To Aureus’ displeasure, I did not charge at the two monstrosities with a guttural roar. I had to approach the issue with caution and patience. Or transform into a sneaky assassin. Unfortunately, Daniel never taught me how to jump through shadows, nor was my Wild Soulkin capable of distorting space.
Rather than rushing at the mature Soilbacks, I disappeared behind the nearest tree and approached them from their dead angles until a wide-open space was all that separated us. The distance couldn’t have been more than five meters, which was enough to push Aureus over the edge. The Soulkin pushed me relentlessly, trying to force me into charging ahead.
That was abnormal, yet it was something I could handle with relative ease. Keeping Aureus under control, I studied the surroundings. There were many trees and shrubs in the distance, potentially hiding more beasts. Although, looking at the beasts roaming through the valley, I doubted that many predators used the surrounding vegetation as hiding spots. They didn’t treat the shrubs and trees with apprehension and strolled past them nonchalantly.
And they chose an area with fewer beasts.
The valley was not flooded with powerful creatures. I located fewer than I’d expected in an Awakened Zone, though there were still many. As to how I was supposed to tell their Rank when I didn’t even recognize half the beasts—I had yet to figure that out. But I would make it work. Probably.
I put that thought aside for now with a sigh and emerged from my hideout. The Soilbacks turned to the mountain and trotted away, their bellies full, their minds elsewhere. Or so I hoped.
My heart drummed violently against my chest. It was a force to be reckoned with as it thrashed against my rib cage, threatening to break out. The world around me transformed into a cacophony of my heartbeat, and it was not until Aureus’ teeth dug into my shoulder that the sounds of the mountain valley reached me again.
Thanks, buddy.
Aureus didn’t respond, but he showed images of the silvernit sword cleaving through the Soilback, killing the brutes.
I kept my body low as I closed the distance to the Soilbacks and released a thread of ether into my legs when the smaller Soilback slowed. The larger Soilback either didn’t notice its brethren’s slower steps, or simply didn’t care. Regardless, I grasped the chance, pressed my feet firmly into the earth, and released the thread of ether in a burst as I kicked off.
My body propelled forward, my focus narrowing to the slower Soilback, and I was upon it a moment later. The beast’s head turned, but it moved slowly, as if it hadn’t yet realized how perilous its situation was. That was probably for the best. It gave me the time I needed to take a deep breath, pull my sword back, and send one-fourth of my ether reserves into the blade’s intricate weave.
The refined silvernit sword felt like it sparked to life in my hands as I thrust it forward, ramming it straight into the intersection of three larger scales at its neck.
The sword tip pierced through the beast’s defense and cut into the Soilback’s flesh before its head swung back at me. However, that did little to help the beast’s situation. Quite the contrary, the sudden movement worsened the wound and added more momentum, ramming the blade even deeper.
A pained hiss rang in my ears, and I nearly flinched as the Soilback was upon me. It moved toward me and attacked, or would have if the refined silvernit sword wasn’t in its neck, piercing even deeper as it lunged. I twisted the blade and tore it downward before stepping aside. The Soilback’s crushing jaw missed me by a hair’s breadth, and I retreated a step to get out of the dying creature’s range.
If it had been more intelligent, it wouldn’t have attacked me. It would have fled rather than turning toward me to rip its perpetrator a new one. Even as strength poured from the Soilback, it moved toward me until its legs caved in. The frenzy and seemingly endless hunger—the desire to eat me, devour my World—never left its eyes, even as the vibrant life within them faded.
Most beasts were like the Soilback, and its reaction erased any guilt I’d felt for attacking it by surprise. Not that I had the luxury to feel guilty in the first place. The larger Soilback heard the commotion and stared at me with the same ferocity as its brethren. It charged, maw wide open to roar at me.
Big mistake. Rule number one: never charge at someone with a wide-open maw. You might catch something.
Aureus responded to the Soilback’s mighty roar with a high-pitched replica only I could hear. My Soulkin’s roar was overwhelmed by the Soilback’s, which seemed to annoy Aureus a lot more than I’d expected.
His golden eyes glowed brightly, and that was all the signal I needed to charge. The Soilback didn’t even try to resist the paralysis. It froze mid-charge and collapsed with its jaws still set apart. This was the opportunity I needed, and probably the only one I would get. I lunged for the beast and drove my ether-infused sword into its wide-open maw.
The squishy sensation of piercing soft flesh was as disgusting as always, but I drove the blade deeper and twisted it once the resistance was too great to ram it in further. The golden glow on my shoulder ceased after a moment, yet the Soilback’s jaw remained locked open. I grasped the sword handle with both hands, ripped it downward, and yanked it free. My feet dragged me away from the beast as its jaw snapped shut, but it didn’t look like I had to worry about anything.
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The Soilback tried to attack me again, but its strides were weak and grew shorter, blood pouring from its maw. However, it was not until the 3-Star Wild opened its maw to pounce at me one more time that I realized how severe the wound was.
It was already on the brink of death. The Soilback was bound to die, yet it continued to attack until it couldn’t move anymore. Recalling Daniel’s words, I closed in on the beast and rammed the silvernit sword into its chest, piercing its heart.
The beast collapsed to the ground and disappeared in tiny bursts of electrical current when I retrieved my blade. I spun to the other Soilback, sword ready in hand, but all I found was a pool of blood.
Where are they? I looked around, yet there was no sign of the Zerog family. The only indicator of their presence was the electrical current. They had watched me fight from their hiding spot and stored the beast carcasses, which I could only appreciate. It would have been wasteful, but I would have left the Soilback corpses behind. Fortunately, the Zerog family did not seem to like wasting good materials either.
“Recover as much as you can,” I said as my fingers cradled Aureus’ face, but the mutant Soilback didn’t listen. He threw his body around and nearly fell from my shoulder as waves of excitement poured through the bond.
Aureus was no longer angry. The joy of defeating his nemesis seemed to work wonders. The thrill had him yipping happily for a good minute.
“I know you’re happy, but we’re in the middle of an Awakened Zone. Rest a bit while I replenish some ether…” I considered my options and added quietly, “Maybe we can find some more Soilbacks to hunt.”
That was all Aureus needed to hear. He looked at me, throwing images of more dead Soilbacks at me, before finally disappearing into my World.
***
Griphs! I froze and retreated into a dense patch of shrubs without hesitation.
My head peeked over the shrubs, and I got a clear view of what awaited us.
A pair of Griphs—fast, four-legged beasts the size of a mature Bloodbath Deer. Their bodies were not as bulky, but they were just as troublesome. A Griph’s hide was thick, and their eagle-shaped heads were armed with a pair of bull horns.
From what I could tell, Griphs were faster than Soilbacks, yet their gleaming, metallic wings seemed to slow them. Griphs couldn’t fly even though they were equipped with a set of majestic-looking wings. Unfortunately—or fortunately, in my case—their wings pressed hard on their bodies, weighing them down.
A mature Prouncer was definitely faster than the Griphs I’d encountered, but I quickly realized how little that meant. I didn’t attack immediately and instead analyzed the surroundings as I watched them. They had located a group of Soilbacks and tore through them with ease. The Griphs didn’t escape the fight unscathed, but their wings ripped through the Soilbacks and the adjacent stone wall effortlessly.
Spectating their fight from a close distance showed me all I needed to estimate their power. They didn’t seem like 4-Star Wilds. Their strength and durability were rather low, and they were not much faster than the Soilbacks either. I was certain I could deal with them with Aureus’ help, as long as I evaded their gleaming metallic wings.
I pressed my hand to my chest and reached for my core to draw from the ether within. The core was full, which could not be said about Aureus. Even though he’d rested for a while, Aureus was still not fully recovered. Fortunately, the glutton didn’t have to be in his prime to use his trait.
Circulating ether through my body eased the tension that had taken hold of me at some point. It empowered me ever so slightly, which was all the confirmation I needed to emerge from the shrubs by the time the Griphs turned away.
I skulked closer to the Griphs unnoticed and hoped to repeat the success of the first fight. However, the Griphs noticed me too soon. The taller Griph looked at its brethren and made eye contact with me. It shrieked and spun around. The smaller Griph, whose chest and left front leg were still bleeding from the Soilback’s claws cutting through fur and flesh, turned as well, fury glimmering in its eyes, but it was smaller and slower.
The beast did not dare to put too much weight on its left front leg and charged slower at me than its brethren.
I dashed forward, while ether gathered in my legs. Studying the beast’s movements, I noted its wings lunged forward with the same odd movement they had exhibited in the fight against the Soilback. It was a destructive attack that made me shudder, but it was far from enough. The thrashings of the demoness in the Silverstreak gym were still scarier.
Holding onto that memory, I leaped to the side. Something swished across my head, missing me by a hair’s breadth, but I ignored the sensation as best I could and leaped to my feet. The silvernit sword vibrated in my cramping hands as a surge of ether flowed into the blade, and I slashed at the beast’s wide-open side.
The blade carved through fur and flesh. Taking the surroundings into account, as well as a dozen images forming in my mind, I adjusted my tactic and sidestepped, evading an incoming wing of razor-sharp feathers.
The second Griph was upon me and attacked. Its feathered wing pulled back and lashed out at me again. Both wings lunged at me as Aureus sent me an image that looked almost the same. A smile formed on my lips and I leaped to the side again, releasing the ether gathered in my legs at once.
My calves felt like they had been set ablaze as ether burst through my muscles, but I escaped the confinement. I scrambled to my feet, listening to the pained shrieks of my enemies, and watched them retrieve the razor-sharp wings that had plunged into their comrade’s soft flesh.
“I’m happy you’re such a smarty-pants. If only you weren’t such a glutton.” I laughed, ignoring the outraged insults Aureus threw my way.
The Griphs’ wings were still embedded in each other, and I would be a fool to leave them like that. I gripped the ether-infused silvernit sword tightly and attacked the smaller Griph. In a panic, the beast fluttered its wings and ripped through the taller Griph’s body to retrieve its wings. The taller Griph let out a grievous sound, yet it did not move its wings, frightened to hurt its brethren. Not that it made much of a difference.
My blade found its target long before the Griphs could. It pierced through the smaller Griph’s eye and bore into its brain, killing the beast with one clean thrust. Spinning around, I was prepared to block the other Griph’s attack, only to see it falter. The wounds inflicted by its brethren were severe and strained the beast a lot more than I’d expected. Regardless, I closed the distance, my eyes trailing the beast’s movements, and cleaved through its neck.
Warm blood splattered on my face, and I flinched. Nausea assaulted me once again, but I was not unfamiliar with the sensation. It had accompanied me from the first day I fought a beast, and I doubted it would disappear in this lifetime.
The Griphs disappeared, which only left me with Aureus, a few sparks, and smears of blood.