章節 13: Dangerous Game
Behind him lay a path of displaced leaves. Not any corpses though, those had already been discarded.
Stanis didn't know how long it had been since he had killed his first Goblin scout, but that scene no longer held any importance in his mind anyway. After all, he had already killed several Goblins after the first, and he had gotten drastically better at killing them. Afterwards, he would try and hide the child-sized bodies in a pile of leaves or any natural rubbish that lay there. And so no one would be able to find the corpses, or at least that was the aim.
Something that he noticed along his path of carnage was how much better he was now at fighting in contrast to how he been like in the trials. He firmly believed the reason for this being the fact that he wanted to kill now, he wanted to level up.
Stanis checked his status.
[Stanis Volkov
Age: 18 years
Mana capacity: 18 (regeneration is capacity/4 per hour)
Level 8 (Progress to the next level is 23%)
Strength: 18 [15]
Dexterity: 18 [15]
Constitution: 16[14 -> 15]
Intelligence: 12[11 ->12]
Wisdom: 12[10]
Tenacity: 16[14].
Skills: Layman's Rush]
He had levelled up after his sixth kill and had split his two points between strength and dexterity. It was fair to say that at this stage, even if Stanis didn't have the mentality or the strength of the humans at the top, he still wasn't far off now. This, of course, had less to do with him and more to do with the opportunities he had, but it still didn't take this achievement away from him.
He lightly trod through the multitude of rubbish across the Forest floor. He had also gotten better at sneaking around, especially when considering he was doing this in a Forest. The trick was to lean back and put all your weight on one foot as you placed the other forward. This way you would make as little noise as possible, albeit the humorous pose and the fact that you had quite a bit of your body exposed did take away from his technique.
But it had been working a trick for him so far against the poorly prepared Goblins. It was almost like they too were like the Humans, completely surprised at where they were and merely investigating their surrounding area without any structure or organisation in mind… Not that Stanis was complaining though, rather the opposite!
It was quite apparent to Stanis that there was a Goblin camp or headquarters somewhere near him. The amount of Goblin scouts he had confronted had only increased as he had come deeper into the Forest.
Swiftly, Stanis stopped his drifting thoughts. This area was different from the rest. He looked across it, trying to notice any differences, but couldn't find any other than the fact that the undergrowth was completely trodden on over here.
And then he took a deep breath in.
Ahh…
Of course this area was different, the foul smell of stale urine wafted through the air, with the further presence of a noxious aftertaste. Stanis then squinted his eyes as he looked at the trees closer, and noticed scribbly yellow lines across the trunks of the trees and around the roots… His stomach had enough as he began gagging into a bush next to him, unable to keep in any of today's food.
"AWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Shit. Stanis collapsed himself onto the ground, hiding behind a bush as he hoped the Wolf would just keep walking on. And it did, just that it was in his direction. The Wolf began sniffing the air as if was searching for something's scent, a certain something that had invaded its territory. It was finding it hard to re-find the scent, but it was in luck as it smelt something far more pungent than its urine near the bushes. Curious as to what it was, the Wolf began strolling towards the bush.
What was a gentle stroll for the Wolf, was more of a dominant march from Stanis's point of view. It then started sniffing across the nearby tree and undergrowth, attempting to find the source of the smell.
Stanis finally got a good look at the Wolf, only to realise it had quite a few differences from the other Wolves he had faced. It had long, unkempt strands of hairs all over its body, which in turn created a mat of rough fur. Its body was up to Stanis's chest if he stood up, and had fierce, angular teeth that stuck out as it sniffed the ground with its tongue out. He could see drool building up along the Wolf's tongue, before dripping off onto the ground, creating literal paths of dribble. It seemed the Wolf had caught onto the scent…
Stanis didn't fumble under the pressure and instead started grabbing at the ground with his hand. Eventually, he caught onto a rock that his hand could barely wrap around, before he then tensed his whole body.
The Wolf was now even more curious as to what this smell was. What it did know about it was that it was something that it hadn't ever smelled before, a new scent, and most likely the scent of new prey. And so it should have been ready to fight, but how was it to know that the prey it was chasing was a single metre in front of it?
The Wolf could smell the scent getting stronger as it put its leg into the bush, instantly tensing as it realised the two scents from before merged here. But its preparation was far too late: a fist-sized rock came hurling into its muzzle, causing the Wolf to shriek in pain before falling onto its side. However Stanis wasn't to be deceived, the Wolf was out of it for now but it would easily recover enough to put up a fight within seconds. Instead, the best course of action would be to run.
And so he did, grabbing both axe and shield he scampered towards the Camp. He shot past the countless trees that he had just sneaked past in the previous hours, giving care to the wind about noise as he did all he could just to move his legs faster.
Now in the distance, he could hear shouts from Goblin Scouts as a few started to chase his trial. More importantly, he could hear a heavy set of four feet constantly hitting the ground in chase of him, currently a distance away but the sound rising in volume every second. It was clear that the chase was now on.
Stanis jumped over felled, rotting logs and trod over sprouts as his adrenaline worked in full: cutting out everything in his mind, apart from the chasing footsteps and his own feet moving forward.
"AWOOOOO"
His adrenaline-induced state was interrupted within the next second as a loud howl filled the Forest. The Wolf had caught sight of him… He was scared…
And so Stanis ran faster, his legs working harder than they had ever before. He only wished he could have thrown his backpack onto the ground in order to move faster, but he knew the hassle of taking it off would slow him down, far too much to be worth it.
His yellow-tinted face was now going red; blood rushing to skin as his body began overheating. Not only was he doing a long sprint, he was also doing it whilst wearing a coat, an armour and a backpack. Sweat began dripping off his body, embedding themselves within his coat's fur strands, making his whole body hot and sticky. Stanis himself was unaware of all of this as he continued his sprint, unable to think as he forced his body to go even faster.
He was now fully utilising his eighteen points of dexterity: not only was he pacing through what had taken him hours before now in minutes, but he was also dodging trees and leaping bushes. And his frenzy was worth it as he reached the boundary of the Forest within minutes of starting. But it wasn't fast enough.
A few metres back leapt a large Wolf, intent on taking Stanis down. It caught him by his shoulders as it clawed him to the ground, before using its body weight to pin him down. In a mixture of shock and adrenaline, Stanis backhanded his shield across the Wolf's back. Due to it not having much force behind it, the shield failed to do damage but it did knock the Wolf off his back. However, the Wolf had already left its bloody imprints all over his marked back.
It then tried to leap back onto to him, but not before Stanis dived forward in order to dodge the attack.
"HEELPPP!"
He was only a few hundred metres away from camp, all he now had to do was stay alive until help arrived. But even that was faring to be a challenge as the Wolf constantly struck out at him, deeply intent on killing him and now drunk on its bloodlust at playing around with a new prey.
Stanis had no option but to dive his face into the ground every-time the Wolf struck, unable to bring any force into his arms as they burned with pain. But the pain in his arms was nothing compared to his weary legs, which were violently shaking at how fatigued they were.
It was as he once again freefell into the mud that the thought struck him. There was still no sight of anyone from the camp, and he heavily doubted he could stay alive for much longer at this stage. So he dashed across the ground, before rolling below the leaping Wolf, all in order to pick up his axe that he had long dropped.
<Activate Layman's Rush>
The feeling was indescribable. He had once tested it against Jayesh in the trials, but he had been perfectly fit as he had done so. Now he went from a state of tormenting pain into a euphoric state where he felt utterly powerful, able to do anything. He stood up, steam now billowing out of his nose as he once again faced the incoming Wolf.
The Wolf ferociously bolted off its two hind feet, causing it to shoot towards Stanis. Not that he cared though, instead he ran at the Wolf with the same vigour and bloodlust it ran at him with. Rather than dodging the Wolf, Stanis used his left arm to challenge its charge. His brain would have lost all sense of the limb in normal conditions, but this wasn't normal conditions. Instead he used his arm to throw the Wolf onto the ground, simultaneously creating cracking sounds all down his arm.
The Wolf was utterly dazed as the contest of strength went the opposite direction to what it had expected, but it knew it had to get up and so it forced strength back into its legs. Or was about to, before an axe pierced through its nose, throwing all hell to its senses. The delirious Wolf now found it hard to control its body as it went into a frenzy, or was about to once again. But another swift axe strike to its lower jaw effectively caused it to lose all hope.
Stanis found the axe so painfully discomforting. He needed to feel it with his own hands, with his own flesh. So he threw the axe to the ground, before pummelling down onto the Wolf's head with a bloody fist and a broken arm that flung around it the air. Despite only have two seconds left of his skill, he managed to strike down so many punches that the Wolf's very face began to cave in due to the force.
Time flies when you're having fun, and it moves especially fast when you're euphoric. The few seconds felt like a single moment to Stanis, before he too collapsed onto the beyond-dead body.
Around him were a few people, utterly shocked at what they had just seen. They had come running after hearing the cry for help, only to see a man brutally cave in the head of a massive Wolf, larger than any Wolf species on past-Earth.
To the opposite side of the people from the camp were the Dead 4, who had been scouting, before sprinting here. They had been split apart in the Forest but had all been attracted to loud sounds that had followed Stanis's sprint. Only after killing all the trailing Goblin scouts had they reached this scene, to see the same thing the others had seen.
It was fair to say that his name would spread like wildfire within the Camp throughout the following hours. It was also fair to say in foresight, that this would be one of the least crazy things Stanis Volkov would do in his life.
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