Olkan rose in a smooth, flowing motion, slapping the canteen out of the air and lifting his spear to block Axl's attack. The sound of metal on metal rang across the unyielding trees, a flurry of Mana erupting from the sword's edge. Axl had not managed to fully adapt his skill to using it on a blade, still more used to using it with his rifle, but it still provided an extra burst of speed and weight to the weapon.
Olkan was pushed back, even stumbling slightly. Axl followed to capitalize, but the elf's spear was in front of his body, and if he blindly charged, Axl would only impale himself. He instead swiped down to deflect the spear, but Olkan simply moved it out of the way, taking another step back.
"What is that? Using a meditation skill to attack?" Olkan sounded curious, but beneath the casual tone, Axl sensed a glimmer of fear.
Axl pressed on, knocking the spear out of the way as he tried to get closer, but Olkan was like a pool of mercury, effortlessly flowing away at every disturbance, while Axl stumbled forward blindly. It wasn't even a matter of sheer Attributes, the elf seeming not to have much higher ones than him, but his every movement was more efficient and controlled, putting the elf exactly where he should be.
Axl slid on the edge of a leaf, and Olkan struck, stabbing at the side of his gut. He managed to step aside to avoid most of the attack, but he still got a deep cut on his left flank.
"Truly a shame, if a tenth of my students had this ferocity, I'd be running a full sect by now."
Capitalizing on the pause, Axl focused more fully on [Mana Shroud], the Mana in the air dipping considerably as more and more of it charged into his blade. Olkan grunted and held up his spear.
Axl poured his every shred of force and will into a heavy downward strike, his arms numb from the exertion. One of the giant leaves on the ground rose up, enveloping Olkan and blocking the strike. Axl's sword tore into the fleshy plant, but stopped halfway in, before it could reach his target.
Realizing the trap, he stepped back, dragging the sword out just as Olkan's spear tore through the leaf, cutting into Axl's shoulder. His first wound was still freely bleeding, and this one was even deeper.
>>Terrania offers choice of offensive skill. Accept? Yes/No
Axl grit his teeth, realizing that Terrania had been offering him these options as he needed them, not according to some predetermined plan. This meant no guarantees that there'd be enough time to establish the Nexus if he kept taking all these upgrades. He imagined each one of these costing siege weaponries that could be built, hidden forts to set up long-term resistance, or even launching other infiltrators such as himself. Each investment ultimately counted in countless human lives.
No, it was time for him to stop relying on the limited resources of Sol, and to fight on his own.
He dismissed the prompt and lifted his sword, using [Mana Shroud] to simply look at his opponent. The shield of leaves dropped, the elf in a neutral stance, slowly stepping forward. His enemy looked confident, but there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his only arm was shaking slightly.
It couldn't be easy to use that heavy weapon with only one arm, not to mention that he was also likely not as fully rested, having not only escaped from the city, but dragged Axl’s unconscious body with him. The Mana swirling in Olkan's body confirmed this, feeling strained and turbid. More orderly and brighter than the simple mass inside the crabs, of course, and a flowing system across his body versus just a jumbled mass, but even to Axl's untrained [Mana Shroud], he could see it was slowly faltering, some of it constantly oozing from the stump of his missing arm.
So Axl stepped forward to meet Olkan's strike with his own, pushing forward, each movement now focused on deflecting the spear as much as possible. To tire that one remaining arm. He focused [Mana Shroud] more and more onto the blade, getting used to making it faster or having it hit harder, compensating for his many mistakes and missteps with these bursts of empowerment.
As the clashes intensified, Axl managed to force an opening, Olkan's spear widely veered off, and again a defensive leaf rose from the ground to protect him. But the Skill clearly took a lot from him, the elf not attacking this time, instead stepping back and taking deep, ragged breaths. Any sense of levity was gone from Olkan, his gaze steady and focused, Axl realizing the battle was now in his favor. But it was still a race, with Axl's wounds burning with each motion, his focus starting to waver from the blood loss.
Suddenly, Olkan was gone. Axl turned, head swinging to see where he had gone. Another Skill, perhaps? Then he saw a face of true horror and nearly dropped his sword in shock.
Behind him, a massive black wolf's head held Olkan's body in its jaws, his neck twisted unnaturally. The wolf head floated two meters up in the air, its face a wide snarl of vicious teeth that exuded a primal, unchecked violence.
The creature growled softly, the sound reverberating in Axl's chest, pushing him down, and he stumbled back against the base of a nearby tree. Dazed by the back of his head hitting the immovable wood, he could only gaze out as dozens of grey wolves and what looked like werewolves streamed out between the trees, all yipping and barking at him.
Then a massive wolf over five meters tall stepped out, the pack quieting, their heads lowered in deference. Shifting to the Mana sensing feature of [Mana Shroud], the wolf seemed like a glowing sun of Mana, almost burning his mind as he looked into it, the construct of [Mind-Soul Bulwark] shuddering in his chest. He had to look aside, and before he deactivated the Skill, noticed the normal-sized wolves and werewolves nearby weren't nearly as powerful, most barely with as much Mana as Olkan. The floating wolf head joined the massive grey wolf's side, its Mana oddly invisible to [Mana Shroud], as if it were simply not there.
The line of wolves and werewolves stared hungrily at Axl, poised to strike. A single second ticked by, then another. Slowly, Axl pushed up from the tree and regained his balance, wondering why he was still alive. The massive wolf slowly lifted a grey paw at him, the movement subtle, but somehow full of meaning.
>> New Title obtained (Predatorial Conclave): Marked Prey
>> Detectable by all following the Path of the Hunter (grade-limited)
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
>> Survive 30 days for Elusive Prey achievement, at the cost of the lead hunter.
That confirmed it, it seemed like the wolf pack was going to give him a head start before going in for the kill. Moving quickly, Axl sheathed his sword and hastily took back his backpack, stuffing the water canteen inside. He kept an eye on the eerily still line of monsters barely ten meters away, and flinched when he saw Olkan throw something at his feet.
It was a belt with a small pouch attached to it. Axl's eyes widened, realizing what this was with a gasp at Roken's burst of recognition. He took it and rapidly tied it around his own waist, above his previously looted belt. He then looked up at Olkan again. The elf was choking on his own blood, still hanging limp from the frothing jaws of the floating wolf's head. Slowly, he lifted his hand into an upturned palm, and Axl returned a quick bow.
"Thank you for the lessons, Captain."
Olkan's body exploded in a flash of uncontrolled Mana that threw Axl back to the ground. The blast rattled his very bones and further opened his wounds, but he quickly got back up, needing to use the bamboo tree behind him for support.
His stomach dropped when he realized the effect of Olkan's final attack on the wolves wasn't quite as dramatic as he would've hoped. The black wolf's head screeched in pain as it flailed on the ground, but it seemed angrier than hurt, and only half a dozen nearby wolves were blown to pieces, the rest quickly getting up from being thrown back. Most shockingly, the massive grey wolf was entirely untouched by the blast that went off right next to it, and continued staring evenly at Axl as if nothing had happened.
Go on, little prey. Give my children a good hunt.
Axl turned and started running into the forest, the words shoved into his brain snapping him awake. After he shook off the surprise at being telepathically talked to by a large dog, it was actually a relief, since it meant the big guy and the severed head wouldn't join in.
>>Terrania offers choice of movement Skill. Accept? Yes/No
Axl considered the prompt, but didn't accept it just yet. He first wanted to see what his odds looked like when this chase really began in earnest, possibly sparing Terrania the juice. After all, he likely didn't need it in the fight against Olkan, even if it was close, and either way, this pack would likely have come across him even if he finished the fight with an offensive skill, which wouldn't help him in his current situation anyway.
This all made it unfortunately clear that Terrania wasn't keeping track of everything happening around him, and most likely simply reacted when some threat popped up, perhaps with even less intel than he had. The idea felt disheartening, that the neuromorphic leader of humanity would have to stumble around so blindly. And that he would somehow have to compensate for that.
A few seconds running became a minute, and Axl dared to look back, but all he could see was the endless array of massive bamboo trees. So he kept at it, slowing down slightly to be able to maintain the speed for longer. He even brushed his hand against Olkan's parting gift—a dimensional pouch. This was what most visibly separated a well-off cultivator from a seedling, the cultivator never seeming to carry anything on their backs or hands, never encumbered by the petty weights of lesser toil. They had these nifty things.
The pouch looked like a neat little rectangle, the delicately designed clasp across its top edge clearly decorative. Likely, a veritable treasure trove was within, the full wealth of a Captain of Piril. But Axl didn't want to waste time picking through it just yet, at least in part because he didn't know how.
A flurry of howls interrupted Axl's distraction, announcing the wolves had started. He still frowned at the absurdity of the situation, that these impossibly powerful creatures were doing something so arbitrary. It reminded him of how the Vikam fought, with all their carelessness and pageantry.
Axl redoubled his running, not wanting to give those wolves the satisfaction of winning their little game, if nothing else. Strange, how the power of sheer spite was greater than the instinct for self-preservation, and suddenly Axl couldn't help but appreciate how Olkan chose to die.
The trees sped by, Axl feeling the sheer unencumbered power of his stride. He'd never before felt so freed, even as the raucous mess of the wolves slowly seemed to gain on him. He'd always needed to struggle within the confines of a suit and rig, and later the battle-shell, like carrying an entire world on his back. Now, the air pushed against his face, his body turning lightly as he ran, oddly in synch with itself, coordinated with his mind and thoughts. There was no confusion in processing the rapidly changing view, no delay in reacting to a slightly misplaced leaf's edge or quick turn.
This was certainly not how he felt before gaining his class, the high Agility he gained caused his sight to blur if he moved too quickly, the weight of his attacks ever so slightly hollow when he hit. Was this the true benefit of the Balanced Path? Having your Attributes this fully concordant?
A sharp bark just behind him shook Axl from his distracted contemplation. Maybe he'd be able to fight off one or two, but certainly not the dozens charging after him. Those wolves didn't have such finely tuned bodies, but it wouldn't matter if they caught up to him, turning him into a finely concordant pile of meat.
So he pushed his body further, straining it to run faster and faster, activating [Mana Shroud] to push ambient Mana into his legs for extra speed. He knew this was a failing strategy, that he could only keep this up for so long before his internal Mana stores ran out and he had to deactivate the Skill.
Still, he put some distance between himself and the wolves. He settled on a new pace, one slightly beyond what his body naturally wanted to hold onto, his Skill pushing it further. Minutes turned to an hour, then two. Slowly, his even breath started to grow deeper as he strained onwards, his two wounds burning, even if they'd long stopped bleeding.
Axl then felt his [Mana Shroud] push against a thin tendril against the air, its Mana feeling entirely different than anything he felt before, oddly pliable before it broke. Not thinking much of it, he continued, then soon felt another. This time, he noticed they were slender lines hanging between the trees, and knowing what to look for, saw them stretch into the forest, their density slightly increasing off to the side.
Looking up, he saw them form strange repeating shapes above, and in one, far above, almost at the limit of his sight, Axl saw a creature barely a meter long at its center. He finally recognized it, a spider, a pre-Arival creature he'd seen in vids before, except this was much larger. It also had ten legs instead of eight, and only one body segment, looking like a small ball of fluff from a distance.
After a moment of hesitation, he decided to charge into where the spider web density increased, switching [Mana Shroud]'s focus from empowering his body to keeping track of the webbing around him. The howling and barking behind him started to catch up again, but he could detect the webs easily now, breaking through the ones he saw, since they were clearly leftover, abandoned webs, without spiders anywhere nearby.
Quickly, though, he saw a web that extended from a dozen feet in the air to barely his waist, a spider to the side at the base of a bamboo tree, cocooned in a small enclosure of webbing and leaf. He could see the webbing's glowing Mana and the enclosure, but the webbing was otherwise barely visible, even the enclosure looked a lot like just normal fallen foliage.
Smiling, Axl smoothly slid beneath the web, avoiding it entirely. Those wolves behind him would unlikely have Perception high enough to see the strands, since even his at 13 couldn't really see them. Only the ones that specialized in the Attribute would perhaps catch it, or if some had a Skill similar to his.
Even if some wolves fell into this trap, however, it wouldn't be enough. Even at a glance with [Mana Shroud], he could tell that the spider had less Mana than Olkan, so perhaps it was at the middle of G grade, if the dead elf was in the late levels of G, like he claimed.
So Axl kept running, and soon saw another web, this one extending from the ground, so he had to stop and go around it, then crawl on his belly beneath another. He continued like this, his previous speed greatly reduced, but a small smile creeping on his face, since the barks and howls at his heels seemed to be unimpeded, charging at him in a straight line.
After the tenth bunch of webbing he narrowly avoided, the pack's clamor changed, joined by high-pitched yips and muffled snarls.
Axl couldn't help but smile as he jumped over a pack of webbing across the ground, the spider below a thin layer of leaves held up over a pit-trap nearly three meters deep.
"Gotcha, you slitting bunch of dogs."