At first, Kai had been convinced that the Bludshard elves must be hiding some horrible secret. They'd all turn out to be cannibals, or they transformed into monsters every month, or they were hiding some slave caste. If not for the steady presence of Zae Zin Nim's qi, he would have been checking on her regularly. Days passed and his anxieties gradually eased.

As far as he could tell, these elves were honestly relaxed.

Once he'd adjusted to that fact, it was clear that he needed to be more aggressive. Zae Zin Nim was pushing toward a major jump and Omilaena had plenty of progress to make with physical training, so he needed to keep up. Given barriers in his human soul, that meant developing his monstrous side to keep up - the Banchlain was an excellent essence, but he couldn't figure out how to use it. After so long trying elven arts, he decided that he wanted to go back to basics and went to ask the guards about monster problems.

"I mean, you can hunt them if you want." The guard they had first met was one of the regulars, commonly napping in the outer corridors with his hat over his face. At the moment he shuffled with his hands in his pockets. "But we mostly handle things for ourselves here, so there's not a lot."

"Not even with the Inverted Oasis to the east?"

"That's half-way across the continent. Anything makes it this far, we have a problem."

"Back in Deadwaste, sometimes stronger monsters escaped and kept causing problems," Kai said. "Is the Inverted Guard so strong that never happens?"

"Oh. Oh, huh." Abruptly the guard turned on him with a curious expression. "If you're that serious, I guess there's one old problem. Now, I haven't gotten a perfect look at your soul, but it seems like trying to fight this one would be suicide for you. That's your business, but I'd feel a bit bad sending you out to get yourself killed."

"I wouldn't have to hunt it alone. Please tell me."

"Well, a few years back there was a big flying monster we've taken to calling the Thunderbird..." The guard told him about the monster and some of the others joined in, sharing a scattered but overall coherent story.

Generally the incursions were so contained that the rest of the continent didn't even notice, but two incursions past the Thunderbird had emerged. It could fly unbelievably fast, and could ascend so high that no vessel on Rosemount could follow it. When it moved further inland it had been threatened by some of the great powers, so it prowled the coast killing where it could.

As far as he could tell, the Thunderbird was a major threat just peripheral enough that no one could justify the hunt. It had only killed a few people locally over the years, but even a few lost loved ones were tragic for those impacted. None of the elves thought he had a chance, but those that didn't warn him off told him everything they knew about its hunting patterns.

So he gathered supplies, checked in on the others, and then trekked out north. The tundra grew icier, but as he drew closer to the ocean he also saw more dark blue plants that persisted despite the cold, flowing with their own subtle chakra. It took him a day just to reach the right region, then several more days to stumble across the monster.

A shadow in the air, a surge of hunger, then it was gone.

Kai could barely put together what happened afterward based on his memories. He thought that the Thunderbird had noticed him and briefly hovered nearby, but it had chosen not to attack him. Either it was worried or he wasn't a large enough target.

He trained throughout the region for a while, hoping it would attack again, and came up empty-handed. Since passive hunting had failed, Kai took to finding elves who couldn't afford teleportation and traveling with them, alert for any sign of the monster.

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As the days passed, sometimes it felt useless, but Kai reminded himself that this was the best challenge he had available. It would help the elves, the monster could strengthen him, and he might even impress the elites at the Inverted Oasis. Training on the road wasn't less effective than training back in the caves, but this had a large potential upside. The elves were a bit suspicious at first before deciding that getting a strange foreign bodyguard for free was a good deal.

It finally happened on a day much like any other, without any sense of danger or omens. Kai was just meditating and watching the skies when he saw the monster streaking down towards them.

<

Monster: Thunderbird

Threat: X (Kappa)

>

For a moment he stared entranced. The Thunderbird was pitch black except for the tips of its wings, which glowed blue and white like lightning. Three long feathers trailed from its head and lightning crackled between them. As it swept closer, Kai realized that it was far larger than a house, with claws that could pick up an entire wagon and a beak that could cut a man in half.

But his staring wasn't entirely just a gut instinct, and he wasn't prey: Kai activated Void Gaze.

The Thunderbird hung in the air and the elves began to flee in panic. Even frozen in diving position the monster was fearsome, a shadow looming in the sky, death on wings. It glared down directly at him, as if it knew he was responsible, and its eyes flashed...

Only combat instincts made Kai close his eyes and leap away. Lightning smashed into the ground where he'd stood, scattering rock in all directions. There were more bolts coming, wrecking the surrounding countryside. Unfrozen, the Thunderbird flapped toward him, raining destruction across the landscape. It didn't need to release the thunderbolts from itself, it could apparently summon them anywhere in a large radius.

Kai swung a Tyrant's Claw, but he didn't even get close - the Thunderbird changed direction in midair as if it controlled the wind itself. He was trying to figure out how to fight it when its wings snapped with a sound like thunder and it vanished up into the sky.

At first Kai thought that it was retreating, so he helped the elves gather together and urged them to get to safety. He began heading south away from them, searching for the shadow overhead again. If the Thunderbird was cowardly he probably didn't have a chance at chasing it down, given its insane speed, and he wasn't sure if an ambush would work again.

He shouldn't have worried: the Thunderbird attacked again less than a day later.

This time there was another flickering shadow, a lightning bolt hurled from nowhere, and then a booming sound. Kai only barely dodged it, and from that point on he could never rest. Even as he headed south, the Thunderbird attacked him regularly. Sometimes it would be minutes, other times many hours, but it never let him rest. As far as he could tell, it had no need for sleep.

Well, he had Behemoth's Heart driving him, so Kai wouldn't rest either. Over time he managed to adjust to the Thunderbird's striking patterns: even if he couldn't match its raw speed, he was adjusting to fighting something that fast. He'd never succeeded in pinning it with Void Gaze again, but sometimes he thought he got close. Once after the attack he even saw a metallic feather float down, crackling with lightning.

After that it didn't return for a day and he wondered whether it had changed its mind. If he'd spent two weeks hunting a single monster for nothing, he would have been frustrated... but he needn't have worried.

When he next saw the Thunderbird it was flying in the distance, far slower than before. A line of black clouds followed it, roaring with unnatural power, lightning bolts arcing within. Even though he couldn't feel the power with his human senses, with monstrous sympathy he could feel how the Thunderbird was drawing the storm along with it.

As soon as it was in range he focused Void Gaze on it, but the Thunderbird dropped back faster, disappearing into the clouds. Pushed by unnatural forces, the storm swept toward him and lightning began to rain down in a line of pure destruction. Even though he sprinted to the side he was still caught in the edge of it and blown off his feet.

On his back Kai groaned as he realized one of the bolts must have hit him: it had passed through his shoulder and burned off half his shirt. He'd endured worse than that, so he would be fine, but if he had taken the destructive storm head on...

This was a hunt he wasn't going to finish alone. Kai adopted stealth tactics and headed back as quickly as he could. A day later he barged into the tunnels, ignoring elves until he found Omilaena in the middle of her training. She was wearing her shabby sack-like clothing, so he just grabbed the front of it and lifted her into the air.

"What's gotten into you?" she asked.

"Come this way," Kai told her. "Help me get lunch."