Hunting Kings
“It wasn’t my fault!” I said, just a tad bit embarrassed.
Aurora snickered next to me, and Jiyun avoided looking at my face.
“I am not that scary,” I mumbled. Granted, I did want to scare them a bit, but I did not intend to make them have an… accident.
Aurora laughed, then quickly sobered up. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Marianna,” Aurora said, her voice steady. “You’re terrifying, you do know that right?”
I blinked, I opened my mouth, then closed it. I wasn’t really that dense, I knew that I was a vampire, and that people were afraid of me. It had been my reality for years, since I was turned. But, it had also been true before, when I worked for the cartel as a human. There was always an undercurrent of fear when I interacted with people.
Now though… I had seen it, of course. What the public, the people outside of those that I had grown up with, believed was much different. Vampires were monsters out of old stories.
But me? I wasn’t all that, at least I hadn’t really thought about it. I always found the fear of others amusing because I knew who I was inside, that I wasn’t someone who would just snap and kill everyone in the room.
Yet perhaps I was wrong.
Seeing how I didn’t respond to Aurora’s question, Jiyun changed the topic.
“Was it really alright, letting them go like that?”
“You told them a lot about the area,” Aurora added.
I grimaced. The truth was that I had incurred debt toward them. They hadn’t really done anything other than say some stupid stuff. And I not only scared them but also caused a lot of humiliation to one of them. I didn’t need to do that; I had no real cause to do it. I only realized it after it happened. I really needed to start acting with more thought.
I repaid my debt to them by giving them information that I had gained from the memories of the bear and other beasts we encountered. It had also netted me another carving in my Revelator Ornament, bringing it up to nine.
I turned to look at Aurora and opened my mouth, then hesitated. I didn’t want to reveal what the reason for my actions was. “They aren’t important, and I don’t think that you wanted to group up with them.”
“Of course not,” Aurora huffed. “At least they told us that there are Suul in the area.”
I grimaced, that was an issue. Even the two other challengers had confirmed that the Suul did not respond to any attempts at diplomacy.
“We always expected to meet with them again,” I said. “But with Saia scouting ahead we should be able to avoid them. It is best if we focus on killing beasts.”
Both girls agreed and we continued, following the memories of beasts that showed me a path to a part of the forest shrouded in shadows.
We had to hurry, we’d already been here for a day and had gathered around 10,000 points each killing beasts, but that wasn’t going to be enough. The two humans were close to that number too. We only had two days left.
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The shift from a normal forest—or rather relatively normal forest—to one filled with deep shadows, wasn’t subtle. One moment the trees were tall and brown with green leaved canopy, and then the bark was dark, the canopy thicker and the leaves a deeper green that almost looked black.
We continued on cautiously. We’ve already encountered a few beasts that seemed to be more adept at stealth, enough so that neither Aurora nor Jiyun detected them before we got really close. My senses had become our only early warning, that and Saia’s scouting ahead.
It was barely an hour into our trek through the dark forest that we came upon a corpse of a large beast, its wounds familiar to me. Big chunks of meat were gone as the beast fed on it. The blood was still warm.
“This was done by a ferrorn”, I said as I inspected the wounds and the tracks nearby. What confused me was the reason why the beast had left the carcass here. Something either spooked it, or perhaps it just didn’t act in the same manner as such predators on Earth did. “This ferrorn is definitely not a young one, though by the size of these tracks and wounds it is not quite the size of the mature one I encountered before. Though, this species might just be smaller.”
“So, we are going after it?” Aurora asked nervously.
I nodded. “I can track it, I think,” I had some tracking experience from when I learned the skill, which I had now lost, but the knowledge taught to me by the remnant of Martin still remained.
I did have a [Lesser Track] skill, but it was on my shelf, and I didn’t want to waste a slot in my profile for it. My senses should be more than enough to follow after the beast. In the worst case I could burn the skill, it wasn’t that important.
We decided on a rough plan of attack once we found it, then set off. I was in the lead, with Aurora just behind me and Jiyun taking the rear. Saia was in her drone form and flew above us in the canopy, shrouded by the shadow.
I followed the tracks and the scent of blood that it left in its wake. We still didn’t know if this was the king, or just another ferrorn, but we kept ready for anything.
It didn’t take us long to reach a large cave entrance surrounded by bushes and vine growths. We came to a stop nearby, hiding behind a tree and looking inside.
“It’s there, I can hear it,” I whispered.
“How are we doing this?” Aurora asked.
“I think, plan C should work,” I said slowly as I glanced up at Saia who had grabbed hold of a low branch above us. “With the slight change of you going in and drawing it out.”
Saia tilted her head, then nodded. I turned my attention to the girls. “Jiyun you take that rock by the entrance, Aurora you stay here and strike the moment it follows Saia out. I’ll be above the entrance.”
Without too much more talking, we scattered and got in position. I climbed to the top of the cave entrance, my weapon held firmly in my hands and ready, I verified that the girls were in position and motioned to Saia. She flew into the cave, and almost immediately a loud roar echoed from within, then Saia blasted out with the ferrorn following behind her.
It looked generally the same as the ferrorn I had faced before, smaller than the mature one that I had faced on Ish Vimza, which made it come up to around my shoulder. Its color was different too, instead of blue skin with purple stripes, this one had black skin with gray stripes. Its back was covered in the same growths that the other of its kind had, only these were sharper and looked more like spikes.
It’s sinuous neck stretched forward as it looked up at Saia flying above it. Then the ground shook, its footing slipped though it didn’t fall. I leapt from above, stabbing my long-bladed weapon in an attempt to skewer it through the back. I triggered [Triple Thrust] and the air shimmered as my spear stabbed forward.
The ferrorn slid to the side, the shadows around it flickering. The attack that was meant to pierce it in the center of its back missed. One of my thrusts caught the back side of its body, opening a long but shallow gash on its thigh.
The ferrorn turned and pounced on me immediately, its jaw opening wide.
Shit. It was faster than I expected. [Dodge] let me twist out of the way, my muscles straining as the skill pushed them beyond their limits. As the ferrorn flew by me next to the cave entrance, Jiyun blurred from the side, her sword flashing in a crescent that cut its side. The ferrorn roared again and turned to attack when the wall of the entrance shifted, and a stone spike grew out piercing its shoulder.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I dashed in, swinging my weapon from above, but the ferrorn fell into its shadow.
I cursed inwardly and turned, looking around for any sign of it. A faint noise and an imprint in the Way alerted me to the skill being used. I jumped next to Jiyun, pushing her out of the way as the shadow in front of her rippled and ferrorn started to rise. I swung my weapon one handed at it.
Another imprint in the Way just behind me told me that I had fallen into a trap. The ferrorn rose from the shadow ahead of me, while something attacked from behind me.
I tried to evade, but didn’t get away in time. A thin shadow spike rose from my own shadow and pierced through my forearm making me drop my serpent-tongue spear, just as the ferrorn’s wicked claws came down toward my head.
I didn’t have the time to evade, so I stepped into the attack instead.
[Overburn Skill—Lesser Tough Skin]
I felt my skin harden, as I collided with the ferrorn. I wasn’t light, but it out-massed me. It bowled over me, its claw racking across my back and getting stuck on the plate of my vest. As we were falling, I twisted and landed on top of it before rolling and getting my feet in between us and kicking as hard as I could.
I threw it off, but claws caught and ripped my shoulder open from back to front. I bit back a scream and got to my knees as the ferrorn recovered and came back at me.
Saia dove from above, her claws scratching across its face and making it cry out in pain. I took the moment to recover, my hand hovered over my revolver but then I decided against it, I only had four bullets left.
Instead, I yelled out.
“Saia, blade and chain!”
The dragon disengaged and flew toward me, changing midair. I caught the blade and chain, but not all of her turned into weapons. She had enough mass now that she could do more than a single thing. Her drone, slightly smaller, turned around and continued the attack on the beast.
The ferrorn dashed toward me, but a crack in the ground opened up, trapping one of its limbs inside. Jiyun attacked from behind, dancing around it and attacked its hind-legs, cutting deeply to slice through its tendons.
I whipped up my chain then let it fly from above, wrapping it around the ferrorn’s head. With a groan, I pulled, dropping its head to the ground and immobilizing it. Jiyun saw the opportunity and got on top of it, stabbing the back of its neck. The ferrorn started thrashing as she sliced through and her blade came out through its throat, and I kept a tight grip on it as it died. As it stilled and its breathing got labored, I stepped close and gripped its long neck with one hand to keep it steady while I leaned down and drunk my fill, finishing it in the process.
The memories flowed through me, and I let them sink in.
Once I was done, I stepped back and sighed.
“Are you okay?” Aurora asked.
She and Jiyun stood nearby, having approached while I was drinking.
I frowned then saw that she was looking at my bloody shoulder. “Fine, it’s already healed.”
She shook her head. “I’m never going to get used to that. Also! I got another Carving, I’m Second Investment now!”
“Congratulations,” both I and Jiyun said, though I could see the slightly envious look on Jiyun’s face.
“I got another skill, I’m going to be a lot more useful now,” Aurora announced.
I raised my eyebrow. “Oh?”
As an answer Aurora’s face scrunched up and she focused. I felt the skill activate, and the ground beneath my feet rose up quickly enough that it launched me in the air. I twisted and landed on my feet, looking back at Aurora unamused.
“Aw, that’s not fair,” she complained.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be useful on things other than me.”
Aurora stuck her tongue at me and I chuckled.
I turned away and rolled my shoulder as I looked back to the cave. “Well, I know why it left that beast carcass behind,” I said to the others.
They gave me a strange look as I walked toward it. Inside I found what I had seen in its memories. The ferrorn was attacked by a human, and it killed him. I found his corpse inside, mangled and half eaten. Still, I didn’t look away. Instead, I searched around and found things that had survived. I left the cave with a small dagger and a ring that gave the [Lesser Night Vision] skill.
The dagger went to Aurora while the ring found its way to Jiyun’s finger, after a thorough cleaning.
With that done, we continued through the forest, Saia scouting and leading us toward more beasts as we searched for more kings.
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“Stop, stop, stop!” Aurora called out as we walked through the woods.
We fought another three groups of beasts. We killed a predator that attempted to ambush us, that looked like a big lizard that lived up in the canopy. It had skin stretched between its legs which allowed it to glide like a flying squirrel, that manner of ambush didn’t end well for it.
The other two were a stag-like herd and a wild board that had steel spines growing out of its back.
“What is it?” I asked, already looking around for any danger.
“I can feel a large piece of stone moving!” Aurora said.
“Stone Dragon Tortoise?” I asked.
“Probably,” Aurora nodded excitedly.
“Lead the way!” I said.
We’d already walked through two different biomes, though we haven’t found another beast king or any sign of them.
With the last one that we killed we each got 10,000 points, and so far we were nearing 30,000 points each total. Which was great, as it was almost the end of day two. There wasn’t really nighttime on this halo, nor was there a real sun. The light was generated somehow, but at least we could tell the time since the end of the day was announced in the trial.
Aurora led us forward, and we made good time.
Finally, we reached our destination.
“There it is,” Aurora pointed as she whispered.
I looked to where she was pointing and saw a tortoise the size of a buss slowly trekking through the bushes, chomping the thick roots that grew out of the trees.
“And so it is,” I said slowly. The tortoise’s shell was solid rock, pale gray in color with spiked surface covered in moss. Its limbs were tree trunks, and its head had a stone ridge on top of its forehead.
“How do we do this?” Jiyun asked.
Honestly, after the ferrorn I was pretty sure that I could take it myself. But we were here so that all of us could get stronger, so I had to get them somehow involved.
These king beasts were strong, but they were ultimately beasts, we had weapons and teamwork on our side.
We came up with a plan and then executed. We left our packs and gear we didn’t need behind a tree and headed for the beast. Like before, attacking from an ambush was a huge advantage, something that could end a fight before it really started.
Aurora began our attack by opening up a crack in the ground beneath the tortoise’s foot. It fell in, a surprised grunt leaving its throat. Saia landed on its head from above intent on clawing its eyes out as I rushed it from one side and Jiyun from the other.
Saia’s claws skidded off the stone on its forehead as it moved its head out of the way, then it faster than I had expected, it pulled its body inside its shell.
My spear missed the neck and hit the ground while Jiyun’s bounced of stone. Then the ground started to shake. A moment later, a pulse of rolling dirt exploded out from beneath the tortoise’s shell, sending all of us to the ground.
As I fell, I saw the beast peak out of its shell, then stand, it looked in my direction and opened its mouth. Orange light blossomed deep within its throat so fast that I could only stare in shock. The last thought that went through my head was a simple reminder; right, Dragon Tortoise, and then I was on fire.
My skin was burning, and I screamed. I dropped to the ground and rolled, but the fire didn’t seem to be going out. I could hear fighting around me through the roaring of the flames. The sound and the stench of my burning flesh roared up. I was healing and burning in a loop, the pain became everything. The thirst raged inside of me, its whispers filling my head.
An idea occurred to me, and I quickly acted.
[Swap Profile]
The pain lessened by a little as [Lesser Constitution] activated, but I focused on getting my feet under me and taking a step.
[Mist Step]
It was agony, it was like in an instant I had combusted completely, every single part of my body was submerged in lava. And then the pain lessened, I was lucky, I hadn’t known if that would work. I reformed and fire didn’t follow me, I was completely burned, my flesh melted and dripping off my body.
I grabbed the rags that the clothes on my body had become and ripped them apart. Then the cacophony of voices rose from within my veins.
Drain them all, kill, kill, kill, feed, take everything. Grow! More, more, more more more more… Take all the power, take everything. Join their blood to ours, let us sing together. Drink, drink, drink.
The chant was pounding inside my head and my head turned, one still functioning eye seeing only red. The beast was on its back, a meatbag was standing next to it, stabbing into its exposed flesh.
Another meatbag was coming my way, waving its thin hands, its warm blood pumping through its veins. My tongue slipped out but found no lips to lick, instead it passed over my fangs, cutting a long line that made my blood drip into my mouth.
The meatbag paused, and I took a step forward. I needed to drink, to drain, to heal. The meatbag took a step back, it was yelling now, turning and looking at the other one. Something landed nearby but it had no blood singing within, it smelled of metal and strange crystals, I ignored it.
The other meatbag looked over, its sword raised as it gestured. The second meatbag ran for the one with the sword, next to the beast.
I launched myself forward, my legs barely holding me upright.
The meatbag with the weapon in hand swung, but it didn’t attack me. Instead, its blade cut into the neck of the beast, and blood sprayed forth.
I changed direction, smashing into the neck of the beast, my teeth sinking into the wound and tearing flesh, swallowing the bloody chunks as I tried to get more and more blood, faster and faster down my throat.
The thirst was chanting still, but its attention shifted, and my mind cleared. With an effort of will, I grabbed hold of the thirst and took control of my emotions.
As I calmed, I didn’t stop drinking, everything that went into my stomach was quickly pulled out and sent through my veins, my heart was pounding in my chest like that of a human. Pumping my thick blood through my body and sending new blood where it needed to go.
Memories were drowned by the thrumming of the thirst through my head, just flashes that I couldn’t parse.
My sense of self was heightened, I could feel the thirst working to heal me, feel it eating the burned skin and growing new healthy flesh. I could also feel something else, something both foreign and not, helping the thirst. It was as if the thirst had an accord with this thing, as it thought that it was part of it.
And then the sensations faded, and I continued to drink, not trusting myself to do anything else. Finally, after a long time I felt like I was finally coming back to myself.
“Uh,” I heard Aurora speak. “Mari? Are you good, we have a situation here.”
I still felt hungry, my body felt drained, but I pulled myself from the dead tortoise and turned my head.
Saia stood near me, her back to me as if she was standing guard. Jiyun was next to her and Aurora closer to me, with her back to the tortoise’s side.
Across from them stood three Suul, their long lance-like and spurred weapons held pointed straight at us.
“Faithless,” one of the three Suul, one with blue paint over his lower jaw and long neck spoke. “Your deaths will aid the cause of the Horde.”
My anger rose, and I stood up, my eyes glaring at three assholes that were about to be dead.