Ren held his breath as the beast passed nearby, its senses completely focused on its domination ritual.
The mushrooms sent him a warning sensation, something wasn’t right. The male stopped, its head turning slightly.
A scent had penetrated the skin barrier.
‘The captured female,’ the knowledge flowed urgently.
The knot wasn’t perfect, a tiny opening, barely visible to the naked eye, allowing the dead creature’s essence to escape…
The male turned completely, all its senses now focused on the anomaly.
It began moving toward Ren, each centimeter of its advance increasing the tension with growing menace.
‘The broken flare,’ Ren remembered his last possibility, fingers brushing against the device in his pocket. It wasn’t just a signal, the crystal inside was designed to emit a pulse that the professor could detect from a significant distance.
If he could alter the pulse’s specific frequency and release it instantly through the opening… His mind raced through the calculations, each second precious as the male drew closer.
Ren moved his hands and mana flow frantically, trying to modify the crystal’s resonance before it was too late.
The male approached with inexorable purpose.
He wouldn’t make it in time…
The beast was so close that Ren could see energy patterns swirling in its eyes, the hungry glow of a predator that had detected something amiss in its new territory.
When the male was almost upon him, Ren broke the flare.
The crystal shattered, releasing a concentrated energy explosion.
The male recoiled, momentarily blinded, and more importantly, the crystal’s resonance traveled through the tunnels with a piercing sound that carried far beyond the cave’s confines.
Ren didn’t wait to see the beast’s complete reaction. He launched himself toward the exit, every muscle straining with desperate energy.
The mushrooms in his hair pulsed frantically as he ran, warning that the male would recover in seconds. Their glow dimmed to almost nothing, trying to minimize his presence.
Ren ran, still covered by the skins. The male roared and moments later began the pursuit, its fury overwhelming its interest in the females. The sound of its rage echoed through the tunnel system, promising terrible retribution.
The roars made the cave walls vibrate with their intensity. The Shadow Stalker’s fury was palpable, its new territory violated, its ritual interrupted. The sound of its pursuit resonated ever closer, each echo a reminder of approaching doom.
‘Too fast,’ Ren thought while zigzagging between rock formations. The knowledge showed him the terrible truth, males could move at incredible speeds when provoked.
Another roar, closer still.
Ren could feel the air pressure changing as the male drained mana around it, creating vacuum zones meant to slow its prey.
Fortunately, his skin covering provided some protection, and slightly confused the male’s precise detection abilities.
The cave exit appeared ahead, daylight beckoning like a beacon of hope.
The male’s claws scratched against rock, each impact closer than the last, the sound a countdown to capture.
‘Just a little more,’ the mushrooms pulsed with renewed urgency. The flare’s resonance was still traveling, and somewhere out there…
But time had run out. When he was about to be caught…
A new roar answered the first, making it pause for a crucial instant that saved Ren.
This one came from outside the cave, carrying a different fury, the territorial rage of the original male detecting an invader.
Ren’s plan with the flare had worked just in time…
He threw himself to the ground as he reached the entrance, rolling into the black skins like a cocoon. Time seemed to slow as the two males met in what promised to be an epic confrontation.
The invader emerged from the cave like a nightmare of power, its body glowing with stolen crystal energy.
The original guardian landed before it, its own power obtained from the enormous Bark Stalker manifesting in visible waves of mana that distorted the air between them.
For a moment, both beasts evaluated each other. The tension in the air was so dense that Ren could feel it even through the skins covering him, each pulse of energy making the very ground tremble.
And then, all hell broke loose.
♢♢♢♢
Ren crawled away from the males’ confrontation.
Their roars and energy waves transformed the air itself into a battlefield, each clash sending ripples of power through the surrounding area.
When he considered himself far enough away, he stood and began running.
But not toward the camp.
Despite everything, Ren hadn’t had enough for today.
Especially because the Bark Stalker he’d used as bait had to be somewhere along the route he’d directed it.
‘The male chased it east,’ the knowledge flowed while Ren studied the terrain, looking for signs of the massive creature’s passage.
After several moments of methodical searching, he found it. The Bark Stalker’s body lay like an artificial hill, its camouflage failing in death. It’s body was completely dry.
The male had drained much of its vital essence after death, but Ren’s interruption had prevented it from finishing the process. Otherwise, instead of the thin, desiccated creature he now saw, only a shell and dust would have remained.
The mushrooms pulsed while Ren examined the corpse.
This was perfect, with the draining interrupted…
The core should be intact.
With precise movements, he extracted his knife and grabbed a stone to use as a hammer.
‘The exact point,’ the knowledge showed him where to strike. The Bark Stalker’s dry skin, though hard, had become brittle after losing its mana.
A well-placed blow…
The crack of the rupture resonated like a gunshot in the silence. Ren worked quickly, widening the gap until he could extract the crystallized core.
He stored it in one of the skins with some powder from the desiccated monster, which should still contain considerable vitality.
‘And this,’ he thought while studying the carapace, ‘is an unexpected bonus.’
The finest mosses and herbs still clung to the beast’s shell. Carefully, he began removing them and storing them between the Shadow Stalker skins.
While working, his mind was already crafting possible explanations for his triumphant return. A story about a hollow tree full of skins discarded by Weavers would be hard to believe, the skins were too well preserved, too perfect.
‘And when I add the core of an almost mature Bark Stalker, plus these exceptional quality herbs…’
The mushrooms pulsed revealing his concern. Professor Zhao wouldn’t be easy to fool.
‘I need a better story,’ he thought while storing the last specimens. ‘Something that explains all this without revealing I ventured beyond the limits.’