Chương 63: First Hunt Under the Sky

Morning found Zayn before sleep did. There was no brutal awakening. No scream. No stolen voice. No filament in a wall. Only the cold seeping beneath the slab, the stone against his back, and a gray light slowly creeping over his dirty boots. Zayn opened his eyes. For one second, he did not understand why the ceiling was so far away. Then he remembered. The sky. He was outside. Relief did not come. Instead, his body presented him with a detailed report of its failures. Ankle: bad. Thigh: worse. Side: reopened.

Fingers: painful. Throat: dry. Stomach: unstable. Tongue: marked. He stayed still, one hand on the short blade, and listened. Wind. Dry branches. A bird somewhere. No nearby human footsteps. No tracking hound either. Good. He slipped out of his shelter with the grace of a corpse that had received bad administrative news, then straightened himself against the slanted slab. The landscape still felt too large.

The hills stretched westward in gray layers, cut by ravines, secondary roads, thin woods, and distant watchposts. To the east, the land slowly darkened until it lost every human promise. Beyond that, the demonic continent truly began. Zayn did not need a map to understand one thing. He had come out on the wrong side of the world. To reach the beastmen, it would not be enough to walk west.

He would have to go around the human kingdom, avoid the fortresses, slip between patrols, survive the ravaged lands, then find some way to reach the great border river. It was absurd. But the east was worse. And going back was no longer going back. He took out the waterskin. Almost empty. He drank just enough to wet his mouth. Then he put the rest away with almost religious care. The black ration was still there. The wrapped pieces too. He did not touch them. Not yet.

His stomach tightened anyway, as if it had noticed the thought and wanted to join the discussion.

"No," Zayn murmured. The word was not addressed to anyone. That was perhaps why it sounded weaker. He started walking. Not along the ridge. Too visible. Not at the bottom of the ravine. Too easy to track. He chose a middle line, beneath the high rocks, where dry bushes broke up his silhouette without forcing him to crawl. Every ten steps or so, he stopped to listen. Every time the wind shifted, he changed his angle. The patrol from the day before did not appear. But that did not mean they had given up.

Humans liked reports too much to give up while there was still an empty column to fill. After an hour, maybe two, he found tracks. Not human. A broad print in the dust, marked with four short claws. Then another. Farther on, a turned stone. A tuft of black fur caught on a branch. Zayn crouched. A medium predator A tuft of black fur caught on a branch. Zayn. Not the tracking hound. Something else. He followed the tracks for a few meters, then stopped. Bad reflex. He was not supposed to follow tracks like a hunter.

He was supposed to ask why a beast would pass there. He stepped back, studying the terrain, the slope, the wind. The tracks did not go down toward water. They curved around it. The beast had been following something. Or someone. Zayn slowly turned his head. On a high stone behind him, about thirty meters away, a value appeared. 19 The creature was there. Still. Watching him. At first, Zayn only saw the shape: low, long, filthy black fur, high shoulders, narrow skull, muzzle too long. Not a wolf. Not a dog.

A border scavenger, fed on the carrion of contaminated zones and the careless enough to look like a promise. A ravine scavenger. The thing did not charge. Good news. It was cautious. Bad news. It was cautious. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Zayn rose slowly, without turning his back on it.

"You waiting for me to fall?" The beast blinked. No dramatic instinct. Very well. It was more professional than a great many humans. Zayn kept walking. The scavenger followed. Not too close. Never far enough. For nearly an hour, the beast stayed behind him, shifting position with the wind, disappearing behind rocks, reappearing on low ridges. Zayn understood quickly. It would not attack as long as he stayed on his feet. It was waiting for exhaustion. Excellent plan. Irritating, but excellent.

His leg began to tremble before noon. The terrain became drier, more open. The outline of an old military road could be seen below, broken by weeds and fallen stones. Zayn avoided it. A road, even dead, remained a line humans watched out of habit or superstition. Instead, he looked for a place where the beast's patience could be turned into a mistake. He found a narrow stone channel between two collapsed blocks. Tight enough to limit movement. Not so tight that it would trap him too.

The ground was covered in loose gravel. He entered it on purpose. Then he fell. Not entirely. He let his knee buckle, collapsed against the wall, and let out a breath of pain so real it did not need acting. The beast stopped at the top of the passage. Zayn stayed motionless. One breath. Two. Three. The 19 came down slowly. The creature still did not pounce. Intelligent. Too intelligent. It circled, perhaps searching for another entrance. Zayn clenched his teeth.

Then he took a tiny piece of wrapped flesh from his satchel. The smell rose at once. Sour. Heavy. Demonic. His own stomach tightened. The beast, however, froze. Then it moved. Not toward Zayn. Toward the smell. He threw the piece into the middle of the stone channel. The scavenger hesitated. For one second. Hunger won. It came down. Zayn waited until it lowered its head. Then he pulled the cord he had tied between two stones during his staged collapse. The trap was not elegant. Not even sturdy.

The cord did not snare the beast the way it would in a hunter's tale told by a man who lied well. It only knocked one leg out from under it. The scavenger went down, struck the gravel, rolled, and almost got back up at once. But almost was enough. Zayn was already on it. He activated Flesh Assimilation on his left forearm. The mark on his tongue burned. A dark plate formed on the skin, incomplete, trembling. At the same moment, the scavenger bit down. Its fangs struck the plate instead of his flesh.

The protection held for one second. Then it cracked. The bite still got through, shallower, but enough to tear a cry out of him. Zayn drove the short blade into the beast's flank. Not enough. The scavenger thrashed, stronger than he was, and threw him into the wall. His head slammed against the stone. The world went white. The beast came again. Zayn raised his right hand. Claws. Not all of them. Only two fingers changed, the nails blackening, curving painfully. He did not try to strike elegantly.

He drove those fingers into the creature's left eye. The scavenger screamed. Zayn struck with the blade. Once. Twice. The beast raked his chest. He felt the skin open, hot, then the cold entering. Third strike. Under the jaw. The scavenger collapsed on top of him. For several seconds, Zayn could not move beneath its weight. The system appeared. [Soul Strength absorbed: +1] Current Soul Strength: 44 The warmth entered. Small. Dirty. Necessary. Zayn stayed pinned beneath the dead body, breath crushed out of him.

"Thanks," he whispered. Then he added through clenched teeth:"Your customer service still sucks." He shoved the carcass off with difficulty. His forearm was bleeding despite the plate. Two fingers on his right hand trembled with pain, the nails split to the root. The transformation had already vanished, leaving only cuts, as if his body wanted to erase the proof of what it had just done. He sat in the gravel. The dead scavenger lay in front of him. Food? The question came back. Not immediately monstrous. Practical.

He knew this flesh. Not completely. Not like the flesh from below. Less contaminated maybe, but fed on demonic carrion. Risky. Everything was risky. He cut the hide first. Black, thick, flexible. Useful. He sliced strips to reinforce the splint on his leg. Then he took a few tendons, two claws, and one piece of dark meat, which he wrapped separately. He did not eat. Not yet. His stomach was no longer a reliable adviser. When possible, it had to be stripped of voting rights.

He reinforced his splint with the scavenger's tendons. The result was hideous, foul-smelling, but more stable. When he stood again, the leg buckled less. Progress. That ridiculous word again. He then searched the area around him. The scavenger had not waited here by chance. A beast that follows an injured man often knows the places where other injured things pass. Lower down, behind a curtain of dry brush, Zayn found an old water point. Almost dry. A natural hollow filled with brownish water, sheltered by rocks.

Small animal bones lay around it. Several paw prints. No recent human traces. He did not drink right away. He first dipped a scrap of cloth into the water. Set it on a rock. Waited. Nothing. He threw a fragment of scavenger meat a few meters away. A small beast at 3 came out of a bush, sniffed it, bit it, then fled with it. It did not die immediately. A poor test. Enough. Zayn filled his waterskin, took a swallow, then washed his wounds as best he could. The pain was clear. Almost reassuring.

The sun slipped behind the clouds while he worked. Every minute spent stopped was dangerous, but moving on without water was worse. So he stayed long enough to do things badly, but not too badly. Then he climbed above the water point and watched the military road below. Two patrols had passed while he hunted. Not close. But present. One was heading north. The other was going down toward an outpost in the west. Humans were already gridding the area. Not tightly enough to stop him.

Tightly enough to forbid easy roads. Zayn looked at his hands. The clawed fingers were gone. But the memory of the shape remained. He could harden one area. Grow claws for a few seconds. Imitate badly. Injure himself doing it. Flesh Assimilation was not a gift. It was permission to degrade his body in a useful direction. Which, after Rhel-Fosse, felt almost like continuity. He resumed walking toward the southwest. Not straight west. Too obvious.

He descended through a secondary valley, crossed a stretch of pale stone, then stopped when he saw smoke. A human camp. Small. Not military. Perhaps charcoal-burners, couriers, or refugees settled near an old relay. Three low tents. Two horses. A clothesline. A small fire. Voices. Zayn crouched behind a bush. Hunger came back at once. Not the hunger from below. A colder, more organized hunger. This camp had water. Bread. Perhaps a map. Perhaps a clean cloak. Perhaps a decent pair of boots. Perhaps answers.

He observed. Values: 11 14 9 22 The 22 was probably the guard or the leader. Not impossible. Not free. Zayn calculated. Wait for night. Create a noise with a stone. Spook a horse. Enter the farthest tent. Steal the water and the cloak. Avoid combat. Kill only if necessary. The plan formed with almost soothing ease. Then a child came out of the middle tent. Small. Value 4. She carried a bowl in both hands, too focused not to spill it. A woman followed her, said something, and the child laughed. Another laugh.

Zayn remained still. He was starting to hate ordinary laughter. It made decisions take longer. The girl sat down by the fire. The 22, a broad-shouldered man, placed a blanket over her before returning to watch the surroundings. Not soldiers. Not Ashes. Not a military convoy. A weak, tired, human camp. Exactly the kind of target a reasonable and desperate being could strip bare. Zayn stayed there until the cold began creeping into his wounds. Then he backed away. Slowly. Not out of kindness. That sentence again.

Not out of kindness. Too many risks. Too many unknowns. The 22 could shout. The horses could panic. The child could see him. A description of a gaunt, wounded man stinking of death and demonic lands would be moving by morning. Valid reasons. He arranged them carefully in front of the simpler reason he did not want to look at. He did not want to hear that laugh turn into a scream. Not tonight. He left the camp without taking anything. Instead, farther on, he found an empty hunter's trap near a line of dead trees.

He dismantled it, recovered the wire, two small hooks, a strip of leather, then kept going. Stealing from the absent. Less profitable. Less noisy. Night fell. Zayn found shelter under the roots of a leaning tree, above a dry ravine. He reinforced the entrance with branches, set the recovered trap wire at ankle height, and settled in with the slowness of a man afraid his own body might decide to resign halfway through the motion. He took out a piece of scavenger meat. Looked at it. Then put it away.

Instead, he ate a tiny remnant of black ration. His stomach objected, but accepted. He drank. Little. Then he lay down, blade against his chest. The day had yielded: one beast killed; +1; water; a reinforced splint; a better understanding of Flesh Assimilation; a road still impossible; two human camps he had chosen not to attack. For now. The precision remained in his mind. For now. Zayn looked at the stars through the roots. He had not killed the refugees. He had not robbed the child.

He had not slit the guard's throat for a cloak. An older version of him might have wanted to believe that proved something. This one knew better. Not doing one horrible thing today did not mean he would not do it tomorrow. It only meant he had found it cheaper to wait. His tongue brushed the mark in his mouth. He forced the motion to stop before it became a habit. Then he closed his eyes. In the dark, he did not see Rhel-Fosse. He saw the road. Long. Watched.

Full of camps, patrols, laughter, provisions, dogs, and choices. And somewhere, far too far to the west, a people who did not yet know that a gaunt, wounded human marked by the demonic frontier was on his way toward them.