"The Forest That Hungers."

  "Oh. Gosh. Thanks. There," Jay muttered, his hands glowing with a rhythmic crimson red light on green moving forest ground.

  The ground beneath their feet groaned, then moved itself along with the rest of the forest floor. It lifted slightly, and surged forward like a high-speed escalator. The whole forest.

  "Focus on your skill!" Sister Eight commanded, her voice sharp. She forced her hand into the board beneath her, channeling her Dark Matter into the formation Jay had initiated.

  The remaining ten members nodded, their faces grim. They stood in a tight circular formation, facing outward to cover every angle—360 degrees of paranoia while their hands automatically poured Dark matter in their natural colors. It looked like a rainbow on the ground.

  They were moving fast—blurring through the trees like a board on ice. But the horror was that the forest was moving too.

  The massive trees didn't stay rooted. They shifted, sliding through the soil as if the earth were liquid, keeping pace with the fleeing group.

  "Hey... Guys. Will this be okay?" Sister One asked, gritting her teeth. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead as she poured her energy into the formation. "I mean, look. We are moving, but the forest is chasing us."

  "No time to think," Amara snapped, her eyes glued to a floating holographic screen in the center of their circle. "We are in a location we can't track. Satellite signals are jammed. Just pour as much Dark Matter as you can. We have to outrun the shifting zone. Let's just escape first."

  The tectonic plate beneath them hummed, vibrating with the combined energy of eleven Rank five warriors.

  "No," Aryan whispered, his eyes widening as he looked straight ahead. "Sister, we have no time to escape. Look."

  The trees ahead didn't just shift; they fused. The forest circled them, the branches weaving together to form a colossal wooden cage.

  SCREEECH.

  The hovering earth-plate slammed to a halt, throwing them off balance.

  "Didn't your general warn you not to stay in one place, kids?"

  The voice didn't come from someone. It echoed from the leaves, the roots, and the forest itself. It vibrated in their heads.

  Suddenly, a pair of eyes opened in the darkness of the canopy—glowing, and looking straight into Aryan's soul.

  "Don't freeze!" Sister Eight screamed.

  "Your bodies will instinctively freeze—that is the body's nature in the face of danger!" Amara yelled, her Seer eyes flaring like a warning siren. "But you have trained your minds not to! Force your limbs to move! Come out of the trance!"

  Aryan, who was staring into the abyss, jerked awake at their voices. The paralysis that had begun to stiffen his muscles shattered. The others shook their heads, snapping out of the supernatural fear.

  "Hahaha. Good reflexes," the voice cooed. "But your motivation to stay alive doesn't work here."

  BOOM.

  An invisible pressure descended from the sky. It wasn't gravity; it was pure, concentrated killing intent.

  THUD.

  All eleven members dropped to their left knee in unison. Their armor creaked. The tectonic plate beneath them cracked.

  It felt like the air had turned to mercury. Their life force—already low for Aryan and Amara—was being sucked out of their pores, consumed by the forest like oxygen.

  "Mere Rank Fives," the voice mocked. "Eleven little ones on top of that. What can you possibly do against a Rank Seven Entity?"

  Rank Seven. Two ranks difference.

  The gap was insurmountable. A Rank Seven is a walking natural disaster to them being rank five.

  "Don't struggle," the voice advised soothingly. "Fear makes the meat sour. You won't taste good if you panic. I'll be quick, don't worry."

  The wall of trees before them stirred. The wood twisted and warped, parting like curtains.

  A woman stepped out of the trunk of a massive sequoia.

  She was beautiful in a terrifying way. Her skin was the color of polished mahogany, her hair was a cascade of vines and moss, and her eyes were the violet of the alien moons above.

  She walked toward them, the pressure intensifying with every step. She stopped a few meters away and smiled—a predator looking at a trapped rabbit.

  "You look good," she purred, her gaze sliding over them. "But you will taste even better if you just stay calm."

  She grinned, revealing teeth that looked like thorns.

  "Emotions matter, you see. Panic ruins the flavor."

  "The Currency of Survival."

  The pressure was suffocating. It wasn't just weight; it was a siphon. Aryan and Amara could feel their very essence being drawn out through their pores, a slow, excruciating unraveling of their souls to feed the woman with the thorny smile.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Sam! Nine!" Aryan and Amara screamed in unison within their shared system-space. "Is there any way we can escape? We are dying here!"

  "There is a way," Sam’s voice cut through the static, urgent and hard. "But you have to summon it."

  "Summon?" Aryan asked, his thoughts racing. "Summon what? Who? A guardian?"

  "Summon the money," Nine interjected. "The billions of System Credits you received from the Level Up rewards. Summon that wealth directly into your veins as raw Dark Matter."

  "But—" Nine hesitated, her voice trembling slightly.

  "No 'buts'!" Amara snapped, clenching her jaw in the real world, blood trickling from her lip. "We do it, or we become fertilizer. Let's just do this."

  "Whatever the cost. How do we do it?" Aryan asked, nodding imperceptibly at Amara’s command.

  "Feel the money," Sam instructed, his voice becoming a hypnotic guide amidst the chaos. "Don't think of them as numbers in a bank. Think of them as crystallized energy. Vast. Invisible. Heavy."

  "Channel it," Sam continued. "Visualize that mountain of billion dollars liquefying. Pull it out of the System space and force it into your veins. It will burn. It will feel like molten lead. But you must hold it."

  "The faster, the better," Nine added, her calculations flashing rapidly in their minds. "Think of yourself as thunder. Visualize the speed of light."

  She projected a tactical map into their minds.

  "And more importantly... you must maintain the circular formation with the other nine members. You are the battery now. Let them channel their energy into the tectonic plate, but you will provide the explosion."

  "Do not hold back," Sam roared. "Burn the billion!"

  “The Billion-Credit Burn”

  "Whatever. Let the billions burn. We need to stay alive first."

  Aryan gritted his teeth, the words tasting like ash. He clenched his fist and looked around, nodding grimly to his team members. They were all in the same position—kneeling, paralyzed, draining away.

  Amara fought against the immense gravity. She slowly dragged her right hand up, fighting the air pressure that felt like solid lead, until her fingers brushed the earpiece Jay had insisted they wear.

  "On count three," Amara whispered, her voice strained but clear over the comms. "Skate on ice."

  The other nine members raised their eyebrows. Even as their life force flowed out of them like oxygen into the smiling woman, they recognized the command. It was the signal to dump everything into the movement skill.

  Without delay, Aryan and Amara locked hands on each other's shoulders. They took a deep breath.

  Inside the System Space, the massive digital billboard flickered.

  The counter was falling too fast. Even Sam stopped speaking.

  "Ah! It burns!" Aryan screamed inwardly.

  "Carry on! Don't stop!" Sam shouted, watching the numbers freefall. "You are playing with thunder! You can thank me when you aren't dead! Continue!"

  Without another word, the two tightened their grip. The invisible, transparent liquid—the physical manifestation of their wealth—flooded into their veins. It didn't feel like power; it felt like molten glass forcing its way through their bloodstream.

  "Now. Release it!" Nine commanded.

  "Three!" Brother Five shouted over the comms.

  BOOM.

  All eleven members poured their Dark Matter into the tectonic plate, the board, at once. But the fuel source from the two was different. It was a billion credits of concentrated, volatile energy.

  The crimson board underneath them glowed blindingly white and shot forward.

  It wasn't a movement. It was a teleportation of mass.

  ZOOOM.

  They tore through the forest, the trees blurring into a tunnel of green and brown.

  Inside the System Space, the money counter was spinning so fast it was a blur.

  "Our money! It's all going away!" Tears streamed down Aryan’s face, mixing with the blood from his nose. "We worked so hard for that!"

  "It's okay! We will earn it later, Aryan!" Amara shouted, though her face was twisted in agony.

  As more energy surged through them, their bodies began to fail. Their veins bulged, glowing blue under the skin. Their organs expanded against their ribs. Tiny tears opened in their pores, misting the air with blood.

  "Greed! Wake up!" Nine sprinted back and forth in the System Space, screaming at the nebula. "Slow down the time within their bodies! If you don't, they explode, and you die with them!"

  The Greed Vessel stirred.

  "You better understand the consequence of waking me," the Greed hissed.

  A pulse of ancient energy flooded their systems, reinforcing their cellular walls and slowing the internal clock of their hearts.

  SNAP.

  The board accelerated again.

  They were moving at lightning speed, tearing through the dimension. And yet... the drain didn't stop. Even miles away, the connection to the smiling woman remained. She was still inhaling their life force remotely, enjoying the appetizer, as her eyes still shut tight.

  Inside the System Space, the first billboard reserve hit zero.

  Sam and Nine moved with terrifying synchronization. They grabbed a second digital billboard—their reserve funds—and slammed it into the slot.

  "Don't stop! Move faster!" Sam roared. "Your veins are safe for now thanks to Greed, but you need to break the tether! Feel the money faster!"

  “You’re fast,” Nine snapped. “Not fast enough. Move.”

  Aryan and Amara pushed harder. The board leaped forward, crossing impossibly vast distances in seconds—skipping impossible distances through warped space.

  The next board started at fifty billion and emptied to zero in seconds.

  Sam and Nine slammed the third and final billboard in with another fifty billion dollars.

  Finally, in the distance of the forest, the woman opened her eyes. She wiped her mouth delicately and smiled.

  “Acceptable,” she murmured.

  She let the connection snap.

  PING.

  The drain stopped. The money counter halted.

  Sam and Nine froze in the System Space, staring at the balance. They didn't move. They just looked at each other, then checked the external sensors to see if she was following.

  “She wasn't following us. She was maybe full,” Sam said.

  “Whatever. Don't relax,” Nine said.

  The remaining members on the board gasped as the pressure vanished. The tectonic plate drifted out of the forest zone and slid onto a barren, rocky plain.

  The momentum died. The board skidded to a halt.

  THUD. THUD. THUD.

  All eleven members collapsed at once, their chests heaving, their bank accounts empty, but their hearts still beating.

  The Collapse

  "I thought we were dying as soon as I came here," Jay wheezed.

  He tried to push himself up, his hands trembling against the scorching hot surface of the tectonic board. But his legs were like jelly. He wobbled for a second before his knees buckled, and he collapsed hard against the stone.

  "Don't struggle," Aryan murmured, not even opening his eyes. He was lying flat on his back, staring at the alien sky. "Just sit on the board. If you move, your heart might actually stop."

  "Yeah... just sit for now," Jay agreed weakly. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to cool down his overheating body. The friction of the travel had left them all feeling like they were burning from the inside out.

  For a moment, silence reigned. The only sound was the ragged breathing of eleven people who had just outrun a god.

  Then, Jay’s voice broke the quiet again.

  "We just moved through life and death," he said, his voice raspy. He looked at Aryan, Amara, and the silent wall of Hunters. "You could have thrown me off to save energy. You didn't abandon me."

  He paused, his eyebrows tightening in a mixture of gratitude and fear.

  "So I owe you one. Seriously."

  He looked at the desolate, rocky wasteland surrounding them. The fear in his eyes spiked.

  "But..." he whispered, his vision starting to blur. "Don't abandon me now either. Please. Thanks."

  Before he could finish the sentence, his head lolled forward.

  THUD.

  Jay collapsed completely. His eyes shut, his body went limp, and he slumped against Hunter Seven’s boots. He was out cold—totally spent.

  Aryan turned his head slowly to look at the unconscious guide.

  "Great," Aryan sighed, closing his eyes again. "Now we have to carry him."

  Far behind them, the forest exhaled.

  The hunt wasn’t over.