Chapter 16 - A new foe
An eerie silence tarnished the usually oh so lively forest. It almost seemed as if all life shied away from the nimbly moving humanoid figure, that made its way through the forest. Wherever it went, beasts began to crawl back into their dwellings, or even flee from the area entirely. Cantorn had to snicker a little. Even though he was as weak as he was, most beasts tried to evade him. [Giant Slayer] really came into handy right now. Due to his recently acquired title, and the thereby received aura, he had a lot easier time moving around in the forest unbothered.
While that was usually a big help, and he'd really undervalued the aura before, right now he'd sadly have to retract it. The only reason for that was, that he had gotten something better. Like, way better. As soon as he focused on not emitting the fear-inducing aura anymore, the sounds of the forest slowly came back to their lively self. Only Cantorn now began to emit a lot less noise. With his new, powerful pair of daggers in his hands, he began to prowl the undergrowth.
Since he now had some fine gear, the dark elf had decided to broaden his diet. Avankhs were pretty nice, to begin with, but it was time to change things up a little. When he thought back to the day of his arrival, he always got reminded of the large beasts he saw around the lake before. While some were only as large as the Alpha Avankh, albeit being quite a bit weaker, there were also ones that easily towered over him. His goal today was to hunt one of those larger ones. While he wasn't really sure if attacking a beast taller than him would be all too smart, he'd at least try to best a foe as tall as him.
The way to the lake feeling shorter than ever before, Cantorn finally arrived at the familiar scenery of the small waterfall. As per usual, beasts were crowding the place, some because they sought protection among their own kind and some that were more similar to the young dark elf. Predators, that gathered here to refresh themselves or to scout for future prey. He himself obviously was doing the latter. While he didn't plan on fighting directly at the lake, he was still planning to pick his opponent right here. He'd then either follow his foe until he was alone or try to enrage them, thereby manipulating them into chasing him while hopefully not noticing that he was leading them to their own demise.
Very much focusing on the more docile looking beasts, Cantorn searched around for a proper opponent. The reason why he didn't search for the typical large, but more nimble and bloodthirsty monsters was quite easy: He had enough of sharp claws and teeth, like those that the Avankhs had. While getting slammed into a tree by some heavy beast sounded quite nasty as well, he'd much prefer that over having slashes all over his body. The dark elf also believed to have an advantage in the agility and speed department against almost all similarily-levelled beasts, so he found that capitalizing on this while picking an opponent would be a smart move.
In the end, he decided to go with a big, hairy herbivore. The beast had long, brown-black hair, a surprisingly imposing-looking hunchback and strong muscular legs. Parts of its upper body were covered by a bone-like substance, seemingly the same material that formed a large, squared jaw as well. Cantorn's guess was, that it would mainly use his head to defend itself, meaning that he'd have to watch out for that.
What followed now was probably the most boring part of the hunt. Focusing his all to be as stealthy as possible, the dark elf slowly got close to the beast. Sadly he wasn't able to identify what exactly it was and neither could he be sure about its level, mainly due to his lack of levels in 'Identify', but a rough estimation, based on the way it behaved, led him to believe that it was still below level 15. As soon as Cantorn reached his prey, he began to patiently wait. He was still far too close to the lake and the beast wasn't exactly alone either. While it didn't seem to be part of a drove, in particular, it still mingled with others of its kind. Due to that fact, he also wasn't eager to provoke it. If he was lucky the beast might follow him, but in case it went wrong, he might just pull the wrath of all other beasts.
Around an hour later the beast began moving. It slowly trudged into the forest, leaving deep footprints in the soft soil. Cantorn followed behind closely, never letting the beast leave his view. While doing so, he noticed that regardless of the beast's large frame, it still moved surprisingly fast. Now proceeding with a little more caution, he kept trailing his prey. Just a few minutes later, the beast seemed to have reached its destination. The view of a small cave-like hole in the ground revealed itself. As the large herbivore made its way towards what seemed to be its dwelling, Cantorn decided that now was the time to act.
Daggers drawn, he rushed towards the beast. He immediately activated 'Infused Dash', wanting to not even give his enemy the chance to retaliate. Yet, in the last possible moment, it swung its head around, narrowly blocking his strike. A loud bang resulted from the impact, thereby marking the beginning of one of the most interesting fights, that the forest's inhabitants would ever see.
First. Thanks for the chapter.