Wind whistled past Seth's head, roaring in his ears with its passing and drowning out many noises, except from the screeching that was occurring directly in front of his face. That was not a new sensation, it had been doing that even since he had taken off on the back of Omelette, the only difference was that this wind was moving vertically instead of horizontally.

There was a simple explanation for that sensation, however. It was just that he was falling, of course. If he were to look down, he would see the large, round ground rapidly approaching him by the second. But he had no time to say hello to the ground, as unlike the last time he was in this predicament he did not have a feathered cloak to turn his fall into a stylish one.

There was also the case of his companion for this particular journey from the clouds to the ground. Chitinous jaws were clamped around his prosthetic arm, gnawing at it relentlessly but only resulting in its jaws scratching the metal and covering him in viscous saliva that overflowed from its maw. Clearly it was eager to taste his flesh, as was evident from the mandibles trying unsuccessfully to push his arm deeper into its maw.

As far as Seth could tell, this creature was incestoid in origin, most likely some kind of ant by the looks of it. It had a humanoid body, although that simply meant that it stood upright since it had spindly, insect-like legs still covered in wiry hairs and four arms, that were wrapped tight around him to stop him from escaping.

A set of oval, membrane wings fluttered on its back, evidently how it had reached him on his Wyvern perch, while a pair of bulbous, black eyes larger than his fist stared at him with little intelligence and boundless hunger.

Despite his perilous situation, aka rapidly falling to his death while something was actively trying to eat him, Seth showed little signs of panic or distress on his face. He was so calm about the situation, in fact, that even though Omelette had noticed the departure of his rider, he did very little other than slowing his speed, so that he didn't fly too far away.

No, as Seth descended there was no panic or fear on his face at all, but that did not mean he was utterly devoid of all emotion as he plummeted through the air. Instead, there was only one emotion that sat on his face as the pair tumbled uncontrollably towards the ground, and that was irritation.

That was because, despite everything that was going on, Seth couldn't help but focus on the slight scratch marks the mutant ant had left on his arm and how it was sullying it with its disgusting spit.

"Do you mind? This arm is brand new!"

With his free arm, Seth pressed his hand against the ant creatures face commanded the small crossbow bolt on his arm to move. Even if he had no crossbow to launch it with, when did he ever need such a mundane item as that?

Defying physics, and obeying its master, the puppeteered bolt launched itself from its mount on his wrist and immediately shot through the vulnerable eye of the ant creature, piercing through the soft membrane with a sickening squelch.

The creature, unsurprisingly, let out a horrifying screech of pain, reeling back and finally releasing its newest chew toy and used one pair of its hands in an attempt to claw the bolt from its eye. With both of his arms now free, and more importantly not being ruined by this creature, Seth reached down and gripped the remaining pair of arms that were wrapped around his waist and squeezed.

The twig-like arms snapped under his powerful grip, the exoskeleton cracking like pasta as green blood sprayed outwards and the creature screeched once more. Still holding the arms, Seth leaned backwards and brought his knees up to his chest, so that his feet were pressed against the ant's chest, and simply thrust them forward.

With a crunch and a snap, the ant's arms were torn free from their sockets as its body was launched downwards, soaring even faster towards the ground before it finally stabilised itself by rapidly beating its membrane wings.

It looked up at Seth, which was falling towards it still, with utter rage and unadulterated hatred, as it screeched up at him defiantly. Or, at least it had tried to do as such. As Seth was falling towards it, he casually held out his arm and flexed his fingers outwards, as if preparing to grasp something, and connected his mind to the crossbow bolt he had previously launched. A Requital he had gained from his recent influx known as the [Little Prick].

He didn't reach out to it to move it, instead he simply gave it a mental command consisting of a single word.

'Grow.'

And grow it did. The ant choked its rage-filled screech, instead spewing up a lungful of gooey, green blood as all of its movements seized up. Every part of it froze, before its head exploded outwards and was soon replaced by a blood coated pure steel spear, suspended horizontally in the air.

The ant's body, its wings proving useless without its head, fell to the ground once more. With his hand still held out before him, Seth rapidly approached the spear. He wrapped his fingers around it, gripping it tightly, and let his momentum carry him around it.

Swinging around it like a gymnast, Seth spun slightly before planting his feet on the viscera coated spear and stood on it in a crouched position, watching the discarded corpse plummet to the ground below him.

'Damn, I bet that looked as cool as I hoped it would. No doubt they were watching in awe.'

***

SPLATT!

Astra rapidly brought her wolf to a halt and glanced to the side to see the splattered mess of chitinous shell and thick, viscous green blood forming a grotesque painting across the crushed remains of a car.

How ironic it was that, even now, bugs were still being splattered across windscreens. Even when the cars were utterly destroyed and useless.

Another sound brought her attention away from the humour scene, and back to what was in front of her, as attached to the forefront of her saddle was a small blackboard, no larger than 12 inches long.

The sound that had drawn her attention was a piece of chalk which was currently levitating itself as it rapidly scrawled words across the board of its own volition, as if it was possessed by a wayward spirit. Of course it was all down to the influence of its true master, who was high above them in the sky.

It was the most efficient way to communicate with their scout, as well as the most secure. Especially since none of them owned a communication device and didn't want to risk borrowing on and revealing sensitive information.

Plus it was better than yelling at each other.

Narrowing her eyes, Astra read over the words that were written with a confused frown.

{Did it look cool?}

She tilted her head slightly at the message before glancing at the splattered bug. That must have been his handy work, but why was he asking about how it looked? Did he mean the splatter of it?

She considered that possibility, once more taking in the sight of the splattered bug before speaking plainly. Her voice was even and utterly lacking in any regular signs of emotions, at least by others standards, as she spoke out loud to this chalk board, as if it truly was haunted.

"Not really that special, honestly."

The piece of chalk, which was floating in the air, seemed to sag and ever so slightly lower itself at her response. It might have been a chalk without eyes or ears, but Seth was still capable of an odd sense of awareness that existed around the chalk, although it's field of view didn't even reach the ground beneath Astra. It was still enough to understand her words, however.

Astra tilted her head again at the response, it almost seemed like the stick of chalk was sulking. It lifted itself, about to write something before hesitating and changing it's position, starting a new word instead.

"Another chance incoming. Look up."

Before she had even lifted her head, ink was already flowing over Astra's arm and forming into her Bident, while her the rest of her hunting party were quick to follow her example. Even without a single word being exchanged between them, they knew what such a signal meant and immediately started to summon weapons of their own.

Casting her eyes over the visage of the strange, erratic forest Astra perked her ears and focused her eyes, waiting to see or hear what it was their scout had noticed before them.

Only a few seconds had passed by when she finally got her answer, hearing it before she could see it. Hidden without the shade of the trees, was the unmistakable buzzing of insect wings beating rapidly against the air. A sound that was overlapping with itself, as there was more than one set of wings.

Many, many more.