Ashan kept his body still as immovable stone.
He felt the male Vyper's tongue flick against his earlobe—wet, exploratory, tasting the air that clung to his skin. The constriction around his left leg tightened, the pressure building until his calf went numb, then his knee, then his thigh. The creature was methodical, patient, a predator that had learned long ago that the things it hunted would eventually stop moving.
Now.
Softly, almost inaudibly, he chanted the foul syllables of Ashurain.
[Totem Beast Transformation]
His body shifted. The change rippled outward from his core—skin darkening, hardening, splitting into scales that caught the faint light and threw it back in patterns of gold and shadow. The male Vyper felt it immediately, the texture beneath its coils transforming from flesh to something harder, something that did not yield.
Hiss! Hiss!
It reared back, its head rising, its fangs bared. Then it lunged for his neck.
Ashan twisted. The scales on his elbow crashed against the creature's fangs with a sound like stone against stone, and before it could recover, his hand shot out, grabbing the Vyper by the lower jaw. He channeled prana into his grip—a sharp surge, a focused pressure—and squeezed.
Kach!
The sound of breaking bone echoed softly in the dark, swallowed almost immediately by the cave's vast silence.
The female reacted instantly. Her head swept around, her mouth opening, a stream of dark-green venom arcing toward his face. Ashan's eyes flickered grayish-white, and the future unfolded before him—the trajectory, the angle, the space he needed to occupy. He sidestepped with preternatural grace, and the venom passed through the air where he had been.
Sizzle! Sizzle!
The poison ate into the stone where he'd stood, dissolving it with a sound like meat thrown on hot coals.
He threw the male's corpse aside and seized the female by her lashing tail. She was quick, faster than her mate, her body coiling around his arm before he could tighten his grip, her head darting toward his face. Hiss! Hiss! Her poisonous tongue struck at his cheek, and where it touched, the scales cracked, the flesh beneath burning.
It stings!
He grabbed her lower jaw, ignoring the pain, and applied crushing pressure.
Kach!
Their lower jaw is the weak point. He held the pressure until her struggles ceased, until her body went limp, until the only sound was the dripping of water somewhere far above.
The mantra's effect faded. His scales receded, his skin returning to what it had been, and for a moment, he simply stood in the darkness, breathing, letting the adrenaline drain from his limbs.
He glanced at the dead mating pair, their bodies tangled together on the stone floor.
At least they died together. The thought surfaced, unbidden, and he let it settle. They won't be lonely... if rakshasa even feel such things.
He watched as vestiges began to form over their bodies—faint orbs of dark light that pulsed with the last echoes of their lives. Are emotions what define humanity, or merely sentience? He let the question turn over in his mind, examined it from every angle. A question for another time.
He crouched and tapped his storage ring. A beam of white light scanned the bodies, and in an instant, they were gone—absorbed into the extradimensional space, reduced to data and potential.
I loved fantasy once. He straightened, feeling the weight of the ring on his finger. Now it's my reality. Convenient.
The endless dripping of water echoed around him, a rhythm that had been here long before he was born and would continue long after he was gone. He moved deeper into the cave, his steps measured, his senses reaching ahead into the darkness.
The stench worsened. The air grew thick with the rot of things that had died here, things that had been left to decay in the dark. The constant, slithering hiss of unseen Vypers filled the space between drips, a sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
His grayish-white eyes gleamed in the darkness, constantly gleaning information from the shadows, building a map of the tunnels in his mind.
He stopped midway.
His gaze fell upon human corpses, slumped against the cave wall. Three of them, maybe four—it was hard to tell, after what the Vypers had done to them. Their clothes were rotted, their flesh gone, their bones stained a sickly brown from the corrosive venom that had eaten them from the outside in.
Members who failed their hunt.
He moved closer, observing. The bodies were marked with bites, the marks now just holes in bone, the edges eaten away by poison. Their storage rings were still on their fingers—damaged, cracked, the metal corroded beyond use.
Even their storage rings are damaged.
Hiss!
His Life Sense pinged, sharp and immediate. His eyes snapped toward the movement, tracking a small shape on the far wall. A Vyper—a newborn, its scales still soft, its body no thicker than his finger—was slithering calmly along the rough stone.
Ashan held his breath. His demeanor turned cold, and he followed.
The young Vyper moved with the confidence of a creature that had never known predators, that had never learned to fear the things that moved in the dark. It took a fork in the tunnel, leading into a passage that was smaller, tighter, the walls pressing close on either side.
It's a maze. He consulted the map on his badge, letting the faint glow guide his steps. Thank the Lords for the badge's GPS. These caves must all connect.
He trailed the newborn for some time, following it through passages that twisted and turned, that split and rejoined, that seemed to have been carved by water and something else, something that had shaped them with a purpose he could not guess.
Finally, it halted.
Ashan stopped, observing.
One... two... three. The mother was coiled in a small alcove, her body wrapped protectively around two young that pressed against her scales, seeking warmth, seeking safety. She was not large—no bigger than his arm—but her eyes were sharp, her tongue flicking, tasting the air for threats.
Using bolts would attract a hive. He let the thought settle, examined it from every angle. Stealth is better.
He chanted softly.
[Totem Beast Transformation]
His body shifted again, scales replacing skin, his form becoming something that belonged in the dark. His steps were light and quick as he closed the distance, his breath measured, his presence reduced to nothing.
The female Vyper was fast.
She reared up, her head sweeping, a spray of venom arcing toward his face. Ashan's eyes swirled.
[Viksana: Foresee]
Future and present merged for five seconds. He evaded the venomous arc effortlessly, his hand already moving for her throat.
She was quicker.
She ducked under his grasp, her body coiling around his waist, her fangs aiming for his neck. The scales on his chest cracked under the pressure, the pain sharp, immediate.
Fast!
He brought his hand up, catching her mouth just before it connected. Hiss! Hiss! Sizzle! Sizzle! Poison dripped onto his arm, burning through the scales, eating into the flesh beneath. With his other hand, he applied brutal pressure under her lower jaw.
Kach!
Her body went limp. She slumped to the cold ground, her coils loosening, her young immediately trying to slither away.
The young likely have no bounty, but—
He moved with ruthless efficiency, catching them before they could reach the shadows, dispatching them with quick, precise strikes.
Cold. He straightened, watching their bodies go still. To abandon your mother. At least accompany her in death.
He let the storage ring's white light consume all three bodies, then turned toward the exit. His nose twitched. The stench of the cave had seeped into his clothes, his hair, his skin. It was the kind of smell that did not wash off easily, that stayed with you long after you left the dark behind.
This stench is getting inside my head.
He moved quickly toward the exit, his form stumbling slightly in the dark. The tunnel seemed longer than before, the walls pressing closer, the shadows deeper. His leg ached where the male had constricted. His arm burned where the venom had struck. But he kept moving, kept walking, kept putting one foot in front of the other.
Light.
It was faint at first, a pale glow at the end of the tunnel, but it grew as he walked, and by the time he emerged, it was bright enough to make him squint.
Fresh, cool air washed over him, carrying the scent of the nightly breeze, of trees and earth and water. His stomach grumbled loudly, a reminder that he had not eaten since before the hunt.
Only a few other members remained around the cave entrance, their voices low, their faces shadowed. They glanced at him as he emerged, noted his condition, and looked away.
He sighed deeply, the tension leaving his shoulders in a long, slow exhale.
Now, where does one even collect the reward?
He started down the mud trail, heading back toward the main base. The night was cool, the moon high, and somewhere behind him, in the darkness of the cave, the Vypers were already moving to fill the space he had left behind.
He did not look back.