It was smiling at him! Naath’s every instinct that had been unused since Earth flared to life and screamed at him to run, run like hell! Without hesitation, he turned around and jumped to the next tree from his current one. His hand-eye coordination was slightly off, however, and he ended up having to grab the next tree branch and pull himself up onto it. On the next one he jumped to, his landing was better but still rough and he needed to catch his balance. As he continued to jump he landed more accurately and was able to flee through the treetops at faster and faster speeds. After a few dozens of jumps he was able to rely on his soul sense and didn't even have to look with his eyes first.
As he went his speed increased and he got better and better at running through the trees eventually only using a single step on each one to launch himself to the next. The white wolf down below had a seeming look of amusement in its eyes as it watched Naath fumble. Then once he had gotten far enough away the white wolf let out a low growl and the others near it acted as though they had been given an order and immediately began to chase after Naath. The white wolf walked in the same direction at a nonchalant pace as if it knew that catching Naath was not a matter of if but of when. The white wolf had the arrogance of an apex predator and intelligence that seemed almost human.
This was not unheard of as magical beasts usually had innate abilities or elements or even bloodlines that allowed them to take in energy and naturally cultivate. They were smarter, larger, stronger, and more hearty than any of their non-magical variants. However after a few minutes, the white wolf started to pick up its pace, the reason being that it smelled blood. Not human blood though, but the blood of its subordinates. That damned human brat! He had killed his last remaining subordinates, if it was the last thing he did the white wolf was determined to get revenge. Now the white wolf locked on to Naath’s scent and started to follow from a distance. Naath unaware of this was still running across the treetops just in case. He planned to keep going as long as he possibly could to put distance between himself and the white wolf.
After a minute Naath calmed down and rationalized remembering that human ancestors were persistence predators. Wait did that still apply here? Did humans even evolve in this world or were they simply created? Either way, humans specialized in endurance, so Naath slowed his pace significantly and decided to make this a test of endurance rather than a test of speed. He knew he would lose that battle far too early, he knew the wolf planned to follow him and make a hunt out of it. He had seen it in the wolf's eyes, much the same way as when he saw house cats playing with mice before killing them.
So a chase began, Naath moving not fast, yet not slow through the treetops, the white wolf stalking down on the forest floor. Hours passed and Naath still continued as did the wolf, hunter vs prey. Soon the sun rose up on the horizon but Naath didn't even notice, he was still moving through the treetops at a brisk pace. Soon twelve hours came and went, Naath was still moving through the treetops, not willing to chance a magical beast having enhanced stamina or something. This would turn out to be a good call as the white wolf was indeed still following him, although it was starting to waver finally. Exhaustion had begun to take hold of the wolf and it was starting to pant for breath.
After another hour the wolf simply couldn’t continue and stopped chasing, it layed down and began to rest. Naath continued for another hour before his muscles were finally too sore for him to ignore any longer. He stopped moving, hid inside of some foliage, and took out food from his storage ring. He rested, ate, and drank for half an hour before he felt like he could continue forwards. Right when he got up he scouted around and noticed a white silhouette off in the distance slowly making its way towards him. Cursing, Naath turned around and once again started to move through the trees at a brisk pace.
Eventually, night fell yet again, Naath was completely exhausted and could only imagine how the wolf must be doing. He breathed out in relief and sat down on one of the trees, planning to rest for a while before continuing. He thought that he absolutely must have put a fair amount of distance between himself and the wolf. He wasn't too far off, the wolf though had an enhanced sense of smell even when compared to a normal wolf. Naath could be a hundred kilometers away and the wolf would still find him by scent alone. The wolf was hours behind, the damned human had moved very far ahead, was his energy infinite?! The wolf began to grow frustrated but it dredged onward to the best of its ability.
After an hour passed Naath started to move forward again, but suddenly thought better of it. Instead, he realized that even if it was a magical beast it HAD to be exhausted at this point, he got down from his tree went to a skinny one nearby barely the width of his wrist, and skinned the bark off of it. Using this he began to weave a rope together, after braiding for nearly two hours he heard something in the distance behind him. Getting up into the trees again and seeing the wolf walking at a slow pace, panting for breath Naath smiled an evil grin. He then moved forwards for another two hours increasing the gap further and further. When he stopped he gathered more thin tree bark and continued to braid and reinforce his rope. Two days passed quickly like this.
On the third day, Naath had finished his rope and began to move forward and wait. He was waiting for the wolf to be too exhausted to follow or continue. After only a single day more, his plan came to pass, the wolf never showed up behind when he rested, even after resting for a full two hours. Naath smiled with a mad look in his eyes that said he was about to do something that if it worked, it would be genius, if it failed, it would be called insane. He turned around and headed back the way he had come from. He was looking for the wolf now, predator and prey had swapped places. After traveling through the treetops for a little over an hour Naath spotted the large white/silver wolf and smiled as he thought to himself. ‘Hello, Brutus.’
The wolf smelled Naath and looked up at the tree but it was absolutely exhausted! In its rage and desire for revenge, it never realized how it was tiring itself out. Now though, even lifting its head felt strenuous. It had very little energy left for anything that wasn’t life or death. Once it saw Naath instead of just smelling him he used the last bit of his energy to stand up and get ready for a fight. Damned cunning human, this was probably its plan the whole time! In fact, the wolf's thoughts were not all that incorrect, this was in fact Naaths plan for a while now. He jumped down from the tree with a rope in his hands with a carefully and strongly tied slipknot lasso at both ends.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Naath had slipped one end around the base of the large tree he had come down from already. As for the other end, well, Naath was planning to put it around Brutus's neck and keep him in place. Slowly and very carefully he approached ‘Brutus’ waiting for him to lash out and jump at him. He kept his every instinct on high alert as he did this, he knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help himself. After getting within 5 meters of the wolf it jumped at him, Naath quickly moved to the side and dodged, throwing the other end of his rope into the wolfs path as he did so. The wolf realized his mistake as soon as he saw the hoop appear right in front of his path. But, it was already too late, he had used every last ounce of his remaining energy in that jump towards this human.
The rope flew seamlessly around the wolf's neck and Naath pulled, the noose closed around ‘Brutus’s’ neck, and eventually, he fell unconscious. Seeing this success Naath jumped with joy, wiped off the cold sweat on his forehead, and approached the wolf to undo the noose a little so it wouldn't choke him to death. After that, he plopped down in front of a tree a solid 20 meters from the farthest place the rope could reach and he fell into a very deep sleep. After having been chased for over a week by this single wolf without rest, Naath was completely and utterly exhausted. Once he fell asleep he did not wake up for an entire twelve hours in this time Brutus had also woken up but still did not have the energy to do anything more than try to walk around. He had tried to move over to Naath and kill him while he slept, however, once he got to the end of the rope and it started to tighten he gave up. He knew that it would just result in himself being choked out again. So he layed down and decided to recover first then free himself from this damnable human’s trap.
After waking up Naath felt much more rested and like he could run for another week if he needed to. Seeing the wolf he had decided to name Brutus tied up by the tree laying down, Naath smiled wide. His plan had worked! Now he would wait a few days for Brutus to get hungry and dependent. Tied up to this tree he couldn’t exactly go hunting for food now, could he? He would have to take whatever food Naath decided to give him if he wanted to eat. After thinking for a little bit he decided to toss some food into Brutus’ yard for him now. Like Naath thought, Brutus didn’t even look at the food. He was a proud apex predator, he refused to accept food that he or his pack didn't hunt themselves.
Seeing this Naath shrugged, took out his tree stump, and sat on it to begin meditating and trying to further his understanding of the True Void Arts. He had decided that during the day he would meditate and try to understand further, during the night he would hunt, cultivate, or travel. In a flash three days passed and Naath still stayed in this little yard waiting for Brutus to give in. Finally, he heard the rumbling of the wolf's stomach and saw it looking at the food he had thrown over. Naath simply smiled and closed his eyes going back into meditation. He had recently felt like he was at a point of understanding but the information was just outside of his reach. If he could grasp it he would be able to move on to the next stage of the True Void Arts and work his way through to the second level.
After two more days of deep thought, Naath finally had understanding dawn upon him. He realized that if the void contained everything, then shouldn’t he be able to use the energy of true void, the energy of nothing as a sort of shell or casing to contain a space that underwent the cycle of True Void? With this understanding, he decided to give it a try. Focusing on the center of his right hand Naath drew in a bunch of True Void energy and tried to condense it into a thin glass-like ball around the major accupoint that rested there. His first attempt was met with failure but showed a faint hope of success prompting him to continue.
Another day passed quickly and Naath was on his 513th attempt of creating a True Void membrane in order to move into the second stage of the True Void Arts. The True Void Arts second stage was a stage in which Naath would naturally draw in energy at all times through these membranes, albeit very slowly. As the energy would be drawn in by his True Void membranes, it would slowly and automatically go through the cycle of True Void. Whenever it reached the attraction stage more energy would slowly over time be accumulated and then stored in the membrane as a sort of pseudo dantian until it reached a critical point and was released. It was something Naath had read about in his old life on earth, but strangely had not even heard a whisper about since becoming a cultivator.
Dantians were how in most stories, a cultivator would keep their energy within their bodies and define their cultivations. The amount of energy accumulated within a person's dantian would determine the level of their cultivation but if one were to destroy it then the person's cultivation would be gone with the wind. However, in this world, bone hardening seemed to be the norm for cultivation. Using the body itself as a medium to hold, refine, and use energy rather than having a dantian with a series of networked passageways in the body to transport the energy for use. Noting this Naath decided to connect each of his True Void membranes to one another in order to simulate these passageways where he thought they made the most sense.
However, just forming the singular True Void membrane had used almost all of the True Void energy within Naath’s body, he would have to slowly recover all of it. But now he could use the True Void Membrane he had to drastically improve the rate at which he pulled in energy. Before he started on that though, he looked over to check on Brutus’s yard and saw that the meat that he had put there this morning actually had a few bites taken out of it. Naath chuckled and said.
“Hoho, Brutus did you actually take the food that I gave you? So this wasn't fruitless after all. See buddy I just want you to be my friend, I can take you out of this forest, show you the wider world. Whether or not you agree to partner up with me I'll just wait until eventually you give in and accept.”
Brutus glared at Naath fiercely, he could clearly understand the human’s words and knew what they meant. Humans loved to suppress and tame magical beasts to use as exotic pets for cart pulling and other labor or combat. Brutus wanted nothing to do with any humans no matter what. He firmed himself and decide he would not eat unless he absolutely had to. So he curled up into himself and went into a hibernation like sleep.
Upon seeing this Naath laughed loudly, wolves were known for their stubborn nature. In his last life, he had had several wolf/husky hybrid dogs in his family. They were unbelievably stubborn and intelligent. They were also fiercely loyal once they decided you were part of their family. At that point, there was almost nothing that they wouldn't do to protect or help you. It was being raised on Earth with these kinds of dogs that gave Naath his great respect for wolves in the first place. He had had to tame one or two back on Earth as well, which built up some experience that he was using here with Brutus. Right now though, the only thing that Naath could do is wait.