"Don't go over there — something's wrong." Rulu said urgently. He shook his head hard, trying to clear his foggy mind. But Kallen seemed not to hear him and kept walking toward the little girl, finally stopping right beside her.
"What's wrong, little one? What are you doing out here?" Kallen bent down, her eyes full of concern as she looked at the little girl, asking in a gentle voice.
The little girl said nothing and did not lift her head to look at Kallen, but her crying grew louder. Hearing it, an overwhelming surge of tenderness and protectiveness welled up in Kallen's heart, filling her with a desperate urge to help.
"Don't cry, little one — you don't have to be afraid. Your big sister is here. Let me help you." Kallen leaned down and reached out toward the little girl, about to touch her. At that very moment, Rulu felt a sudden, inexplicable wave of intense dread wash over him. He shouted: "Kallen — fall back now! Get away from there!"
Kallen froze for a moment. She turned and looked at Rulu with a blank, vacant stare, then turned back and continued reaching toward the little girl.
"Get away from there!" Rulu shouted again, and hurled a fireball at the large tree just in front of Kallen. With a sharp boom, the fireball exploded against the trunk. Kallen flinched and instinctively stepped back.
At that same instant, something seemed to flicker before Kallen and Rulu's eyes. The little girl who had been crouching on the ground vanished into thin air. Then came a rushing sound — a massive black club appeared from nowhere and came crashing down toward Kallen's head. Fortunately, Kallen had just stepped back; the club grazed past her head and struck her left shoulder instead, sending her crashing to the ground with the force of the blow.
"What in the world is happening — where did this thing come from?!" Rulu stared around Kallen in alarm and realized that, at some point he hadn't noticed, a giant two to three meters tall with an enormously powerful build had appeared right beside her.
The giant had wild, disheveled hair and a grotesque appearance. Its facial features looked nothing like a human's. It wore no shirt or shoes — only a pair of grey shorts — and its entire body was a dull grey-black, as ugly as a wild beast. In its right hand it gripped a thick, long club that appeared to be made of stone. It was this giant that had just struck Kallen.
"My shoulder — it hurts so much — what just happened…" Kallen sat on the ground, clutching her injured left shoulder, staring up at the giant with a dazed and helpless expression. The giant let out a bestial roar and swung its club down toward her. Kallen was badly startled and scrambled up from the ground, fleeing in the opposite direction.
But Kallen had just taken a blow to the shoulder from the stone club and her movement was hampered. In her panic, she moved far more sluggishly than usual. The giant's strides were enormous — it quickly closed the distance and swung its club, over a meter long, down at Kallen's back.
With a heavy thud, the club caught Kallen across the lower back. The sheer force of the impact sent her flying five or six meters and she crashed to the ground, unable to get up. The giant charged at her again, poised to strike her where she lay.
"You filthy thing — get away from her!" By now Rulu had snapped back to his senses. He roared at the giant and summoned three fireballs, hurling them into it. The fireballs struck the giant's body and set it ablaze — one hit squarely on its face. The giant panicked and frantically beat at the flames, abandoning its attack on Kallen.
Rulu rode the wind up into a nearby tree and rained down a continuous barrage of fireballs on the giant. The giant bellowed with rage and charged toward Rulu in his tree. Rulu leapt between the trees around him to evade the pursuit, all the while keeping up his relentless fire attacks.
The giant, for all its size, could not fly or leap. It was far less agile than Rulu and could not reach him as he bounded through the treetops. All it could do was endure a constant battering of fireballs. Before long, large portions of the giant's body were scorched by the flames. It let out howls of pain and turned to flee in the direction away from Rulu. Not wanting to let it escape, Rulu immediately gave chase.
"Heh… heh heh heh…" Without warning, a strange laugh rang out from somewhere unknown. The moment it did, Rulu and Kallen felt their heads grow heavy. They couldn't stop their eyes from closing. When they opened them again, the giant had vanished without a trace. For some unknown reason, a thick yellow fog had risen throughout the forest, spreading through every tree, blocking Rulu and Kallen's line of sight and making it almost impossible to see what was around them.
"Rulu, where are you? I can't see you anymore." Kallen pushed through the pain and made her way toward where she remembered Rulu to be.
"I'm over here." Rulu called out loudly. He dropped down from the tree and moved toward the sound of Kallen's voice, summoning gusts of wind as he went to drive away the thick fog. But even after the wind swept through, the fog still hung in the forest. He tried several more times — still the same result. The dense fog refused to be dispersed by wind and continued to linger in every direction.
"What is going on? Where is this fog coming from?" Kallen said. By now she had reunited with Rulu, and the injuries she had sustained were more or less healed.
"Something is off. This fog isn't a physical substance — otherwise I should be able to scatter it with wind." Rulu scanned the surroundings with wary eyes. All the while, the eerie laughter continued to echo through the forest. It set Rulu and Kallen on edge, clouding their minds — like being trapped in a nightmare they couldn't wake from.
"What do we do now? Will that monster show up again?" Kallen looked around in dread, terrified that the giant might suddenly lunge out of the thick fog at any moment.
"I don't know. But we need to retreat immediately."
"Then let's move fast — my head is throbbing, and I can barely think straight."
The two of them hurried away together, trying to put distance between themselves and this area. A sharp whistling sound cut through the air — something in the fog was hurtling toward Rulu at tremendous speed.
"Watch out, Rulu!" Kallen sensed the danger and lunged at Rulu, throwing herself on top of him and bringing them both to the ground.
"My back — something just hit me." Kallen groaned and rolled off Rulu. Rulu sat up and looked at her back — an arrow was embedded in Kallen's upper right back.
"Damn it — someone's shooting at us from cover. We need to find somewhere to hide." Rulu said, grabbing Kallen's hand and pulling her quickly to the side of a large tree, intending to use it for cover.
Rulu told Kallen to brace herself, then gripped the shaft of the arrow and pulled it from her back. He held it up and examined it closely — the craftsmanship was extremely crude, and the arrowhead was made of stone.
"What is all this? Who on earth is attacking us?" Kallen's expression was one of complete confusion; she had no idea what was happening.
Rulu stared at the arrow in his hand and said slowly: "This arrow is so crudely made — it looks like it was put together on the spot. My guess is these people are Princess Meiyu's subordinates. There's more than one attacker. There should be two… no — three."
"Why do you say that?"
"First, the giant — that's one. Second, whoever is using some unknown method to generate this strange fog — that's two. Third, the person who just shot at us from cover — that's three."
"What do we do now?"
Rulu said: "The enemy is in the shadows and we're in the open. Making any rash move would be dangerous."
After saying this, Rulu raised his voice and shouted into the forest: "What exactly do you people want?! Come out and face us!"
There was no response. The forest remained thick with fog, and his words drew not even the slightest reaction. Rulu called out again: "Even if you're hiding so we can't see you, I know you're Princess Meiyu's people. What are you trying to do? Why are you attacking us?"