The creature he hunts sleeps about once every forty days. This was a rough estimate and in that Max and the Wraith were similar. But, this is where the commonalities stopped.

A Wraith can be a mother and a father at the same time. Not needing an opposite to procreate as animals do. Often a Wraith's young would end up dominating their surroundings, wreaking havoc upon the natural order. At least, that's how he understood it from Vantium's scholars, almost half a dozen decades ago. There are stories about entire forests being overrun by such fiendish descendants.

Max is aware he can't kill the Wraith in a fair fight and so he must wait for the beast to fall asleep and then he will strike. It must eventually go to its cave to rest and Max was fairly certain the large creature had its brood there. He thought about slaughtering them while the Wraith was away but this would alert and enrage the creature making the long-planned surprise attack a daydream, really. Younglings were like a lesser copy of the beast. Formidable but not really a challenge to Max.

His dark blue skin was not ideal for this environment so he wore a soft long-sleeved purple shirt made of silk with an even twill weave, hard-wearing cotton pants, and robust boots with a matching cape—the hood cuddling Max's blue-black hair. It was a visually pleasing coincidence how the blade of his hepatizon broadsword, secured firmly at his back, had a dusky purplish patina, almost matching the overall outfit.

Max had decades of experience in forging swords, axes, daggers, armors, and so on, and so on, but not even these twenty-five days of waiting tested his patience like working with hepatizon did. You had to know how to read the secret language of blazing metal and hepatizon had quite obscure letters. Still, Max loved forging and it showed in the artisanship of the final product. The blade was a masterwork. It will do the job, the rest was up to him.

Having red eyes also didn't help when it came to prowling but he was well hidden. Both Max and the broadsword were parallel to the ground—half covered with violet and dark red leaves and some twigs.

Mostly purple with a tinge of gray, the brush around him was poking everywhere but it was just a minor inconvenience. The cave in the distance ahead of him was wide, much wider than its height.

The hazy sun far above marked the twenty-fifth day since he first began staring at the damn cave. Max felt like he knew its every nook and crevice by now. No sign of the occupant and yet he understood it was only a matter of time. Once committed to the task he wouldn't stop even if Theia herself showed up and told him to.

When was the Council meeting? Sometime in the middle of Sardon, he thought, answering his own question. Max will probably have to miss that. Time becomes fluid when you pretend to be a rock for more than half a month. It didn't really matter, the meeting was just a formality. Only Kali was always regular and another behemothic attack was not yet close. Well...hopefully. Max kept thinking of Maeve and time went faster. He would love to have stayed in Vantium to hopefully spend more time with her but the city often became suffocating. The air there just didn't feel right.

Maeve the Comeliest. Of course, no one called her that except him—and even then, only within the deepest chambers of his mind. She was formally known as ''Maeve of Vantium'' or ''Maeve the Fairest.'' He preferred his unvoiced version, though. She told him to avoid these...excursions of his. There was a method, a proper way of hunting for these monsters involving multiple squads communicating and encircling the beast in a manner of an ever-tightening noose. His method was a borderline crackpot one, but Max, perhaps selfishly so, wanted this kill for himself.

Some scholars guessed that Wraiths were made by humans in their unnatural experiments, long ago. Others speculated that they were born from the bowels of Equiya, but it was only a guessing game in the end. There were also theories that---

Finally. His mind snaps back to the present moment, hammer and tongs.

The sound around him stopped. Not a single nearby insect or a distant bird could be heard. Nothing, except his own breathing which now sounded almost clamorous. For a moment of perfect stillness, Max felt as though he was inside a painting, destined to forever be hidden by foliage with spears of clouded sunlight breaking through the shrinking purple lush of early autumn.

There were two empyreans above him. One made by the murky, almost achromatic clouds and another, far less bland, made of that retiring, darkening, violaceous, plum, lilac, amethyst, and every other possible shade of that purple lush that his highly astute eyes could discern. This second sky was created by trees whose height rivaled some of the tallest structures his city had to offer. The forest floor had a luxuriant blanket composed of purple and garnet-colored ferns.

Max was at the edge of the Armada. A sprawling forest southwest of Vantium.

Everything was cat-silent, lack of sound matched the environment, since not even the faintest wind could be felt. Suddenly he could hear a distant noise of gentle thuds and a scraping sound as the Wraith slowly came into view. His prey seems to have caught something. The Wraith was dragging a giant short-faced bear to the cave to eat it. Max didn't understand why not just eat where you kill it, since when you are the top predator around it's not like anyone will disturb you. Well not unless a lone hunter wanted to try something foolish. Very foolish, he thought.

Wraith hunts, he hunts. Perhaps he will become its new prey in the end. Or, they may end up killing each other. Max smiled. Perfect circle.

Possible forms in which a Wraith might appear are without bounds. There are no two that are the same—miniature copies not included of course. In this particular case, the beast was squat and wide. Lizard-like with black eyes, no whites, and pale gray scales. It used its long thick tail to drag the bear to the cave.

Frontal assault meant certain death. He must wait for the thing to gorge itself. Only after it fell asleep, all content and relaxed with a full belly, it should be easy to kill it.

Come on...Max thought as the black-clawed lizard slowly disappeared into the depths of its lair.

Before getting up he turned the cape to its other side with a pale yellow color.

There is no honor in this kill. No honor in what he is about to do. Such is life. Honor can be an expensive thing, indeed. Kali and Maeve could probably take it down easily, fair fight or not. In moments of endless boredom—during those twenty-five days—moments that demanded patience and some more patience yet, the mind tended to wander and he imagined countless scenarios of his kindred and him fighting in the arena; of him fighting together with Maker against the humans. Of course, since he was only sixty he never even saw a human, except in some old drawings. Stories said they were wild, brutish, and below even animals.

As Max slowly approached the cave, hugging every shaded, crepuscular spot and every sizable rock or cover, he imagined Maeve and her perfect lips. Though in general, he tended to stave off such thoughts, it was a futile effort—cognate to trying to cut the wind or wrestle a mountain.

Even in my mind, she distracts me.

He suspected Maeve was only using him to learn everything that was said during Council meetings; however, considering her position it wouldn't be entirely surprising if she knew all the topics to be discussed before even Maker himself.

Perhaps she truly likes me, the thought brought a grin to his face.

Stop. There is only prey and me. There is only prey and me. Max kept repeating the same thought until his mind was sharper than the alamarium stiletto dagger tied at his ankle.

Every step: calculated; every breath: planned. He felt as though standing straight was a long-forgotten notion. Max paused after reaching the right side of the cave's entrance.

What follows is the most dangerous part of the hunt. Max simply could not afford a direct approach and so he will use the wall to his right to slowly climb—first high up then moving to the side. That's the idea anyway. He looked to the right and up. The ceiling will be the most difficult part. It was far from smooth which suited him just fine although one might as well call it ''velvet'' when compared to the roughness of the cave's sides.

The cave itself was made out of limestone, a prime climbing rock if Max is the arbiter. Where others would see plain rock Max saw hand and footholds, purchase, aretes—thankfully those are not so numerous—, plenty of holds large enough for both hands, grips, anchorage spots, fingerholds, cruxes, almost rostrum-like spots, ''belvederes'' as he called places with the best views of the surroundings, rungs, steps, and so on. It's all a matter of perspective, really, he pondered. Maker once told him: ''Each of us sees the world through a sui generis tincture of our eyes. We can't help it how we see it.''

His path will most certainly not be a straight line. Nature made these hidden pathways and Max had to find, follow and respect them.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

The climb begins. His pace was that of an incapacitated snail. Any sound, however small, might turn him into a blotch on the wall, quickly followed by falling shimmering dust. Max didn't find this image particularly appealing, his remains scattered in this forgotten place—behind the skirt of the goddess, as the popular idiom went. That is to say in the middle of exactly nowhere. Max practiced climbing with his weapon and sometimes with even armor on. At this moment strength was not the issue, but patience.

And it was surely tested aplenty after hours of zig-zagging, weaving, curving, then hugging an oblique way upwards, resuming an anfractuous course up, following a devious vertical serpentiform route only he could see or uncover, until finally, finally he almost reached the ceiling. The belvedere spot offered a fantastic view of his surroundings.

Considering the size of the Wraith there wasn't really much chance to lose it and it was really only a question of time before Max locked his two red embers on the target. The beast was sleeping on the cave floor—just as he expected. With the grace and dexterity of a spider, Max continued his climb sideward for some time until his body was almost precisely above that of the giant lizard.

The tiny thought kept reappearing in the back of his mind, sticking to it like a bur that one could never fully remove out of his or her favorite shirt—one loose rock, one audible sound really, is all that separated the blue hunter from becoming an unenviable small pile of crystal dust scattered upon this cave in the middle of nowhere. The Wraith couldn't possibly reach him, he was too high for that, but—as always in life there was that cursed caveat starting with ''but''—there were more than a few sizable rocks near the sleeping monster, and Wraiths are known to have a decent intelligence, greater than that of a dog or pig. It's not entirely unheard of for a creature of its ilk to start throwing boulders, in this case directly at Max, and therein lies the slight problem. He was in no position to dodge. In such a hypothetical his best bet would be to make a long jump down and tail it—with a good chance of being snatched from the air long before his feet even touched the ground.

Where is it? The slumbering beast's rigid scaly mouth was clean, with no blood or remnants of brown fur. He couldn't see the short-faced bear or at least its remains anywhere he looked. It doesn't matter, he thought.

There was a doline about one respectable stone's throw away. Or...maybe two good stone throws away, he thought while lowering his head awkwardly and getting a better look. It was perfect. Just enough overall light to suit his needs, just enough light to see the spot where he must strike with precision his architecturally-inclined kindred speak of when designing immane structures of the future.

His ability to see was exceptional but even he couldn't see in absolute darkness. This is why daylight was paramount.

Max already identified the dead-on spot on the Wraith's body he will need to stab through. The neck was not an option since it gave the giant lizard ample time to tear him apart before it bled to death. The stab had to be quick like the sweetest dream. Practical. Brutal. Resolute.

No...

Something was on his lower back, just under his silken shirt, moving upward. A crawler. It was a reddish-brown insect about fist and a half big, with tiny evil-looking red eyes, that attaches to you and sucks several times its body weight in blood. A white-hot needle was piercing through the center of his back as the creepy-crawly tried and failed to penetrate Max's skin.

He didn't panic. There was nothing he could do in his current position but accept the pain. It was infuriating. A pain you can't react to, an itch you can't scratch.

Prick, prick, prick. Scrape, scrape, scrape. The little bastard refused to give up trying to break his skin.

Max inhaled. Alldora-deep and moths-wings-silent breath. The pain was a part of him now. After I'm...finished with the black-eyes...I will pulverize you. Goddess is my witness, he thought to himself.

He calmed himself further. ''Keep pushing until something good happens,'' as Maeve once told him. ''Life will not give you what you deserve. Only what you can take.'' It's strange where one's mind will go in moments of great stress. Her words were a column Max could lean on, the sound of her voice: a shield. Max spent a good part of a month waiting for this exact moment. A stupid bug is not stopping him now.

He feather-twist-gently unclasped the wicked-sleek and yet bulky broadsword from his back, grabbing it firmly in his right hand. The familiar weight of it was a handshake from an old friend.

And Max did just that—he took—as he launched himself from his rocky purchase. The ''flight'' down drenched his mind with feelings of exhilaration and strangely a sensation of unalloyed bliss. Max was ecstatic. It took him considerable effort not to scream from excitement. Cutting the air, Max's body was an arrow, a thrown spear shaft with the hepatizon sword being the primed tip. Before this hunt even began he experienced jumping off different elevations over eighty times in total to stab a large pumpkin or a watermelon placed at ground level; such was the extension of his preparations. Max knew how to position his body in such a way that it delivered an adult-archerfish-precise hit. The far-out deep-blue comet shrouded in purple and trailed by a pale yellow streak felt its flight was short and Void-long all at the same time.

The sharp tip of the cold blade pierced the Wraith's skull at the top with a sickening crunch, quickly followed by a muffled splattering sound. The force of impact nearly threw him across the cave floor.

Even as it opened them, the beast's big black eyes were already abandoned with the light of life. Gaining that empty hollow look all those who just met the Void had.

It twitched a little—swaying his entire body like a twig in the wind, Max's grip on the sword the only thing keeping him from being thrown to the side—and then the creature died.

How disappointing, he thought. A small part of him hoped for an epic fight however a much bigger part was relieved at not turning into aforementioned crystal dust.

Next, he stabbed the broadsword into the ground and threw himself—back first—onto the knee-high rock nearby; again and again, with the fervor of a drone bee during the nuptial flight. ''Die you piece of shit.'' A crunching sound could be heard together with his violent thuds. His back was bruised and oozing with a disgusting cold feeling.

Laying sprawled on the rock, Max laughed as the thought dawned on him that a bug technically hurt him more than the slain monster.

He looked to the side. Something moved in the deeper part of the cave. A bunch of smaller versions of the big slain thing started appearing. In a flash, he got up and grabbed his sharp friend. The chunky lizards didn't attack as one but rather in an indecisive manner of pure chaos, fear, and instinct.

After memorizing their shapes and sizes Max closed his eyes. With multiple opponents, vision can be a distracting sort of weakness. They were loud, so loud. Their swarming steps were ripples on the mirror-like surface. In the deepest nooks of his mind, despite the refined coiled blackness covering his eyes, he saw them, he saw them without seeing. Max's body became a whirlpool of movement, his arms twisted like snakes and his legs swirled with the timely precision of the best chronos, no movement was wasted. Not a single one. Gracefully, Max dispatched them all.

It seemed cruel but the Wraith's offspring often destroy the environment they are in. Nothing contains them. They have no natural competitors and would simply spread to dominate everything. Like humans did.

Breathing a little more heavily than he'd liked, the slayer moved back toward the Wraith's corpse.

True, the beast was not one of the mightiest of Wraiths there are but it was a fine kill nonetheless. There was a large vomit-inducing pile of excrement, bigger than him in volume, near the beginning of the Wraith's tail. The air of the cave quickly became overwhelmed with the foulness of it. Max, registering none of it, continued on with the next task. The blood of the cubs was barely noticeable on the dark purple-tinted blade of his broadsword as it now pierced the dead creature's gut.

Now for the messy part of taking out the hopefully plump crystal and cleaning it. His mount—a six-legged boar the size of a yak that could probably pull half a mountain across half of Equiya—and a sturdy cart are both away in a safe spot. With plenty of stifled sunshine for the boar, of course. Besides the presumably heavy crystal, Max plans on taking the Wraith's head on his trip back to Vantium, too. The scholars there could never get enough samples for study. He almost shrugged at the thought. There wasn't really much to study, though. You hunt and kill a Wraith or it does that to you. Simple.

The cart had several barrels of salt and wood for smoke. There were some herbs there also, to help preserve the head, deter the flies, and slow down the rotting. Obviously, he could never smell the rot but no one liked flies and wild animals would sense the decaying flesh, somewhat slowing his journey back home. Also, Max didn't wish to endanger the large boar and the cart might get damaged—there is a whole list of potential logistical problems best avoided. Little effort now goes a long way later.

Part of him still yearned for a dramatic fight but he was alone in the wild and honor in this case was a thing reserved for his much mightier kindred or for friendly celebratory fights in the arena. Nature doesn't care about such silly notions; it's kill or be killed. During the past few decades, there were hunters—crackpots just like him—which he taught: to track, to stealth, to be patient. Those that listened survived, and scarce few others that didn't are dust, forever lost to the world. Max released a deep sigh. His sword was making mushy-slashy noises as he cut through the skin, tendons, bone, and tissue, searching for his prize.

Performers in Vantium's many theaters would sometimes tell stories of humans and those often had dramatic fights. The hero struggles and then wins. But again, nature doesn't really care about stories or silly notions such as honor. Unlike most things in the city, life in nature is beautifully and yet brutally simple and practical. Nonetheless, that small irrational part of him was aching for a fair fight that never was. Sure there is a small chance of losing an arm or leg or a head but with a trusted hepatizon broadsword in hand, almost nothing could match him. One lucky stab and I think I'm Theia, he chastised his own arrogance.

How many bowels do you have? The broadsword was good for killing but apparently not so much so for eviscerating. Max was now half-covered with the creature's blood and some really vile-looking viscid substance he wanted to convince himself was blood.

After rummaging through the red vital fluid and viscera for quite some time, Max found a large yellow crystal within the beast. Even embedded with gore and entrails, the Amber was magnificent-looking. Unlike most of those being mined. Maker will be pleased. Well...Maker will never admit this and will probably-absolutely scold Max for being foolish.

After some finishing cuts, he grabbed the several-anvils-heavy precious honey-yellow crystal with both hands and lifted it with an obstreperous splish sound. Max carried his loot a few steps before deciding it was better to just roll it almost like one would a barrel. So he did just that, moving the crystal a little to the side of Wraith's mutilated body. Max then crouched—placing a right hand onto the roughly egg-shaped, blood-stained, and jagged Amber.

Despite not being charged the crystal possessed a muted soft glow deep within. The light inside was something ethereal and smoke-like in shape, seemingly coiling with a mesmerizing swirling dance of gossamer threads. For a few blessed moments, Max let the living light inside enthrall his red eyes.

He stood up, his breathing now almost completely normalized, and looked at the mess around him, at the Wraith's neck, then at the distant entrance, now exit. I should've left the cart much closer.