"Halt!"
The team had just rounded a gnarled mass of tree roots when the color suddenly drained from Lina's face.
Her voice was urgent. "Something's wrong! Not just one—a large group! A huge mass of chaotic, hungry 'red' emotions, about two hundred meters to our front-left. They're moving fast!"
Before she even finished speaking, a skin-crawling, intense gnawing sound drifted from that direction, like countless steel brushes scraping furiously against the ground, punctuated by the cracking of trees.
"Take cover!"
Allen's eyes sharpened as he made the split-second decision.
The four of them moved swiftly, ducking behind a massive tree that would take several people to encircle, even quieting their breathing.
Allen peeked out from behind the trunk, looking toward the source of the sound.
In the distant woods, a large patch of shrubbery was shaking violently, like the surface of a lake after a boulder had been dropped into it.
The next second, a black tide burst forth!
