree with enough force to shatter it. As he watched, the human looked around and cursed about having lost their axe, then ran ba the dire they came from.

  Following this human, he quickly came across thirteen others, along with the immeurtle he had seen before. As the human he followed ran to grab an axe on the ground, the turtle smmed its entire body into the ground, sending all the humans stumbling. Before they could recover, its head shot out, snapping down ohat was wearing red furs, cleaving him in half. Before it could pull its head back, another human in red scale mail recovered and swung an immense serrated sword upwards towards its neck, colliding with an audible thud and leaving a small gash that began sluggishly bleeding.

  As the head pulled back, several others lept towards the legs, smming axes down as hard as they could, most simply slig off ks of skin though two did leave small bleeding cuts as well. Another person using an immense sword swung their sword down at a leg, hitting it hard enough to lift themselves off the ground, flipping over the leg before nding oher side.

  The turtle let out a hiss, then coughed up a squirming mass that untaself into a swarm of giant worms. The worms slithered towards the humans before rearing up and spraying a clear liquid at them that hissed and spat, their armor smoking and in some cases catg fire. Unwilling to allow this to tinue, one of them poi the worms, letting loose a massive bst of chill air, freezing them solid. He then jumped at them, spinning his on through the frozen worms and shattering them.

  The beast s this pest, only to find itself dodged, the human able to move fine sihey weren’t thrown off bance first. As half a dozen humans attacked its legs again, the turtle gred at the human in front of it before exhaling a terrifying windstorm that turhe human into little more than bloody ks scattered across the forest, pieces of armor falling from the sky.

  Having finished extinguishing the fire and acid on themselves, the other humans joined ba attag, slowly opening up cuts ourtle’s limbs. Those with giant swords swung them upwards, using the turtle’s weight against it, brag themselves against the ground for strorikes. Several small gashes had been opened up by their attacks, while those with axes slowly shaved off the skin as they struck.

  At a shouted warning, everyone backed off from the immense beast, then three of the humans all cast spells that caused blood to floidly from the wounds that had been inflicted so far. At almost the same time, anroup of warriors emerged from the surrounding forest, rag into bat.

  The turtle let loose an annoyed hiss, then inhaled and shook itself, parts of its shell breaking off. An instainy holes became visible all around its shell. It tinued shaking itself as clear liquid jetted out of the openings, spraying all over the clearing it had created. As it nded, it smoked and caught fire. Once again the humans were sprayed with the substahis time in far higher quantity, and more as a rain than a squirt.

  Several humao the ground screaming as their flesh began dissolving, others threw themselves to the ground and rolled to put out fires and remove the acid. In the end, the spray had killed three before they could get rid of it, aroyed the armor of several others.

  The turtle turs gaze to the rgest mass of humans before exhaling again, sending another windstorm at them, made worse by the shards of shell scattered around. The humans were lucky however as it was a widely spread attack rather than focused, leaving injuries instead of death. Turning to face the majority of the humans, the turtle smmed itself into the ground, once again throwing everyone from their feet.

  Niphru stood back up after being hurled to the ground, and saw another human had been bitten in half while he was not paying attention.

  The warriors noticed the ck of openings at the front of the shell and moved to ehe turtle from the front. Swing after swing struck its fad neck, leaving behind small cuts. Two of the surviving mages cast another spell to force the beast to bleed again, leaving it slower than before.

  Agaiurtle tried to bite a warrior in pte only for them to dive to the side and avoid the strike, following up with a brutal upwards ssh with their sword that left it embedded too deep to remove. Shouting out, the warriot a half dozen others to leap at the sword and wrench it free, leaving a wound that streamed blood to the ground. Everyone raced backwards as the mages again cast their bloodletting spell, the stream being a river of blood.

  The beast slowed, falling to the ground as it hissed softly. The mages stood bad repeated their spell again and again, the warrioing around to check bodies for any sign of life.

  After a few moments, Niphru ted thirteen humans still moving. Some of them had died when he wasn’t watg them, leaving them with nearly aire missing squad overall. As he watched, they dragged the dead up against the turtle and began chopping dowhat they also stacked against it. One of them carved into the turtle, vanishing from sight for several minutes before returning with a human head-sized mana stone.

  Niphru took this opportunity to flee before they could notice him, running back to his den. Upon arrival he carefully s the new opening, smelling the creature from earlier but nothing else.

  He entered his den, noting as he did so the ck of any roots inside. He found the small rodent within the chamber that collected water, ying ft with steady breath, apparently asleep. Leaving it alone, he went to rest as well, hoping the warriors would be gone when he woke up.