Tristan took a step back from the unnatural creature. Its whole body was sheathed in armor that looked like bone. Two lanky arms tipped with with vicious claws, comparatively short hind legs, and a barrel like torso made the Mythical beast look disproportionate. Not that the odd proportions seemed to inhibit its ruthlessness.
“Is that a sloth?” Vulcan asked, disbelief evident in his voice.
Tristan had heard of this creature before. Eve had told him it was the beast that nearly killed her father. He only had the pictures from the temple archives to go off of. From the sketch, a sloth was a relatively small, cute animal that hung from trees and moved super slow. The creature before Tristan was only vaguely related to a sloth. It also clarified why a team of tier threes and a civil protector had struggled with one.
For a moment, Tristan thought about backing away, but he really did not want to fight this thing alone. With its back turned to him and a pack of wroughtwilers keeping its attention, Tristan would get no better time than now to backstab the bone sloth. Taking a deep breath, Tristan started slinking forward.
He was not the most silent person, but being quieter than a pack of snarling dogs was not difficult. After sucking down the organs, the sloth casually speared another wroughtwiler. They tried biting it, but the bone plates neutralized any damage. Tristan was glad to see that the bone was not like steel armor, the wroughtwiler’s teeth were able to puncture the surface with relative ease, they just weren’t long enough to get to the meat below.
Tristan was just behind the sloth when it tossed the lower half of a wroughtwiler over its shoulder. It was such a shock, that he hesitated, failing to dodge. He grunted when the chunk of beast slammed into him. A shiver of fear ran down Tristan’s spine, but the sloth did not seem to have heard anything out of the ordinary. Maybe their hearing was poor.
The wind blew at Tristan’s back, stealing heat away. During the winter, the temperature could drop to below zero. With added windchill, it would not be wise to stay here longer than necessary. Drawing his knife, Tristan rushed the sloth. Several wroughtwilers noticed him, but they seemed to understand, barking and biting with renewed fervor. They wanted vengeance. Tristan felt a bit of respect towards these mythical beasts, they were savage, but also more loyal than any people he had ever met.
The sloth sniffed the air. Tristan jumped the three feet it would take to reach the gap between the beast’s skull plate and the spinal protection. It should be instant death, separating the brain from the rest of the body. Unfortunately, being a novice hunter, Tristan had no idea how problematic a tailwind was when hunting.
In a blur, the sloth spun, its arm snaking out like a whip. Tristan was smashed by the beast's elbow and pushed off target. He rolled as he struck the ground, coming to a stop on his feet completely unharmed. The same could not be said about the sloth.
It was difficult to change the trajectory of a three hundred and ninety pound object. Doing so with one arm was impressive, but the sloth had used its elbow, hyperextending it and dislocating it. The mythical beast released a pained lowing sound, not dissimilar to a cow. Then it slammed its arm into the ground to pop the joint back into place. The sloth screamed again, breathing heavily and glaring balefully at Tristan.
Either Tristan was dealing with a creature that dislocated joints on a regular basis, or the sloth was far smarter than he had assumed. A wroughtwiler jumped on the Sloth’s exposed back and scrambled up to its neck where it sank its teeth into the bone protection. Its mouth was too wide to get any purchase on the bone and the sloth reached up and threw the canine into the nearest tree.
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Tristan took the chance to rush the sloth, stabbing it in its barrel chest, right where the heart should be. Its bone did not put up much resistance to the tier five artifact, letting the blade sink to the cross guard. The sloth screamed in pain and slapped Tristan aside with a backhand. He managed to keep his weapon but had also missed anything vital.
The sloth whipped its claws at Tristan. They were as long as short swords and just as sharp. Tristan hopped back, letting them miss by a few inches, before slashing at them with his knife. Unlike the bone, these put up an enormous amount of resistance. Once the claw was moving slowly enough for him to see, there was only a small chip in the long black nail.
Tristan did not understand why some things were so resilient and others were easy to cut. The tier two wroughtwilers had bones that were difficult to pierce, but a tier five sloth had bone armor that was easy to cut. This same sloth had claws more resistant than the wroughtwiler’s bones. Tristan assumed it had something to do with alchemy, but he did not know why the alchemist wouldn’t just armor the beast in the same material as the claws.
“Cost,” Vulcan said, picking up on the question, “Often times, good enough is all that is needed.”
“You mean I only have a chance because whoever made this was cheap?” Tristan complained.
Vulcan sent him a nod, “I have enough essence for a compressed explosion and a shield of adamance.”
Tristan nodded, summoning Vulcan. The sloth did not rush in, its arms were so long that it did not need to get within Tristan’s range. It waddled forward on its stubby back legs whipping its claws at Tristan in a blur. A point of light collected just above the flaming head of the lamppost and grew brighter and brighter. The sloth slowed down, nervous about the new variable.
Taking a step back, Tristan tried to convey the idea of scared prey. Slumped shoulders, failing to make eye contact, and ducking behind a tree. The sloth was still hesitant, but followed around the tree, only to come face to face with a marble sized sun. Tristan released the construct.
He was thrown backwards, the snow around them was melted and the tree beside them caught fire. The sloth was tossed back as well. Tristan had hoped to kill it in a single shot. However, if a single attack that any tier three fire kern warrior could use was able to kill a bone sloth, they would not be classified as tier five beasts.
The sloth got back to its feet, lowing in anger. A scorch mark covered the sloth’s chest and lower jaw, the black soot contrasting with the white bone covering the rest of the body. Tristan looked around for his backup, the wroughtwilers had fled at the explosion. It was perhaps a bit much to expect them to stay and fight after fireballs were being tossed around.
Now that they were gone and Tristan had the sloth’s undivided attention he decided that now was a good time to run. They were slow, right? Well, a slow tier five creature should still be fast compared to a tier four one. Unfortunately, Tristan was the tier four in that comparison. He was most of the way through tier four, so he was sure that he could outrun a creature known for its sedate pace.
He turned and ran for his hideout. Even if the hatch was left open, the sloth was too big to fit down it, so he would be safe. Just one thing he had forgotten. This beast only looked like a sloth. It was violent, carnivorous, and ground bound. Why wouldn’t it be able to lope around on all fours at a decent speed?
Tristan arrived at his hideout and flipped the hatch open, only to be forced to jump out of the way as the mythical beast almost put eight new holes in his chest. It wasn’t going to give him the chance to climb down the shaft. Clenching his fists, Tristan made a potentially unwise decision. It was clear that the sloth was faster in a sprint than he was, but they were in a pine forest. The beast’s height of nine and a half feet would make it hard to maneuver at speed between trees.
So he ran into the forest’s darkness. The sloth did not hesitate to follow, branches snapped as it plowed through the underbrush like it wasn’t there. Tristan was doing something similar, relying on his mass to shove his way through the foliage. Humans were not known for their strength but for their endurance. All he needed to do was avoid the sloth until it wore out and he could escape.
Vulcan was quick to point out the flaw in that logic, “That's only true when you aren’t sprinting for your life. Humans can work for far longer than anything else, not run for far longer.”
Plan B then. Tristan changed his direction slightly and upped his speed. He wasn’t far away from something that might just be able to save him. The hill with the ravine cut into it came into view just a few minutes later. He did not hesitate and rushed down the gorge.