The lingering tension from the Boar kill was immediately replaced by a frantic scramble for survival. Lia, still glistening with the black, hot gore of the Mutated Fauna, didn't allow a single moment for relief or thanks.
"We have thirty minutes before the scent of that carcass draws something from the deeper zones," Lia commanded, her voice raw with urgency. "Jor, get the thickest cuts. Bor, Kai, Mara—cover me. We pack the essentials and run and Kyle… you proved you have a brain. Keep it working and keep monitoring the shadows."
Jor, clutching his tusk-gashed shoulder, nodded grimly. He looked at Kyle, his eyes wide with a humbled respect foreign to a Low Beginner warrior like him.
"I'll take the weight, Kyle. Just tell me where to cut."
The next ten minutes were a sickening blur of frantic butchery. Kyle, despite his churning stomach, helped in slicing the dense, massive chunks of meat and loading them into the carrier slings. The sheer physical effort taxed his G+ Strength to its limit, but the knowledge that true monsters were coming kept his focus locked.
He looked at his balance and sighed. " It's still not enough for a good new combat technique"
[ Dickies in Stock: 44.]
So, he had no immediate resources to buy for his safety. His only armor was his good intellect and the goodwill of the powerful woman he'd just saved.
.....
Kyle and the team pushed forward for another grueling hour, plunging deeper into the unforgiving darkness of the forest. The Low Beginner hunters were quickly fading under the immense weight and the adrenaline crash.
And Team leader Lia, driven by pure Mid-Beginner resolve, was maintaining a continuous punishing pace with her small frame. A silhouette of relentless power.
Kyle felt his endurance giving out. His legs were heavy now, his lungs burned, and the massive weight of the carrier sling was a crushing burden on his spine. He was forcing his body to ignore the exhaustion, pushing past the boundaries of his meager stats by sheer will, just to keep sight of Lia's retreating back.
They stopped at a narrow ravine, a jagged cut in the earth choked with ancient roots and deep shadow.
"Stop!" Lia gasped, slamming her hand against the stone wall. She was shaking slightly, even pushing past her body limits. "We keep the meat here and we rest for two hours to recover as much as possible."
They dropped the massive, blood-soaked slings and started resting.
Nearly 20 minutes had passed by and the team had recovered a bit but then…
Suddenly, the atmosphere of the forest around them changed.
The subtle, living hum of the jungle vanished, replaced by a cold, heavy silence.
Mara, the archer, immediately dropped into a firing stance, her face white with terror and urgency. "Commander! The air… it's dead!... I think we might have been followed by a " Stalker", and… it's close!"
"It might have smelled the Boar's blood," Lia hissed, her obsidian blade flashing into a defensive position. She didn't have to look; she could feel the wave of powerful, hostile magic settling over the ravine.
"Everyone, defensive positions! Bor, Kai—protect the rear! Jor, stay low!"
And then a few meters above…
A black, fluid shadow detached itself from the canopy above them.
It didn't drop; it flowed, hitting the ravine floor with devastating, impossible silence. It was a terrifying, sleek, six-limbed canine form, its coat the color of pitch, its eyes glowing with a malicious, concentrated red light.
The air around it felt intensely cold.
Status: Peak Beginner Rank.
Lia's face went rigid with terror. "Fuck!! Peak Beginner!"
The Stalker ignored the scattering of Low Beginner hunters and focused instantly on the only source of resistance around— "Lia" , the Mid-Beginner.
It launched itself forward towards her in a silent, explosive arc of muscle and magic.
Lia met the attack head on, her Mid-Beginner mana core flaring violently, enveloping her small figure in a sickly yellow-green defensive aura.
CRACK! SSSHHH!
The Stalker's clawed foreleg slammed into Lia's block.
The force…. Was devastating, far exceeding the strength of her rank. The Mid-Beginner aura shrieked, shattering into magical fragments and Lia was slammed back, hitting the ravine wall with a violent thud. She gasped, blood instantly staining her ribs where the force had breached her armor.
"Run! Run now!" Lia screamed, her voice hoarse with pain, struggling to rise.
But the Stalker was relentless. It didn't allow her to recover. It moved with blinding, magical speed, slashing out with its second foreleg.
Lia tried to dodge, but the speed was too great. The razor-sharp claw tore a massive, gaping wound across her thigh.
Lia's scream was raw, guttural, and pure agony, a sound of utter defeat.
Blood!—human blood, bright and vital—gushed from the wound, mixing with the black Boar gore on the ground. She collapsed to her knees, her defense broken.
The Stalker, sensing the kill, lunged. Its massive, obsidian-tipped jaws aimed for the vulnerable back of her neck, ignoring the futile weapons of the terrified Low Beginner hunters. Lia was pinned, her spine seconds from being severed.
The other hunters were frozen in place, their Low Beginner instincts completely paralyzed by the Peak Beginner terror.
Kyle, plastered against the stone, felt the raw, paralyzing fear of his own Mid-Novice rank. But the sight of Lia—the prideful, ruthless team commander—being butchered so easily…. broke through his survival instinct.
'I have no choice. I have to gamble.'
Kyle shoved his body off the stone. He pushed his G+ Agility past its breaking point, ignoring the exhaustion and pain. He sprinted toward the Stalker, a suicidal blur of flesh.
He didn't aim for the head or the body. He aimed for disruption.
As the Stalker's jaws clamped down on Lia's neck armor, Kyle threw his entire, meager Mid-Novice weight against the creature's lower flank, slamming into the base of its exposed tail.
It was a primitive, instinctual, and utterly reckless move.
The Stalker's body was ripped off-balance, its jaws tearing free of Lia's neck with a sickening, wet R-R-R-IP of armor and tissue.
The Peak Beginner monster shrieked in furious, concentrated malice, instantly abandoning the crippled Lia.
Its glowing red eyes locked onto the insolent, bloody Mid-Novice who had dared to touch it.
The Stalker lunged at Kyle. This was not a fight; it was an expression of power.
The Stalker's massive, clawed foreleg struck his shoulders and the blow tore through Kyle's meager defense instantly. He felt the sickening, crushing impact across his right shoulder and chest—bone, muscle, and skin exploding in pain.
Kyle was lifted clean off the ground and smashed against the jagged stone of the ravine wall with a terrifying, wet CRACK! A blinding, arterial fountain of blood erupted from the deep, jagged wound. He collapsed, his vision dissolving into a crimson haze, his right side utterly ruined.
But the disruption worked.
Lia, free of the paralyzing grip and fueled by a terrifying cocktail of pain and desperate rage, saw Kyle's agonizing sacrifice. The sight of the 'Softblade,' broken and bleeding to death on the cold stone he'd saved her on, ripped her control to shreds.
"DIE!... You shadow-ass bloodlicking perverted monster!!" Lia shrieked, her voice a raw, animal sound of pure vengeance.
Her Mid-Beginner core, fueled by shock and fury, exploded with the maximum force she could produce. She ignored the blood pumping out from her leg and threw herself at the Stalker.
She drove her obsidian blade with lethal, focused accuracy, not at the body, but straight into the Stalker's glowing, malevolent eye—the visible source of its Peak Beginner magical power.
The blade plunged Deep!.
And… the effect was instantaneous and horrific. The Stalker's eye exploded in a burst of black ichor and magical energy. The creature shrieked, convulsed wildly, and collapsed into a silent heap of smoke leaving behind his Black monster crystal and a dried sucked up skin.
Lia staggered, her body swaying, her own blood mixing with the Stalker's ichor and the Boar's gore. But she ignored the dead Stalker and the stunned, paralyzed hunters and she stumbled directly towards Kyle, who was fading fast into the blood-soaked stone.
She dropped to her knees in the dirt, her small hands frantically tearing strips from her remaining tunic. Tears, hot and visceral, streamed down her cheeks, washing clean tracks through the gore.
"You idiot! You absolute, reckless idiot!" Lia said with urgency and as a reprimand, utterly stripped of command. "You're just a carrier! You're not supposed to do that! WHY?!"
Kyle forced his eyes open, the pain a distant roar. He struggled to breathe, tasting his own blood.
He managed a ragged whisper, his eyes focused on her furious, shattered face.
"I told you… Commander," he rasped, his voice fading to a thread. "I won't let you down"
Lia didn't answer.
She was busy saving his life and closing the blood flow, her cold warrior persona annihilated by the magnitude of his sacrifice.
The silence of the forest was heavy, and the consequences of their hunt had just begun.