A thousand insects manifested by Swarm descended upon the boar, but to Elijah’s horror, their bites proved entirely incapable of penetrating the creature’s hide. However, he didn’t have the chance to lament the conjured insects’ impotency before he was forced to flee before its thundering charge. Before he turned to flee, he used Snaring Roots, then Brand of the Stalker, and Nature’s Rebuke. The results were mixed.
Brand of the Stalker landed, and the creature’s location blossomed in his mind. However, Nature’s Rebuke was entirely resisted, refusing to take hold. Was that because it was a natural beast? Or was it simply too powerful? Perhaps a countering skill was at work. Whatever the case, Snaring Roots was at least effective, the resulting vines snaking out from the earth and wrapping around its hooves. The delay caused by the spell was only temporary, though, and the creature quickly ripped itself free to continue its charge.
By that point, Elijah was already running.
He could have shifted into Shape of the Sky, but that wouldn’t have accomplished the goal. The moment he lost the creature’s attention, it would turn on the fallen hunters, trampling them beneath its hooves.
They couldn’t kill it. And if they were forced to outrun it, they would leave their fallen brethren behind. No – they needed time, and Elijah was the only one who could provide them with the room they required to survive. So, when he was a little less than a hundred yards away, he once again used Storm’s Fury. The spell wasn’t very effective, but it certainly maintained the creature’s attention, which was the overall goal.
Could Elijah have fought the beast?
Perhaps. But while he didn’t have access to an inspection ability like so many others seemed to possess, he had developed some ability to recognize a foe’s relative power. At the most basic level, he confined those instincts into four categories. First, there were those who were so far below him that their power was trivial to him. Second came the category into which most people fit – strong enough that they could pose a threat, but still below him. Then, there were those who were of a level – or slightly above – him. And finally, he could recognize when something was so far beyond him that fighting the threat would put him at an extreme disadvantage.
The boar fell into the final category.
He knew it was stronger than him, which meant that fighting it wasn’t really an option – at least not until he got it away from the fallen hunters. So, for now, Elijah only needed to lead it on a chase. For that, he intended to utilize a similar strategy to what he’d employed in the Sea of Sorrows when he’d led the giant isopod into a trap.
This time, though, the chase was much more harrowing. Even though his attributes had increased quite a bit, and he had plenty of abilities to help him, the boar was many times stronger than him. The isopod had been as well, but not to the same degree. It was a grim reminder that the world was filled with a wide range of dangers, many of which could stomp him into oblivion.
Those thoughts flitted through Elijah’s mind as he ran, leading the enormous boar away from the hunters. As he did so, he felt the ethera shift as the creature engaged another ability. Instead of swirling all around it like a protective coat, it coalesced around the monster’s legs, spurring it forward in an incredible charge. It barreled toward him with the speed of a bullet train, and Elijah was forced to dodge to the side, narrowly avoiding the monster’s razor sharp tusks and thudding hooves.
As he dove aside, he shifted into his draconid form. The increased Dexterity let him quickly regain his feet, and the added Strength that came with the predator shape gave him the power he needed to put some distance between himself and the enraged boar. He raced away, finally outpacing the monster. However, he never let it get so far behind that it would lose interest.
Like that, he traveled for dozens of miles until he reached one of the destroyed towns. Once there, he decided to try his luck against the powerful creature. So, he dipped behind a pile of rubble, then used that to hide his retreat. The moment he left combat, Elijah slipped into Guise of the Unseen before doubling back.
The boar, having lost track of him, had decided to take out its frustrations on the fallen town, attacking rubble and trampling any structures that remained standing. Not for the first time, Elijah watched it in awe. The creature was incredibly powerful – stronger even than the hydra, if he had to guess – and explosions of debris followed it wherever it went.
It was no wonder it had made such easy work of the hunters.
However, as Elijah observed the creature, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. This was no monster. He was certain of it. Nor was it an ordinary beast. It was a guardian, not so different from the bear or the panther – or even Snappy the tortoise. And yet, it was clearly mad.
There was only one thing that could have driven it to that state. Elijah had long known that guardians were inextricably tied to their natural treasures, and in a way that he couldn’t really understand. When Bessy – the alligator guardian back in the swamp – had lost her natural treasure, she’d been lucky to latch onto Konstantinos, Marcy, and their family of adopted children. Was madness what would have awaited if she hadn’t found something to replace her treasure?
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The more Elijah thought about it, the more he settled into the idea. The boar was a menace. It had killed hundreds of people and destroyed a dozen towns – an act which would likely result in even more deaths before everything was said and done. Yet, could it be held accountable when it had clearly been driven insane?
But more importantly, could Elijah save it?
He knew it was a lost cause, but still, he had to try. He wouldn’t have been much of a druid if he didn’t. The problem was that the boar hadn’t stopped, not even for a second. Instead, it seemed hellbent on causing as much destruction as possible. Like a child throwing a tantrum.
Or a psychopath who only wanted to watch the world burn, to tear apart the world that had failed them.
Elijah continued to watch, waiting for an opening until, finally, he saw an opportunity. The creature had gotten one of its tusks hung in the rubble of a large building, and though Elijah knew it wouldn’t last long, he chose to use that brief moment of idle distraction to his advantage. He pounced – not to kill, but rather, to simply let him get closer.
He leaped upon the monster’s back, and the moment he landed, the thing went wild. Fortunately, with his Dexterity, remaining atop the beast was possible, even with its wild bucking. He shifted into his human form and grabbed hold of the monster’s bristly fur. It felt like it would have been at home on a wire brush, and if Elijah hadn’t possessed significant Constitution, he was certain that his hands would have been cut to pieces. However, as it stood, he only felt a mild discomfort.
In any case, he channeled Soothe, then Touch of Nature while flaring One with Nature and Nature’s Bounty. He had no ability to commune with animals, so he used everything at his disposal. At first, it did nothing, but after a moment, Elijah felt everything click together.
And a world of madness opened up to him.
Loss. Grief. Confusion. A hundred emotions, each one powerful enough to bring tears to Elijah’s eyes, roiled. But over everything else was the fury of one who had been wronged. The impotent rage of someone who’d lost everything they held dear. The potent frustration of a creature who didn’t know what else to do.
Elijah had felt such a connection once before, but the mist panther who’d guarded his island had been serene. Accepting. It had known it was dying, and it had made its choice. The boar was the opposite. It would have preferred to die. Perhaps there was a part of it – the only sliver of sanity that remained – that hoped someone would put it out of its misery.
When the connection broke only a few seconds later, Elijah nearly fell from the boar’s broad back. But at the last second, he reaffirmed his grip.
Tears in his eyes, Elijah knew the guardian was too far gone to save. He could heal physical injuries, but none of his spells could do anything for psychological trauma. Even if they could, he questioned whether or not they would prove effective. The wounds went so deep that they’d destroyed large swathes of the boar’s mind.
The guardian was gone.
Only a monster remained.
And Elijah knew what to do with those.
With a sad sigh, he shifted back into his draconid form, then tested the creature’s defenses. To his shock, his claws did no damage at all to the monster’s hide. Just like when he’d used Swarm, it was entirely ineffective. The same was true even when he used Venom Strike; without penetration, the necrotic venom had no way of getting into the beast’s system.
Elijah tried a few other attacks, even switching to his lamellar ape form to test blunt force, but the boar was entirely unassailable. However, his attacks were obviously irritating, and with each blow, the monster’s wild bucking grew more pronounced until, at last, Elijah’s grip started to loosen.
It was then that he realized he had no other choice but to flee. This time, though, he didn’t need to lead the creature on a chase. So, he shifted into the Shape of the Sky, then launched himself into the sky. The boar didn’t like that, and it whipped around with far more quickness than a beast of its size should have possessed. As Elijah flapped his wings, the monster leaped, aiming to impale him with its sharp tusks.
He furiously climbed, but the boar’s Strength was immense, and it shot through the air like a rocket. Elijah beat his wings against the air, climbing higher and higher until, after almost two-hundred feet, the boar reached the apex of its leap. Then, even as Elijah continued to climb, it fell to the ground with the force of a meteor. When it hit, a shockwave spread through the area destroying anything the monster’s rampage hadn’t already claimed.
Elijah felt the impact even hundreds of feet toward the sky, and the updraft threw him off course, sending him spinning through the air until he regained control a few seconds later. By that point, the boar had already recovered, and its fury reached new heights. Thankfully, its path took it in the opposite direction of the Khotont, which meant that disaster had been averted.
Because even with its enchanted earthen wall, the city could not stand before the boar’s fury. It was too strong. Too durable. The people of Khotont didn’t stand a chance against such a foe.
From hundreds of feet in the air, Elijah followed the creature, watching it for any signs of weakness. For a long time, he saw nothing, but after a few more hours, it slowed to a trot, showing that it was not entirely inexhaustible. The beast still randomly tore large furrows in the plains, though its ire had clearly waned.
So, after following it for a couple more hours, Elijah decided to head back to the site of the battle. Many of the hunters had been injured, and though it would ruin his disguise as a Cartographer, he was willing to make that sacrifice in the name of saving a few lives.
Once he was within a mile or two, he landed and shifted back to his human form before taking off at a trot. He arrived to find that the hunters had established a temporary camp a mile or two away from the scene of the battle. There, they were busy tending to their wounded – who were clearly too injured to move.
When Elijah approached, he got more than a few surprised looks, but after he explained that he could heal, they put their shock on the backburner. Not surprisingly, Elijah recognized one of the injured men as the one who’d boasted about his new Armor Piercing ability. He’d lost an arm in the battle.
Without delay, Elijah went to work healing the injured, but the whole time, his mind whirled with the events of the day. Not only was it impossible to get the ruined state of the guardian’s mind out of his thoughts, but he couldn’t escape the unassailable fact that something needed to be done about the rampaging creature. Left to its own devices, it would continue to kill, growing stronger with every person – or beast – it trampled.
It needed to be put down. Elijah knew that down to his very core. But the question that dominated his thoughts more than any other was how he was going to kill such an invulnerable beast.